Dance Is A Sport

The definition of a sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Dance is a way of art, yes, but it is also one hundred percent a sport. The fact that dance can be an art and a sport already counts more than just football or baseball. Some people believe that dance is not a sport because there is no physical action. In reality, dance is a sport for many reasons, one being that dancers train for hours, they compete and get injured, and they are flexible beyond measure. The people that believe that dance is not a sport, have no logical or proven reasons why it should not be considered a sport. The one reason why someone might think that it is not
a sport, is because all they have seen is their little sister or cousin or niece, or whatever they may be, dance at their three hour long dance recital. They are little girls wearing tutu skirts and messing up because their brain can not hold on to memorization long, what more are you supposed to expect from them? They are still growing and learning of the art and physical movement of dance.

Anyone that shows commitment to physical movement and training for countless hours, has a right to say that they play or are in a sport. I am in dance and have been for eight, going on nine years. The first two years of my dance career I was six and seven years old, and what my training consisted of was running across the floor, into hula hoops, jumping high to eventually dodge the stuffed animals. What I learned years later was that we did not just do this for fun. When we started to learn how to do the splits and progress to doing leaps in the air, I was then prepared. Now that I am fourteen going on to fifteen with nine years of experience, I have been going to dance three to four times a week for four to five hours every night, for three years. Football, basketball, baseball, wrestlers or any other type of sport train to become better. For example, basketball players are told to run up and down the gym over and over while adding on more difficult stunts, dancer must do this also. If we do not build muscle, by doing ballet for hours a week or if we do not stretch, then we do not get better. Maybe dancers do not get the same work out or same muscles strengthened as any other sport, but they are what makes dancers strong. Dancers sweat and put tears into our work, along with any other sport when someone is being pushed to become better by someone else, which may and occasionally can cause injuries.

Injuries come with every sport when you are pushing yourself or others, increasing one’s abilities.
There is not one sport that I can think of that has different levels of something such as dance. Ballet, which is the core of all dance, is an artistic dance form performed to music using precise and highly formalized set steps and gestures. Believe it or not, there has been football players that use the ballet techniques right before they play on the field, because of the strengthening it does. Ballet is not always just flat footed though, as your foot and arch of the foot get stronger, you can and will advance into pointe shoes. Pointe shoes are shoes that have a wooden block at the top allowing dancer to stand up high. The risk of injuries on pointe is a great number because you must renew all of the steps you already have known. Every other sport has a high risk of injuries also because of the skills they learn, but they also already know about everything they are told to do. They catch the ball, run with it, and make a goal, touchdown, homerun, or basket. In dance, we are constantly adding new steps to our routine and advancing to a higher level leading us to a higher rate of injuries, but it takes a strong dancer to avoid them. Because dancers get hurt due to their physical movement, it must be considered a sport if the meaning of “sport” includes physical movement. Stretching and improving our flexible stunts can lead to a pulled muscle, but if you stretch right,
you can become a beautiful dancer.

The last, but not only reason why dance is a sport, is because we are flexible.
Being flexible may not define being a sport, but the gift of it can help anyone and everyone that is in a sport right now. Because dancers are flexible, they avoid a higher risk of fallen injuries. Fallen injuries result in falling the wrong way and possibly pulling muscles, but because we are flexible, we will be able to take the pain. Also, if you ask any major league or just simply anybody that plays a sport, they would wish they could be flexible. For example, wrestler are put into a cradle almost every time they hit the mat and if they were flexible, they would be able to not be in discomfort and they would also be able to get out of the cradle almost immediately. Every sport stretches, but only enough to the point where they feel comfortable. Dancers stretch too, and they stretch past their comfort zone, increasing any faults that a football player or any other player may have, but not everyone will agree with
this.