The Importance Of Dance As A Sport

Many athletes and even non athletic people may have had a conversation or argument on whether or not dance is considered a sport. The definition to the word sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment (cite source). People say dancers are not athletic and just about anyone can dance. That is true many people can dance, but there is a lot more to it than that. I am a dancer and I have been for eleven years now, through all months of the year. I think dance is both a sport and an art. Although my opinion may sound bias there is much more to it. Dancers have to have athleticism, strength, flexibility, endurance, emotion, and courage. During an hour
of dance one usually will burn 380 to 450 calories( Cite) . Dancing requires a lot of strength. There are many moves when you will have to use your own strength to hold yourself in different positions . In every style of dance, the most used muscles are your leg muscles. Dancers need leg muscles for turning, leaping, kicking and just about everything they do. When dancing in groups you may have to do lifts and use strength to support other dancers.
Endurance is extremely important when it comes to being a dancer, just like in any other sport. When performing a number, dancers have to push through everything and can’t give up. What makes this harder is dancers have to smile the whole time. When they are on stage and come down after a really high switch split leap and land on their ankle wrong you have to smile like nothing happened. People are not going to stop the music when they see a dancer land on something wrong or twisted something; dancers just have to keep going and put on a show. Dancers have to be able to adjust quickly and think on the spot, just like basketball players do when a play is ran the wrong way.
During a performance, especially a group number, when someone goes to the wrong spot or doesn’t do something correctly then you have to be able to read what they are doing to adapt. There are many people out there that will say dance is not a sport. “Real sports have no subjectivity to them. Dance scores can change largely regarding to how a judge feels the day.”, stated someone on debat.org. A reason people don’t see dance as a sport is because there is no official point system. When playing basketball a basket will always be two points (or three, you get the point). In dance, if you pull out a stunt there is no telling how many points that could get you. Also it can depend on the judge and their own personal opinions. Everyone that has ever tried dance could agree that dance is a sport. When you do it with a certain level of intensity. Just like other sports you get out of it what you put into it. There are many levels of dance. Dance can be just for fun, but dance can also be very competitive and you may even go into it professionally. There are many health benefits to dance and there are other sports that dance will help you
with.