What Dance Means to Me

I remember in 7th grade seeing signs on the girl's locker room door saying "Blazette winter tryouts!" I didn't really know what they were at the time or how they were different from the cheerleaders. I thought nothing of it because I knew I had gymnastics and I wasn't planning on quitting then.


About the same time the next year, 8th grade, I saw the same signs and at that time I had a better understanding of who the Blazettes were. My friends were talking about it more and more and how they wanted to tryout but they weren't able to yet because you have to be in 9th grade, so they decided they wanted to tryout that spring for the fall team. I was a little jealous because I thought the Blazettes were really cool but I knew I didn't have time for it because of gymnastics and I didn't want to quit quite yet.


The next year, 9th grade, a couple of my friends were already Blazettes by that time and I was really jealous of them because I wanted to be a Blazette really bad. I decided I was going to quit gymnastics after competition season that year and tryout for Blazettes in the spring. I ended up having to quit gymnastics in December of 2010 because of a back injury. I was kind of relieved to quit so I could now hopefully become a Blazette, but I was also sad because I had been doing gymnastics since I was 3.


When I found out I had made Blazettes I was so happy I almost started crying. Now that it has already been one whole season, I have learned that I love to dance. To me dance is fun and a way of getting my mind off of everything else that is going on. My favorite part so far has been performing at football games, especially homecoming! I love the feeling you get walking off the field after performing a dance thinking it was so worth all the hard work you put into every practice and knowing you're a Blazette.

Introduction

There are many different types of dance in the world. Some relating to culture and some relating to athletics or sports. The specific dance that I'm talking about is the High School dance team.

Some people don't think dance is a sport and some people think it is. I don't get why people don't think it's a sport. Maybe because you say, "I do dance," instead of "I play dance," if that's the case then they should feel the same way about gymnastics and every other sport with the same situation.

I have experienced this my whole life. I did gymnastics for 11 years until I quit last year to join dance. Some of my friends and other people I talked to about the sport I played, wether it was dance or gymnastics, would always say, "oh that's not even a sport." I would always try to defend myself by explaining how it is a sport and they seemed to never listen, so now I've just learned to let it go. Now when people talk about their opinions on dance I am interested but it still bothers me a little bit when they don't think dance is a sport but im trying to accept it because everyone has their own opinions, and I have mine.