The title of the article is such for a reason. Maybe you were an award winning soloist, maybe you just took one random dance class each week. Maybe you were on a competition team, maybe you weren’t. Maybe you were actually good at dancing, and maybe you weren’t. Whatever the case, dancer or not, you took dance at one point of another in your life.
Dance was a lot like Regina George. It was fabulous, but it was also evil. Fabulous because it got you in really good shape and taught you how to be good in bed really flexible. And evil because 1. it gave you all this muscle that later turned to fat when you stopped working out as much, 2. it took the majority of your weeknights and weekend days (sometimes weekend nights too — competition was no joke), AND 3. because your parents had to sit through it all. Wow, that must have sucked for them.
Here are 20 signs you used to dance. #DanceLife!
1. Your bones crack all the time. No big deal to you. Absolutely f*cking disgusting to everyone else. Whatever. Sometimes your hips just need to crack, and therefore you must kick your leg back into an attitude. Wow — look at you!! You still got it, except for the whole cracking bones thing.
2. You often try to see if you can still do a heel stretch…
3. And a split…
4. And if you still can swing through your middle split. And even though you can’t get your stomach flat on the ground like you used to, you still somehow succeed when you try swinging through and totally murder your legs. Like, you can’t do this properly anymore. Stop trying.
5. You remember how to do a time step. And sometimes you even break them out when you’re bored and alone, like when you’re waiting for dinner to finish cooking in your kitchen. NBD.
6. You have worn an old dance costume for Halloween at least once. Or you’ve at least tried to. It’s not like you’ve thrown any of them out. Even your friends have asked you at one point or another if they can look through your old dance costumes for Halloween. It’s like the weirdest fun box ever and it lives in your parent’s attic. The smaller the tutu, the sluttier the costume. Thank you childhood dance classes for helping you nail Halloween every year.
7. When you find yourself in some sort of “studio” AKA a room that has a mirror as a wall(s) and perhaps a barre or two, you feel home.
8. Because of the above, you have taken up barre/yoga/Zumba as an activity in your “old age.” It just feels right.
9. You know just because you once danced in a past life, that doesn’t mean you kill it at the club. Sure, a large majority of ex-dancers know how to get down on a dance floor… but for the rest, we take pride in murdering line dances. Call me when interpretive dancing and choreographed routines become the cool thing to do when drunk. Or just invite me to your wedding.
10. Dance Moms is way too real. Like, guys, it’s not just a TV show. That sh*t is real. These people are not acting.
11. Your “dance tapes” are sacred artifacts that you will never part from. Your entire childhood was captured on these tapes, just within the 1, 2, 3, 4, or even more dances you did each year.
12. When a some comes on that you once danced to, you have to tell EVERYONE that this was your [insert dance form here] song in [grade here]. OMG THIS WAS MY JAZZ SONG IN SIXTH GRADE. OMG NO ONE CARES. Sigh.
13. You have been to the chiropractor. And he has told you to stop stretching. And cracking your bones. Lol, yeah right. So you stopped going to the chiropractor.
14. This is a normal picture to you. The poses, the outfits, the makeup, the jewelry, the PICTURE. It doesn’t phase you.
15. 5-6-7-8 are not just 4 sequential numbers to you… They are a way of life! There is nothing that pisses you off more than someone leading a workout class off-beat. LIKE, HELLO. Can you not hear the 5-6-7-8?????
16. You have all your dance shoes still. Why? You don’t know. But really, you never know when you’ll need them again.
17. You used to practice dance routines in your head over and over again to give you something to do until class ended. Or maybe this was just me, because what is paying attention? But anyway, when you could master a routine in your head, that was when you knew you had it down.
18. The smell of hairspray still gives you anxiety. Is it time to go on yet???
19. If someone asks you to go across the room, you automatically wonder what they want you to do. Kicks? Turns? You could use some guidance here.
20. Center Stage and Save The Last Dance were your faves. That Michael Jackson dance. Stop. You literally can’t even.
21. Nothing will ever live up to the excitement of starting a routine at a competition or recital or the relief of ending it. Recital night – biggest night of the year. Why? You’ll never know. But almost nothing has been as exciting since. Oh to be young and in love with dance again.
14 Comments
This is so accurate. I’m still the person at the gym stretching like crazy, cracking my bones (the more the better) and using the railings to do barre work. I laughed audibly at the picture because I saw it before I read the post and I didn’t flinch. That photo’s not normal?? What? You must be wrong…
#14 should say; it doesn’t faze you.
What? You don’t phase? I totally learned that in dance class. Or was that on X-men?
You forgot #22. When you stand still your feet automatically go into 1st, 3rd or 5th position lol
OMG! This is so accurate it’s scary! As for the pic, not only did it not faze me, but, for a minute I thought it was one I had forgotten about and looked for myself in the pic.
This list left out “counting by 8 counts to every frickin song that ever comes on the frickin radio”
Exactly! It’s been over 20 years and I still can’t stop counting!
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#12 should read “when a song comes on…”
the smell of harispray (the cheap kind especially) calms me still- I still have all of my shoes, I still dance and perform, but I don’ use any of them!
Referring to #14, it took 3 years of not competing anymore to be able to do any makeup that wasn’t competition ready :p
Still have my slippers. My joints sound like a symphony of bubble wrap and wooden cork guns….
I curl up in to the fetal position when I’m channel surfing and Dance Moms footage pops up in the wake of surfing.
So the picture of the girls in the leg stretch was actually taken at banbury school of dance in houston texas about 12 years ago.
Yep…my knees creak when I bend them, and I do still have my old jazz, tap and clogging shoes from 29 years ago! Why?! I have no clue…but most likely will never throw them out…too many memories there!
And #23 (which relates to number #22) Have to ride a duckfooted stance on your snowboard even though you don’t hit the park as having your feet at different angles is just impossible.