This debate has been around since the beginning of time...or at least since I heard about it at the spunky age of eight. Is dance a sport or is it an art? As a retired Irish dancer you would think I have a biased opinion but don't fret. I am a particularly open minded young lady and I can see this argument from both sides, unless you don't think it's a sport, in that case my friend, you are wrong. I'm joking, of course, but I would like to express to you that I was once an Irish dancer (It is not the same thing as clogging), and after ten years of injuries and intense training, I feel that what I spent the past several years of my life doing should be considered a sport.
1. We get injured, and we get injured a lot.
Dancing on sprained ankles or broken bones is not a new concept to us. We are constantly injured. Showing up at competitions with a boot, then taking it off to compete an hour later is just part of the routine. Our dedication for our sport is shown through the the crutches, boots and ankle braces sitting in our closet. We just, as a wise man once told me, "rub some dirt on it".
2. We deal with so much stress
There is no scoreboard telling us how many points we need to get to win the game or the match. We have to dance our best every time without knowing if we are winning or losing. If you think about it, that type of situation is more stressful because we have to give 100 percent from the get-go and there is no way to make up points last minute. Doing your best, without knowing if your best is good enough, is what we are used to.
3. We train. Hard.
Oh, football has two-a-days? So do we. My entire life in middle school consisted of leaving school 30 minutes early to get to a two hour private practice where my coach would push me to the point of puking and then tell me to try again. After that, you come back a few hours later to regular class where you drill and drill and drill dance moves until your legs give out...and then you keep going. So don't tell me your practice is tough, because mine is too.
4. We have to smile while we work.
"Make it look easy." Those four words have been drilled into my head since the moment I set foot on a dance floor. We have to smile while we play our sport. Could you imagine hockey players smiling while they get smashed into the boards? So how on earth do I kick my leg past my head without grimacing just a little? But noooo, I have to make that kick look like I actually believe my hip didn't just detach itself from the rest of my body. "Grin and bear it" is the motto of a dancer's life.
5. Our sport is always becoming harder.
Unlike many other sports, the talent and difficulty to compete at the highest levels increases month by month, and year by year. You think you have talent? Watch the girl on stage running on pointe. The girl with the sharpest kicks, or the girl with the highest leap. Everyone is learning harder tricks that require even more strength and even more flexibility. In our sport, the good just keep getting better and it is our job as athletes to rise up the the challenge. As a retired dancer, I look at the level of difficulty my sport requires and think to myself about how years ago none of us dancers would've imagined it to have become this hard to compete. That's what dance is: it's a test of just how hard you can push yourself until you break. If that's not a sport, then I don't know what is.
