"Your life is going to be over if your kid doesn't want to dance, huh?"

If I could have a dollar for every time I've heard that statement, I would be a millionaire. My parents enrolled me in dance when I was three-years-old, partially I believe because my mom wanted to see me in a pink tutu. Honestly, I don't blame her. Watching three-year-old children hopelessly flop around in pink tutus is undeniably one of the cutest things ever. When I was five-years-old, my mom realized that conventional sports would not be a viable option for me. With that notion, my mom bought me a pair of little white tap shoes and enrolled me in my first actual dance class.

And so, began the rest of my life.

For 15 years I have been a dancer, 10 of those years being a competitive dancer. My life revolved around my dance studio and those who inhabited it. Among too many lessons to count, dance taught me humility, strength, responsibility, respect and commitment. My relationship with dance has taught me more than any other relationship in my life. I find myself so fortunate to have something I call my true passion, something that I know will always hold a place in my life.

Now, going back to my future child and dance. While, like almost any other dancer, I hope that dance can hold as special of a place in their heart as it did in mine. I won't be devastated (for too long) if dance doesn't have the meaning for them that it does for me. However, I will enroll my child in dance because I think that everyone should and could benefit from the lessons dance teaches.

While dance has so much support and respect as an art form, I still find that there sometimes is a preconceived stigma that dance is "prissy and easy". Like any other sport or trade, the mentality and lessons taught from dance are sometimes hard to see by the naked eye. Dance taught me to have respect for others, from your teachers, to your colleagues, to your peers. Dance taught me commitment, from the countless hours spent and sacrificed in the study. Dance taught me the benefits and reward of putting in hard work. Dance taught me humility, as a real fact of the dance world is that there will always be someone better than you. Dance taught me how to be a fearless, vulnerable and raw form of myself. Above all, dance taught and still continues to teach me how to be the best version of myself.

As a society, I think that everyone would benefit from taking a dance class, or two...or three. Dance has historically been apart of society as a language, communicating everything from health to grief. Dance brings joy to people. Dance makes people feel emotions they didn't even know existed.

I am who I am because of dance. Thank you to my teachers, parents, colleagues and family that I have acquired from dance. Now, a note to you, reader.

Go take a dance class.