“Six fifteen ladies!” Ugh. The past month these were the words I heard everyday during the school weeks. We had early morning practice everyday before school, during school, and not to mention almost every night and Saturdays! I felt paralyzed. I had bruises all over my knees, ankles, shins, back, and elbows. Every muscle in my body ached from all the dancing. She yells again, what a wonderful voice to start off my day. “Ladies!!! Its six seventeen now, get out here, you’re running extra laps for being late!”
This, was a death sentence.

When asked what sport I played, I always said, “I dance.” The usual response I get is a laugh or “That’s not a sport!” But honestly, how many people have ever been on Her team? Most people consider football, soccer, tennis, track, baseball, basketball, etc. a sport. But they leave out the dancing and cheerleading.

“Come on girls! Put some energy in it! Let me see those facial expressions. Ugh.” The music stops while I’m in mid turn. What now? This had to be the bazillionth time she stopped the music. Just like a drill sergeant she barks, “Amy, I didn’t see faces. Brianna, sharpen up. Lauren, I know you can kick higher than that! Come on girls we are going to do this until you get it RIGHT!” Finally after about eleven more times of stopping and starting over, we get all the way threw the dance. “Okay girls, lets do it one more time all the way threw then go threw Hip Hop once,” she sounded so peppy. Of course, she wasn’t the one sore and bruised and exhausted trying to exert all of her energy into a two minute routine. Two minutes. Doesn’t sound very long does it?
Those are the two longest minutes of my life.

“How is dance a sport? All you do is twirl around.” I normally don’t say anything, I just raise the leg of my pants and expose my black and blue legs. I show my elbows and my back. It is clear I have dark circles under my eyes from stress and exhaustion. If I was doing all this “twirling around”, do you think I’d look like this? We get sore, tired, and injured just like football players do. I mean, we don’t have bigger people running at us and tackling us, but its us against gravity with some of the things we do. And we are landing on a hard basketball court compared to a field made of grass.

“AHHHHH!!!!” I’m sure my screams could be heard miles away. Attempting to correctly land from turning on almost the tip of my toe to being on one knee, hands down and face close to the ground, my hands slipped out from under me. SMACK! My nose smashes into the basketball court. I hear a cracking noise and feel my face pounding. I was terrified to move. The sound itself was enough to worry me not to mention the fact that my nose felt like it was now completely inside my head. Yeah, “twirling around” isn’t so easy now is it? We had two weeks before competition, TWO WEEKS! What else was I suppose to do than take a couple days easy, resting, but still semi practicing, and ignoring the pain as best I could. Still not a sport?

We may not be out on a football field getting tackled, hitting ball with a bat or dribbling a ball down the court. But we work out butts off putting in many hours of practice and win competitions. Still not a sport?