In the dictionary the word “sport” is labeled as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”
In my opinion, If you do competitive dance or cheer, those should be classified as sports. I wouldn’t say the same for gymnastics because it takes so much work and dedication I think if you do it for fun or even for a competitive sport, that all gymnastics should be labeled a sport. Rec dance and sideline cheer take work and practice, so I am not taking anything away from them, but I think that sports should be competitive, against one another, head to head, or placements, meaning only one person can win.
Cheer comes in many different sports, and they differ from school to school. As in wrestling cheer, basketball cheer, football cheer, volleyball cheer, etc. The only reason I would say that I wouldn’t classify these as sports is because they aren’t competitive since the sports they cheer on are competitive. I definitely give them credit because its not easy to remember hundreds of cheers and just know which one to do, how to do every jump, tumble, and lift others body weight in stunts. But they usually aren’t scored on these things.
Competitive cheer takes a lot more than sideline cheer. In competitive cheer you usually have to buy all of the items, which sometimes add up to over $1,000, for sideline cheer you normally receive the items and have to pay around $100. Competitive cheer travels all over the place, sometimes even across state lines. Sideline cheer normally takes a bus with the team to get to the game if it’s not home. Sideline cheer focuses on learning cheers and stunting. Sometimes they do it to the band playing or sometimes football cheer will put a song over the speakers and dance to it, usually around 30 secs-1 min long. Competitive cheer does 2-2.5 minute dances. They incorporate tumbling, stunting, pyramids, dance, and cheer segments, which seems like a lot and it is. They are also in full faces of makeup, full outfit, and they have to do lots of facials. To wrap up cheer, I do not have anything against sideline cheer, I think they are very talented and put lots of work into it, but I think that competitive is more of a sport.
Dance also comes in many different forms. They differ from studio to studio. It mainly depends on the specialties of the dance teachers and what kind of dance studio it is. If it is a Russian ballet academy they most likely won’t teach hip hop. If it seems like I know more about dance than cheer it’s because I do: I am a dancer and have been for six years but a competition dancer for two, and this will be my third year. I would like to think I know what I’m talking about, but I don’t know as much as a dancer that’s been dancing for 10 years.
There are 10 kinds of dance I could immediately think of but there’s hundreds more. The 10 I thought of are acro, ballet, pointe, musical theater, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, contemporary, and tap. As I mentioned earlier there’s something called “rec dance”, rec dance is where you learn a dance and take a few other classes to learn about the style you like. Then depending on the location or the studio, sometimes dance schools have recitals, which is basically a long showcase of dances that were learned throughout the year.
Rec dancers after the recital sometimes receive flowers or trophies, but competition dancers receive trophies, plaques, crowns, metals, banners, pins, shirts, jackets, small prizes, etc. After every competition a lot of dancers walk away with a few of those. Competition dancers have to travel all the way to the competition, stay in a hotel, then sometimes they spend the whole day at the venue. Awards are sometimes not until 11 p.m. Dancers perform a 2-3 minute dance, sometimes even dancing at 6 a.m. or 10 p.m., in full costume, makeup, hair, and shoes.
Competition judges score the dancers out of 300. Rec dancers do not get scored, but they do it for fun. Rec dancers still do dances and learn new things, but they don’t have to compete. Lots of dancers dance on rec because comp costs a lot because they do not like the pressure of comp. Overall, I think that competition dance should be classified as a sport.
I would consider gymnastics a sport because of all the time, dedication, and skill that goes into it. In gymnastics there are four different kinds of gymnastics. They are bars, vault, floor, and beam. In my opinion, doing all of this is a lot harder than dance or cheer, maybe even a lot of other sports. The bars are two uneven bars that the gymnast has to have the body strength to pull themselves up and do a routine, switching from bar to bar, then flip or just jump off of the bar. The floor is a dance that the gymnast does something called a “pass” which is the gymnast tumbling. The vault is a spring board that the gymnast has to jump off . do a flip on the vault. Then finally the beam is a skinny and tall line that is hard and the gymnast can flip, turn, hold, and mount and dismount it.
Overall, I know that this was a very long opinion piece and you can probably read a much shorter one, but these are my feelings on this matter. I hope I changed your point of view, but even if I didn’t I hope you heard me out and appreciated mine.
