By Jocelyn Anderson
Do you think dance is a sport? Surprisingly, this is a controversial topic, although it shouldn’t be. A lot more goes into competitive dance than people realize. Like other sports, such as soccer, basketball, and football, competitive dancers have to take classes, practice multiple days a week, and take conditioning classes.
The average schedule of a competitive dancer, ages 5 to 18 years old, is around 20 hours of training per week, usually over the span of 5-6 days. This would mean the dancer is dancing for about 3-4 hours a day with only 1-2 days off per week.
Dancer’s weeks usually include a variety of different styles, strength training, technique classes, and rehearsals to prepare for competitions. This is a lot for a young kid or young adult, being physically and mentally draining.
Competitive dance is also a year round. There usually is no “dance season” for competitive dancers, so one season goes right into the next with a couple weeks of break at most. During the fall and winter, dancers are preparing for competitions along with regular classes, and in the spring dancers are doing all their regular classes along with regional competitions on the weekends that last for 3-4 days.
Most studios compete at around 5 regional competitions per season, and then 1 national competition in the summertime, which usually requires traveling for a whole week. Competitions often require dancers to be at the venue from very early in the morning until late at night depending on their schedule, age group, and how many dances they are competing in.
Depending on the studio, dancers also go to conventions on the weekends, which are usually 3 days long. While there, dancers dance for 7-8 hours straight with a short 30 minute lunch break. During the summer, after national competition week, dancers also have a few weeks of summer intensives, where dancers are at the studio for 5-7 hours working on technique and learning new choreography for the next season.
Overall, dance is a very serious and hardworking sport and it should not be controversial whether it is a sport or not. Most dancers are very disciplined and hardworking and should be taken seriously. Many people have no idea what it takes to be a competitive dancer, and the hard work that goes into it.
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