Gymnastics Argumentative Essay

Argumentative Essay

By universal definition, "sport" is listed as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively." Football, basketball, baseball, soccer and other primary activities have always been concretely defined as sports in society. However, one of the most physically demanding activities is constantly forgotten when it comes to the realm of sports- dance. Dance requires a tremendous amount of training and creates an aura of competition in which people compete to be the best, win, and take home the trophy- just like in traditionally accepted sports. These sports, however, do not possess an element of psychological health threats that some competitive dancers unfortunately must account for due to the emphasis placed on physical appearance.

Just like any

other sport, dancing involves intense physical exertion. What appears to be a simple, fluid ballet barre routine is the complete opposite of facile. The amount of energy that goes into making the movements look effortless is just as high as the energy needed to score a winning touchdown. A majority of a dancer’s training is focused around making his or her movements look easy, which is incredibly difficult. Every single muscle in a dancer’s body is at work when at the barre, but a spectator would never be able to notice. Those who have never danced before are unaware of how much strength and endurance are needed to perform well. USA Today reported that football players practice on average about 43.3 hours on their sport a week playing, competing, and training (Wieberg 1). According to a performing arts school, Arts Alive, professional dancers practice and train for about 6 hours per day, 7 days a week (NAC 1). This equals roughly an average of 42 hours per week, the equivalent of a professional football player.
Dancers, like other athletes, suffer from life altering and career threatening injuries. Krystn Brady, the director of a study completed on dance safety for Dance Spirit Magazine, discovered that injury rates among dancers are higher than in any other professional sport. The article reported that eighty percent of professional dancers will be injured at least one time in their career. In addition to being injured, forty percent of dancers from small ballet companies and fifty percent of dancers from large ballet companies will miss performances due to injury (Brady 1). Injured dancers do not receive excused absences and are still required to attend classes to visually observe and memorize choreography on the sidelines so that when they recover, they can leap right back into the rhythm of their routines.
Dancers all around the globe participate in performances to showcase their skills, similar to how any other athlete would compete in games.

The winning team in a dance competition is determined by a panel of judges. Some may argue that because the teams are not facing off head to head, dance is not qualified as a sport. However, a deeper look into the sport of gymnastics validates otherwise. There is no doubt gymnastics is an extremely difficult sport, which is why it is presented along with many other sports in the Olympics. The scores of the competitors are solely determined on the scores that the panel of judges decides to give them. There is a strict set of guidelines, which the judges follow in order to determine their scores. These same rules apply at dance competitions, so why would one qualify and not the other? Furthermore, multiple tests have been conducted at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, ranking dancers from Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance among professional athletes in terms of overall athleticism (Wallace 1). This educated viewers and broke the misconceived stereotype that dancers are not

athletes.
Unlike many traditionally accepted sports, ballet places a large emphasis on physical appearance. The pressures placed on dancers can result in severe psychological downturns. Young ballet dancers who aspire to be like the older thin professional ballerinas believe that in order to get a job in a company, they must also have that physique. Ballet dancers are required to wear skin-tight clothes and dance in front of large mirrors for hours at a time. This atmosphere causes a dancer to be acutely aware of what her body looks like. Dancers are constantly able to see their bodies and are always comparing themselves to the other dancers in the room. The desire to be not only a better dancer than the others but also to be thinner is extremely apparent in competitive ballet. Victoria Furguson, a 22 year old ballerina, tells of her struggle of developing bulimia at age 15 in an interview with BBC News: "Every day you are looking at your friends in tights and leotards, which isn't normal, and the whole purpose of dance is to be self-critical and constantly pushing yourself, and you strive to be better. It was all self-imposed." She states that “there is an unspoken competitiveness between dancers.” (Shoker 1). This layer of both physical and mental health hazardous competition is not present in other traditionally accepted sports. Therefore, dancers are faced with more challenges than just that of physical demand. The moment a dancer walks on stage to perform, before the music even starts, they are being judged, and this evaluation continues as the lights die down and they exit.
Dancers have the luxury to say that they partake in what is classified as both a sport and an art. Through movement and facial expressions, dancers are able to tell a story without ever having to say a word. Many dancers and choreographers have been known for having an incredibly strong stage presence. While traditionally accepted sports remain static, the art of dance is multi-dimensional with endless layers of physical and mental demands.