You wouldn’t think that a girl standing in a skirt and a tight bun with slippers on her feet, and a girl in a subway with a crop top, sweatpants and sneakers would have a whole lot in common. You also wouldn’t expect these girls to have a whole lot in common with a big football player doing squats at the gym. But I believe that all of these people are athletes. It has been a big depat for many years over whether or not dancing is a sport, an athletic, a art or all three.
Today I am going to argue that dancing is an athletic, we will compare various types of dancing to various sports, looking at things like workouts, diet, time spent practicing, and just there general lifestyles.
The first thing we will do is look at the definition of an athlete. According to webster’s dictionary an athlete is “a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina”(Wedstars).
Dancing requires all of those skills no matter what style you practice. All jumps require strength along with most unnatural movements which dancers tend to do a lot of. Such as turned out feet and legs and turning on their tiptoes or sometimes things like there knees and even there heards. It also takes agility to do these kind of weird movements. And doing all these things for long periods of time while smiling takes a lot of stamina.
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“ Amazing as always, gave her a week to finish a big assignment and came through way ahead of time. ”
Though for many people this is not enough to prove that dancing requires just as much work and physical activity as other sports. My hope is after you finish reading this paper you will agree that dancing requires just as much work, dedication, sweat, and blood as any other athletic, and consider them an athlete yourself.
All athletes pay close attention to what goes into there bodys. Every sport looks for different things in there diet, but all of them pay close attention to it. For example according to Building a Dancer’s Diet dancers should look for super foods, energizers bone-builders, muscle repairs, and good fats and oil (Love 42). While runners try not to eat much red meat and fat and attempt to eat lots of fish and grain along with lots of fruits and veggies (pritikin). Runners also look for food with high calorie counts to keep their energy up during a run, and they look for lighter food so it doesn’t make them sick while running. Food intake also changes from day to day with these athletics because a dancer would be sure to eat more sugar and calories on show day as a runner would do the day of a marathon or race. Basically everyone in an athletic activity watches what they eat. That is not what makes them an athlete, but all serious athletes will be paying close attention to their diet. And even though not every athlete is on the same diet for their activities one thing is constant; they all only put good things into their body that well help there preforminse. That is the same for all dancers, baseball players, runners, and athletes in general.
Now I would like to look at what dancers typically work out compared to other athletics. Obviously dancers work out there legs and core, work on jumping, stamina, and flexibility. Runners also work on leg muscles, core muscles, and stamina. As would football players and several other sports. There are workout that dancer would do everyday that are very similar to work outs people would see at the gym. For example dancer do relivas which are basically just calf raises with a little more hop to them. Anyone who has worked out has probably done a calf rise or something similar to it. Dancers also have grond pleas that are very similar to squats they just engage more muscles in the legs. Dancers like any other sport also work out there abs with sit ups and crunches and go for runs to help with stamina. Even though every athlete is different and requires different skills there a few things that every athlete needs including dancers. Such as a good diet and a good work out to keep there bodys fit and able to do the difficult task they all do.
Now I would like to take a look at the time spent practicing for dancers compared to other sports. This highly depends on the sport and what level of professionalism they play on. Dancers practice and rehearsal everyday for house a day. While runners might only run a few house a day so they don’t injure themselves and don’t run out of energy. Dance like any other athletic activities divided up There days with different workouts. The first few house they might do a simple warm up and then stretch, than move on to working out, and then move on to rehearsing dances and actual classes. Football players probably warm up first then work out and then run threw plays for the rest of the day. But all together all these athletics spend a lot of time getting to be the best they can at there athletics. Even though time spent practicing might vary one athletic doesn’t work harder than the other.
There is also a big difference in time spend on the field and that making certain athletes work much harder than others. Lots of sports have weekly games such as high school football usually has one game every week on friday nights. But high school softball and baseball can have up to three games a week. Dancers usually only have two to four performances a year depending on the level of professionalism and the type of company they are a part of. And runners might only run two marathons a year. That is a lot of variation between play time and that makes some people suggest that dancing isn’t as difficult because they have so few performances. Dancers have so few performances because they want to be perfect and it takes time to get as close as possible to perfection. You womb hear of a professional dancer skipping a turn or a jump while in professional football you were of a player dropping a pass on a fairly regular basis.
A lot of sports also have things called off sessions, where athletes have a few month off to not play games but instead prepare for the next year and work out to be the best they can be for the next year. This is typical of team sports like football, basketball, and baseball. I do not doubt that these sports are athletics, but taking a month or two off isn’t an option for dancers. They dance year round preparing for there next show and working to make themselves even better. Constantly eating right working out and practicing.
Some people would also argue that dance is not an athletic because it is not a sport. According to the Huffington post in the article ballet is an art not a sport it states that dance particularly ballet is not a sport because they do not compete (Kottler). She admits that it is a very competitive environment but there competing with themself not with each other. Not on a larger scale with scores and juges. She suggested that dancers only compete with one another for certain parts in a ballet or solos. That is an incorrect statement because there are competitive events with other ballerinas. Like the USA international ballet competition, and the World ballet competition. In these competitions dancers all over the world come together and compete with one another. They are scored and have professional judges, people come to watch these competitions and even recruiters from big companies. Also there are dance teams all over the world that compete in other styles like hip-hop, contemporary, and modern dance styles. There are dance competitions for all ages.
There are also several non competitive dancers out there that dance as a career or just for fun as a hobby. There’s a debate that calling these people who dance just for fun a few times a week are not athletes. People believe that being involved in sports and being involved in athletics are the same thing. There are factions in the dance world that have major global competitions which makes there faction a sport. Though there are also those who dance just for fun and the fact that they love it. Those people are still athletes even if they do not dance on the same scale as what we have been talking about so far. They still practice and work hard to accomplish what they can do. They still work hard and practice and still have to have the motivation and the physical ability to do the physically and mentally challenging things all dancers have to learn.
Now next time you think of a girl in ballet shoes and a tight bun and a girl in sneakers wear pants and a crop top. I hope you can look at them with the same respect as you would a big football player. Realising that they are just as much an athlete as anyone who is involved in sports. Today I have proven to you that dancers of all different kinds are in fact athletes. We have looked at their diets, workouts, time spent practicing and time off. We also looked at how there are a lot more similarities to sports then you might think. Today I hope I convinces you that dancing is just as athletic as any other sport.
Work cited
- “Athlete.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/athlete.
- Kottler, Brittany. “Ballet Is an Art, Not a Sport.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 Apr. 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/brittany-kottler/ballet-is-an-art-not-a-sp_b_4718929.html.
- Love, Lynn. “Secret Saboteurs: Don’t Let These Everyday Habits Slow You Down.” Dance Magazine, 1 Aug. 2014, pp. 42–42.
- Pritikin, Nathan. Diet for Runners. Bantam, 1986.
Is Dance A Sport. (2022, Feb 23). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/is-dance-a-sport/
