15 things that every high school dancer wants the world to understand

15 things that every high school dancer wants the world to understand 

 1. "Sorry, I have dance" isn't an excuse. Hangout after school? Sorry regular practice. Hangout on the weekend? Sorry 8 hour practice or competition.

2. Yes we have a lot of bruises and no we don't want to explain every one of them to you.

3. When we complain about dance, don't say "it doesn't look that hard." It doesn't look "that hard" because our job is to make it look easy!

4. "Did your hip just pop?" yes, every part of my body pops about 10 times every 5 minutes and it feels seriously amazing.

5. When we come to school and we can't walk up the steps, understand we probably did about 20 toe touch splits during an 8 hour practice the day before.

6. We can complain about our team, you can listen to us complain about our team, but you're not allowed to say anything bad about our team because we will probably snap.

7. Unless you practice a minimum of 15 hours a week you have no right to critique any dancer or performance. 

8. We can't just "miss practice" like that doesn't exist unless you have a signed letter from a doctor saying you cannot dance for the sake of your health and everybody else's, but you'll probably still have to go to watch and make sure you don't miss anything.

9. We sing our music and mark our 8 counts in class by force of habit. Don't judge.

10. Don't try the "dance isn't a sport" argument because we will win, and you will feel humiliated.

11. We promise you we do much more than just "twerking."

12. Anytime there's a competition you're just going to have to understand every dancer is going to overload Instagram with 200 photos because we are proud of our accomplishments, and let's face it: competition hair, makeup, & uniforms are good for insta worthy pictures. 

13. Our closets are mostly filled with t shirts from competitions and leggings because A. they're comfortable & B. we can wear them to school and to practice without having to change, and after practice if you want to go crawl into bed and sleep for 20 hours, you're prepared for that too #lazyprobz

14. When we run we may nonchalantly throw out a leap combo and not even think twice. Again, don't judge.

15. Yes, we hangout with our dance friends more than anyone else because they understand our problems and what we go through.