To begin I would like to say that dance is what I love to do and this rant only reflects a tiny bit on my life. So continuing with my story, Dance is very difficult mentally and physically. Although many people think it’s simple and graceful, it can actually slowly tear apart at self-confidence while working out for hours on end. Let me clarify, I currently dance on Star Steppers and at a studio outside of school. These two are very, very different. Star Steppers practices in a gym during school hours, while studio dance practices in its own building into the wee hours of night.

Let’s begin with competitions, disgusting, horrifying competitions. They’re always entertaining because it’s spending time with friends while wearing glitter-filled costumes and makeup that seems to be something a clown would use. While that aspect is fun; the long hours with little food and far too much stress does not make competitions the best weekends of the year whatsoever. Seriously though, competitions are scary.

When competing the dancers are on a normal stage with lights; in other words, nothing the average dancer isn’t used to. The one difference is the lights are also on in the audience, therefore every facial expression of every member of the audience is visible. If you don’t know this, dancing in front of judges and random people who judge without being paid is terrifying.

Competition season for drill team is almost worse. Dancers are forced to dance on a gym floor. Again, we’re used to , but it’s still hard to be the best dancer one can be on a basketball court. Not to mention, the judges are in the top row of the bleachers. They can see everyone, no matter how far back in the formation someone is, the judges see it all.

So competitions are a lot of emotions, but day to day dance can also be super stressful. Star Steppers is stressful for different reasons than studio dance. For starters, we warm up with ourselves, being led by fellow classmates instead of teachers. I can honestly say it’s the most relaxing part of my day, just stretching to chill music with friends. Then we start the intense stuff. We go across the floor, learn many dances and just practice skills. After that, we drill it. We all know “One more time” and we never try to fight it because we know it’s making us better. We give it our all every practice and we sweat more than most think is possible, which makes going to 6th period even more fun.

Obviously studio dance is stressful in its own way. We all walk in ready to practice and sweat to our heart’s content, because who’s gonna see us. Basically we’re ready, that is until we get shot down so hard. My team is kind of a wreck, but we own it and we understand that we’re a lot to handle. It’s just that sometimes we will work really hard on something and be panting and dehydrated, only to hear, “That was horrible” or “Let’s actually try next time.” If you can’t tell, that doesn’t feel too great.

So yeah, dance is what I love to do even though I have to deal with all of that. No matter how bad it gets I will still want to dance, because I genuinely love everything dance has given me.