DEDICATION OF A DANCER
- Author unknown

Dedication is waking up at 7:45 on a Saturday morning.

It's putting on a tank top and shorts even though its December and snowing outside.

It's arriving at the dance studio and greeting you're friends as if you haven't seen them for months, when it really has only been two days.

It's smelling the smell only a dancer can smell. The smell of old shoes, rosin, and sweat.

It's starting class and preparing to be sore the next day.

It's pushing your body so hard that it's literally shaking by the end of warm up.

It's jumping so high, turning so fast, and trying so hard.

It’s why sweat makes good hairspray.

It’s why when a doctor says stay off of it for a month he really doesn’t mean you can't dance on it.

It’s why it's normal to spend 5 hours after school every day at the dance studio.

It’s why if you get hurt and cant dance, you watch.

It’s why if you’re too sick to watch, you still watch.

It's why you make your parents pay endless fees for tuition, costumes, choreography, competitions, and who knows what else.

And it's why you have a certain place to put your bag.

It's why you can whip up a ponytail in 10 seconds flat.

It's why you can't sleep at night because of the pain from your last class.

It’s also why you can’t move the next morning because of the pain from all of your classes from the night before.

It’s why your online screen name somehow incorporates the word DANCE.

It's why you check your favorite dance sites before you check your email.

It's why your room is filled with ribbons, trophies and other "dance stuff."

It's why you pay someone to put you in total torture multiple times a week.

It's why you know more French than Spanish when your language class at school is Spanish.

It's sharing the best times of your life with guest choreographers and workshop teacher that don't even know you're name.

It's why you smile when you walk on to the stage with hundreds of people watching.

It's trying to look as if you can dance effortlessly, even though everybody knows it's impossible.

It's trying not to cry when you see somebody do more pirouettes than you can do.

It's falling asleep in the splits, it's 200 sit ups, and it's practicing the same combination to the same song hundreds of times and still trying to improve it.

It's why you can call the studio your second home.

It’s why your best of friends are made at the studio you call a second home.