Competitive Dance Should Be Embraced As A Team Sport By Schools
Greg Ehrhardt, OnStage Blog Editorial Staff
As an American boy who grew up playing baseball, basketball, soccer, and touch football in the backyard and then at school, I dreamed of teaching my kids how to play these sports. I’d think about teaching them how to bunt and dribble with both hands and all the skills that took me days to learn and years to master.
I’d look forward to the days I would work with them in the backyard, teaching them everything I knew and everything I would look up on YouTube. I pictured cheering them from the sidelines, hoping they would excel, being happy if they gave it their best, but also oozing in the happy memories of my childhood, where my biggest worries were whether I could play wiffle ball past sunset on a summer Saturday.
Eventually, I became a father and started mentally planning my kid’s sports life before she could walk; I pictured Spring, Summer, and Fall days spent at the batting cages, throwing or kicking the ball around.
Life, as they say, loves throwing you curveballs when you’re expecting fastballs down the middle.
I have a wonderful 10-year-old daughter, whom I tried early and often to get interested in any sport, especially baseball or basketball. From about 6 years old, however, I could tell she wasn’t as addicted to it as I was at that age. Sure, she was only 6, but seeing how other children quickly generated enthusiasm for American sports left me feeling something would be different for my daughter. Does she dribble and pass the basketball with me in the driveway? Absolutely. Is she interested in team sports such as basketball, soccer, or softball? Nope, not for a second.
(To be clear, she could take up any of these team sports 5 years from now. There’s no roadmap for when you must play competitively against other kids. I firmly believe it’s more up to the kid than the parent.)
As a kid who was forced into taking up hobbies, I had no interest in, I wanted to make sure to support her no matter where her interests took her. We signed her up for a dance class, and my wife and I could tell there was immediately a connection there that didn’t exist for baseball. I was happy but totally ignorant as far as what dance really involved. Sure, I knew there was skill, talent, and a lot of effort needed to do dance well, but as someone who had no idea what a dance recital even 4 years was ago, never mind not knowing anything about tap dancing or ballet, I viewed competitive dance ultimately as a hobby and not much more.
Boy, was I ever wrong about that. I quickly learned that competitive dance is a team sport, 100%.
My daughter immediately excelled in dance class, always performing at the front of the stage for every recital. At 8 years old, she was invited to join the competition team for the first time, and practices got longer and a bit more intense. Her first regional competition was a couple of years ago in Connecticut, and I came in hoping she wouldn’t get stage fright.
Stage fright? What the heck was I thinking? She was cooler under pressure in front of hundreds of people than Alex Rodriguez ever was with a 2-strike count, and she wasn’t being paid hundreds of millions of dollars!
It took me seeing a dance competition for myself to realize how cool these kids are at a much younger age than most little leaguers would be at the same age. I quickly understood competitive dance is as much a team sport as any of the major sports we worship on TV.
Yes, Dance teams, especially hip-hop, are right up there with football, baseball, basketball, or any of these K-12 sports, and no parent should be ashamed their kid, male or female, goes into dance instead or along with the other sports.
Let’s spell out why:
1) Dancing takes as much, if not more, coordination than the other sports
2) It is as intense a cardio workout as any sport (watch how out of breath in shape dancers are at the end of a performance)
3) Teamwork is more important in dance than in any other sport.
You can have a 30-person routine, but if one teammate does not do their part on time, in the correct spot, and in the right cadence, not only does the audience know, but the judges will know.
I have friends and family who push their kids away from dance and gymnastics and into sports, even if their kids don’t have much organic interest in them. This could not be more wrong. Dance takes as much practice, good cheer, sportsmanship, and fitness as any of the other sports.
I totally understand the desire to have your kids recreate your childhood as much as possible; who wouldn’t want them to have the same fun you had?
This may just be the pioneer in me talking, but life has many paths to joy. Why limit yourself to the one you already know? Or worse yet, why assume your kids’ interests must be the same as yours? Did you want to have all the same interests as your parents?
Sure, some kids do! But your childhood interests do not pass down genetically to your offspring (I don’t think that’s even an aspect of Lamarckism!)
At one dance competition I attended, I saw a dance studio do a routine to “Taki Taki”, after which a forklift was required to lift my jaw off the floor. There were 20-30 dancers, all in sync, all giving 150% effort to their dance coordination like their lives depended on it, and it felt as if I was watching something on Broadway. Yet, these were high school girls doing this. I’m not allowed to share videos, but picture this routine, with way more choreography, performed at 3x the speed of this video, and this team didn’t even win!
Don’t tell me competitive dance isn’t a team sport.
My daughter has learned teamwork, agility, and coordination—everything I would ever want her to learn through traditional American sports. She will also learn determination, patience, and the importance of understanding that there is no such thing in dance or in life as hero ball.
All parents should embrace dance, but more schools should as well. Yes, there are dance squads at many high schools, but they too often serve as the warmup act for football or basketball games.
This isn’t enough.
At least in some areas, football players should serve as the warmup act for dance competitions, particularly hip-hop dance competitions.
You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.
Everyone dances in life, even the sticks in the mud who might only do a chair dance at weddings.
A far lesser percentage will end up playing football in their life.
Let’s celebrate those who absolutely kick butt at a tradition as old as time, dance.