Is Dance a Sport?

 First off, I would like to start with the defenition of a sport. Sport /spôrt/: (noun) an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others. Dance is a form of expression, art, and physical exertion. Dance can push you to the extremes." Dance competition teams practice up to 20+ hours a week in order to perfect and synchronize their movements."(teenlife.blogs.pressdemocrat.com Dance) Competitive dancers are also judged to every last detail in their routines. Dance is not considered a sport to many people but what they don't realize is that there is a competitive dance world, and how extreme it is.

 "No doubt gymnastics is an extremely difficult sport, which is why it is presented along with many other sports in the Olympics. The scores of the competitors are solely determined on the scores that the panel of judges gives them. There is a strict set of guidelines, which the judges follow in order to determine their scores. The same rules apply in the Dance world, so why would one qualify and not the other?" (teenlife.blogs.pressdemocrat.com Dance) "Competitive dance most definitely is a sport. It fits every criterion of the definition of the word. Although you may not see dancers in helmets tackling each other, they are certainly athletes."(teenlife.blogs.pressdemocrat.com Dance)

 Competitive dancers can do anything any other athlete can do and more. I doubt any of you that are considered athletes could throw on a pair of pointe shoes, and balance all of your body weight on a two inch surface for minutes to hours at a time. Dancers train for their whole lives just for that one moment on stage. Dance is harder than most sports because it requires synchronization, flexibility, strength, agility, stamina, passion, and emotion. We have to keep ourselves together and somehow express all of these things at the same time, while a huge crowd of hundreds of people are watching your every move. 

Dance takes not only physical skill and ability, but it takes much more to become a truly amazing dancer. Dance is the only sport that you can lose yourself and find yourself at the same time. Dance requires soul, and passion. When on stage everything must be perfect. You must maintain posture, have pointed feet, perfect hands, straight arms, clean turns, straight legs, turned out legs, and much more and on top of all that you have to execute and remember a dance at the same exact time. Dance is no joke, and people need to realize that. Dance is an extreme sport and very competitive. There is ALWAYS somebody that's going to be there to push you, make you want more and to be better for yourself and that's what sporting should be all about. Dance takes much more than most sports and i wholeheartedly believe that dancing is a sport.