When I decided I wanted to try out for my high school's nationally-ranked poms dance team, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I did not know what a pirouette was or how to do turns in second—all I knew was that I wanted to wear that sparkling, bedazzled uniform and get to call myself a Flyerette.
The next four years that followed brought me so much happiness, accompanied by tears and pain, strength and weakness as well as loss and reward. There is no doubt that the thousands (and I mean literally thousands) of hours I spent in my teams practice room made me the person I am today, and I know that any person who has experienced a sport like this, feels exactly the same.
"Oh you danced? What kind?" ... "What is pom?"
Explaining to those outside of the poms world, what exactly pom is, is probably one of the more difficult things in life. "We hold poms. You know the fluffy things."
And no it's not like cheerleading.
Just because we hold pom poms, wear bows in our hair and occasionally throw a couple lifts in the choreography does not make it even remotely close to cheerleading.
How do you even judge something like that?
Doesn't matter how good you did it if you didn't look good while doing it, am I right?
And when you show others a video of your performances, they always seem to ask "Why are you making those faces?"
Well you wanted to know how it's judged ...
Or, "Why are you all screaming like that?"
At the time it made total sense why screaming like crazy people made us pumped up, but now seeing it from the outside is a totally different story.
Every year during competition season you can't help but stalk your team on every social media account.
Twitter, Instagram, YouTube...
And show everyone you know every single video at least twice.
This is directed at my best friend/roommate/floor-mates. Thank you for watching even though you have no idea what a firebird jump is and how perfectly my team executed it.
And you might not be able to resist peeking at the live stream monitor just so you can see your team's reaction when they place.
And you'll probably get a tiny bit nostalgic and end up crying.
On another note, you can't help but pay attention to the smallest of details.
Even when low key "cleaning" a dance for Derby Days dance competition in college, I couldn't resist asking "is that a break or a swing?" ... You can never be too sure.
You're also at a loss when it comes to working out.
I never realized until I got to college that I literally have no clue how to work out if there aren't 28 other girls struggling beside me.
You will never get over your crush on University of Minnesota's dance team.
You're not a Pommie if you don't automatically relate to this.
Lastly, you'll never be able to shake those chills you get while watching the moment your team conquered the world.
Thank you, UDA Nationals, for quite possibly giving me the sweetest moments of my life.
Although my time as a "pommie" is over now, I will take little pieces of my experiences on the team with me everywhere. I hope to God my children like to dance.
