The Sport of Dancing
Dancing is very fun to do; we all like to do a bit of it time and again. You can find people dancing at weddings, in clubs and in their bedrooms when they know no one is looking. It is also a very exhausting activity and people who dance professionally will tell you that it takes years of practice to become good at it. Various parts of a dancer’s body receive constant stress and it takes a long time for these body parts to be strong enough to deal with the stress. This brings an interesting point, is dancing a sport or is it just an activity?
Researching around the internet has found that dancing is actually considered a sport by many people. Ballroom dancing as it used to be called is now referred to as dancesport and it is a competitive version of dancing. The interesting part of this sport is that would people want to watch a bunch of people dancing competitively to music. It seems they would; an article online shows results of a survey conducted amongst people asking them whether they wanted to see dancesport as an Olympic event. “10,012 people took part in the survey with the following results: Yes - 9906 votes (98.95%), No - 93 votes (0.92%) Not sure - 13 votes (0.13%),”. The fans of the sport have spoken and they would really like to see dancesport become an Olympic event.
The thing about dancing is that it is a very physically demanding activity. Competitive dancers have to be very physically fit and athletic in order to perform manoeuvres and do routines. “[Dancing] is an extremely physical activity and at an advanced level dancers need to be very fit. Dancers are known for their aerobic fitness.” The question arises here is whether dancers are as physically fit as other athletes and do they need to be. The demanding nature of the act of ballroom dancing means that the dancers need to ensure they are in top shape in order to perform at their optimal level and win competitions.
If anyone out there thought it was easy to become a dancesport competitor they should be forewarned. It is a very tough sport to be in. Like any other sport it has its own governing body, its own rule system and various competitions are held all around the world. “Dancesport events are sanctioned and regulated by dancesport organizations. National events are supervised by the ruling body of the country concerned, and competitions for continental and world championships are regulated by the World Dance Council.” There is a lot of potential for dancesport to become an Olympic sport. It isn’t that different to a lot of other sports out there that aren’t very traditional in nature. Some may have an issue with how the sport would be judged and how would points scoring take place. Well they score diving competitions and judge those with ease, so they would be able to assign points to dancing the same way they would to diving or synchronised swimming. Synchronised swimming and dancesport aren’t that different if you think about it. In synchronised swimming people get into a pool and basically do a routine that is then judged and scored on how good it was. The same sort of thing can happen with dancing and points could be scored on how good the routine was.
If one day dancing does become an Olympic sport then there will be a lot of happy dancers around the world. Dancing seems to be very popular wherever one goes in the world. With the sport now having a governing body and a set of rules and regulations, it is only a matter of time before dancesport becomes part of the Olympic Games and countries from around the world will start to compete to try and win a gold medal in dancing.
Tags: