Growing up I was constantly in a dance studio, I was a dancer for nine years and a competitive dancer for four years. Unfortunately, a broken foot took me out of my dancing career and pushed me into theatre, but I still have some wonderful memories from my time as a dancer. And let me tell you, being a competitive dance was absolutely NOTHING like dance moms.
If for any reason you haven't heard or seen anything surrounding the Abby Lee Dance Company that is the reason behind the acclaimed TV show 'Dance Moms,' it is a show that follows the lives of some competitive dancers and their moms at their studio. Since the beginning of this show, there have been some well-known people to come out of this show, including Maddie Ziegler and JoJo Siwa. Yet the downside of the popularity of this show is that it brought to light the world of competitive dance, but not in an accurate way. Most dance studios that I have been to and competed with, are not anything like what is portrayed on 'Dance Moms.' Sorry to disappoint, but it really isn't anything like that at all.
There was no pyramid, no mom watching area, and no Candy Apples to compete against. It may be called competitive dance, but it is not a cut-throat world. 'Dance Moms' was a great show, but I didn't like how it portrayed the world of competitive dance because it was so much more than what was shown on TV.
Being on a competitive dance team was truly so much fun, from learning the dance to getting our costumes, it was a fun adventure for all of us to be on. We grew together as we all learned the dance, got fitted for costumes and then competition day would come. It was always so much fun! We cared about the competition and we did our best, but there was never any arguments or fights if we didn't win. It was never fun if we lost, but that is part of doing anything competitive.
Even competition days were always fun and we did the best we could do, but we never had any 'fight to the death' rivals like the show portrayed. It was always some friendly competition and being proud of all of the hard work that we put into the dances we were doing. Same goes for when people from our studio had solos, we were never pitted against each other, we were all just doing our best and we did pretty well at that.
'Dance Moms' is a great show, and it does show a side of the competitive dance scene, but it does not show how it really is. Your dance team is your family, you deal with all of the crazy hair, the costumes, the makeup and everything that comes in between. Dancing together before the awards are announced, bedazzling your pre-show cover-ups, and sitting in a snack circle on your break, we all were a family. 'Dance Moms' may be fun to watch, but I'll take my dance family over them any day.
