Well before thai chi or the Wii, people were enjoying the health benefits of square dancing — but they likely were doing it for fun rather than looking for the next best fitness fad.

In fact, for the last quarter-century, members of the Sherburn Min-Owa Plus Square Dancing Club have been getting together monthly (during the school year they use the elementary school gym) to dance the second-Sunday afternoons away and socialize. Health benefits, such as lower blood pressure, cholesterol and stress; cardiovascular exercise; and 21⁄2 hours of burning calories are just bonuses.

“Plus” dancing is a step above “mainstream” square dancing, which is where everyone starts with lessons. There are additional moves and more complex combinations of moves in Plus dancing, and the speed of this low-impact leisure activity is anything but lackadaisical. Music can be anything from Garth Brooks to Elvis Presley. It requires complete concentration to keep up.

Leora Murphy, a beautician in St. James, said, “If you’ve had a stressful day, by the time you get there, you forget about the whole works because you have to listen to what the caller says.” She called it the “best mental and physical therapy and exercise that I can do.”

Plus, square dancing has a way of bringing couples together.

Windom’s Kermit and Betty Twait, now married 55 years, were searching for an activity to do together after their kids had graduated and left home. So she signed them up for lessons through community education in 1979 and, Kermit said, “practically drug me up there.”

“He didn’t think it was a good idea, but I let him think that I had already paid some money down so we’d better make use of it,” Betty said, laughing. “I have to say that he did become an addict after he caught on.”

When Murphy met her second husband, Tom, in the late 1960s, she had been square dancing since 1947 and around it all her life because her father had been a caller.

“I guess (Tom) decided if he was really going to latch onto me, he’d have to take square dance lessons,” she said. “So he took square dance lessons!”

They were married for one day short of 35 years, until he died in 2004. She still goes dancing about every weekend — sometimes Friday, Saturday and Sunday — with friends or by herself for the fun of socializing. The Twaits have a date night at some club’s dance every weekend as well, and they even started Windom’s club in 1980.

Most important to everyone, though, is the long-term friendships they’ve all made through years of dancing, local and nationwide. The Twaits have been using the annual national square dance convention as an excuse to travel all across the country these last dozen years, and they look forward to catching up with friends from all across the country each year, which they never imagined when they signed up for lessons so long ago.

They’ve even danced in Germany. Fortunately, square dancing is recognized as an American art form, so calls are done in English, no matter where in the world it’s danced.

“Square dancers seem to travel a long way and go in almost any kind of weather,” Beulah Rosenberg said.

Murphy and her family took fun vacations camping and square dancing when they lived in Iowa in the early 1970s when her kids were in high school. Getting ready in a camper had its challenges.

“To get that slip on I had to get outside the camper because the door was too small to go through with the slip on,” she said.

Nowadays, though, the sometimes pricey western wear isn’t mandatory, and, depending on weather, women might wear dress slacks instead of even a long prairie skirt.

Membership also isn’t mandatory to attend any regional club’s dances. (There are eight in the southwest region, including a mainstream club and a plus club in Mankato, as well.)

There’s just a small fee at the door to pay for the caller; at the Min-Owa Plus club it’s $5 per person.

“Where else can you have more fun for $5 anymore?” Rosenberg said.

Dancers range in age from 10 to 95, and clubs always welcome new members and dancers. Lessons generally are offered in the fall, when there is interest.