A study of the effects of 12-week regular folk dance education on some physical and physiological parameters of students (Example from county of Afyonkarahisar)

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of 12-week regular folk dance education on different physical and physiological parameters of students. In the study subjects (ages 18-25) were divided into two groups. Three-month education program has been applied using diverse folk dance education methods and basic folk dance techniques of ?zeybek? folk dance in the first and ?horon? folk dance in the second group62 students (30 female, 32 male) of Afyonkarahisar Kocatepe University, with a sedentary lifestyle and willing to take folk dance education participated in the study. Participants were subjected to two measurements, one conducted before (first measurement) and the other after the education(second measurement). In the measurements resting heart-rate, height, weight, body fat percentage, grasping strength of left and right hand, leg strength, flexibility, aerobic and anaerobic power were measuredSubjects were divided into two groups, according to folk dance type - the first group was ?horon? type, and the second was ?zeybek? type. In the ?horon? group there were 15 female and 15 male, and in the ?zeybek? group 15 female and 17 male students. Average age of the female subjects in the ?horon? group was 20.13±1.846 with the average height of 166.47 ± 4.422, and the average age of the male subjects was 20.60 ± 1.183 with the average height of 178.27 ± 6.584. Average age of the female subjects in ?zeybek? group was 21.00 ± 1.254 with the average height of 160.93 ± 5.311, and the average age of the male subjects was 20.88 ± 1.616 with the average height of 176.41 ± 7.366Pre and post values for each group were compared using the paired t test, and student t test was used when comparing two groups. In order to get statistic results SPSS 16.0 program was used. Meaningfulness values between investigated variables were p<0,05.Results of the study show that the ?horon? and ?zeybek? type folk dance education university students were participated in and which lasted for 1.5 hours 3 days a week for 3 months, decreased the resting heart rate, caused the loss of body mass and fat percentage, increased flexibility, grasping strength of left and right hand, leg strength, and aerobic and anaerobic power values of the subjects. Statistically, level of meaningfulness of these changes has been 0.05.Keywords: Folklore, Folk Dance, Dance, Sport, Physical and Physiological Parameters.