Not dancing anymore doesn’t make me any less of a dancer

5, 6, 7, 8 are more than just low numbers in chronological order. To me, they were the start of every early morning practice, mid-afternoon rehearsal and evening performance. As a dancer, those numbers are your countdown, your start off, your everything.

While I may not be actively dancing anymore, once you learn your first routine you are sucked in and confined to the label of dancer always and forever (One Tree Hill anybody?! Nathan and Haley are goals). But back to dance.

It sounds super cliché, similar to all teenage movies ending at the prom, girl always getting the boy, everyone gets a happy ending etc. But there is typically truth in clichés. When you are a part of something for a majority of your young life, it does not leave you even if you chose to leave it for a brief period of time.

I started dancing at the age of three. My parents enrolled me in ballet classes, because they thought that I was in dire need of some discipline. One year of ballet turned into enrolling me into tap classes followed by jazz class.

Before I knew it I was a member of my studio’s competitive ballet, tap and jazz companies.

As if those commitments didn’t already rule my time, I was also in a dance program for those interested in doing dance squad in high school. However, I have no regrets. I was happy to be spending so much time at dance. It helped me learn from a young age how to manage my time between extra-curricular
activities and homework.

High school started and dance played an even larger role in my life. I was on the dance squad and because of limited gym space, dancers were asked to practice before school instead of after. Therefore, I was at school five days a week at 5:45am. I still cannot fathom how I managed to get my butt there and dance. I am not a morning person.

However, after school my day still wasn’t finished. I had classes at my studio as well as rehearsals three times a week after school. In addition, Sunday mornings and afternoons were dominated by dance. Rehearsal was typically around four and a half to five hours.

While this all sounds tediously time consuming, and don’t get me wrong there were definitely days that I didn’t want to attend these practices, I would not trade it for the world.

All of these commitments were not just commitments to me. In particular, the friendships I made through dance were a lot stronger than your average school friend. We knew each other so well, not to mention all of our quirky habits, and we were all working towards the same goal—nailing the shit out of the routine so we could go home and end practice on a high note.

I learned so many valuable skills throughout this portion of my life. The value of hard work and confidence, how to perform, how to apply fake eyelashes, how to sew toe shoe ribbons in a pinch, the finesse of a thirty second change and most importantly not taking myself too seriously while simultaneously dancing my heart out and performing each routine full out.

Now you may ask, why aren’t you still dancing? It sounds like a hell of a good time.

Well flashback to my freshman year in college (four short years ago), I was excited and slightly overwhelmed with the sheer amount of activities offered at the activity fair. I was anxious to meet new people and try new things. Naturally I looked at all the dance clubs first. But then writing clubs peaked my interest. Then I saw a sign for Hoofers (who doesn’t want to take ski trips?) and even the cheese club (curd crawl anybody?). I ended up getting fifty emails the next day about all of these different clubs and opportunities.

Even though I never ended up actually joining the absurd amount of clubs I had signed up for, I still went to different types of meetings and experienced different types of commitments that did not revolve around eight counts and ballet buns.

Being without dance did at times feel foreign, but overall I am happy that I chose to become involved in a sorority, joined the school paper for a brief stint and participated and directed an original musical for philanthropy in my sorority.

While I may not be dancing anymore, the lessons I learned through the sport stick with me. Giving up dance was definitely difficult and to say I don’t miss it is an extremely false statement. However, just because I decided not to stay in a dance club or try out for a team does not mean that I have stopped being a dancer.