Dancing Days

 IF YOU'RE READING THIS, COME TO THE GAME 2/26!  I can't believe we're already at the last home game of the season. How is that possible? Junior year is flying by.  Not only is 2/26 our last men's basketball home game, but it's also senior night. There are three seniors on the dance team, and I hope they don't read this because I'm going to spoil some surprises here! Every year we try and make senior night special. As a collegiate dancer, once you graduate undergrad, you usually retire. There isn't a "professional dance league" like there is for typical sports. There are some options like becoming a professional NBA or NFL dancer but those careers pay very little for a high time commitment and level of dedication.  So we want to make senior night one last hurrah! This year I worked with my non-senior teammates to buy a couple cute things for our seniors. The first is sashes. A lot of high schools will do senior sashes for their dance and cheer ...

 The fact that we only have ONE home game left is crazy to me. Where did this season go?! Every year when basketball season wraps up I reflect on how I started the season and how I'm ending it. I wish I could tell myself back in September how different my life is now than it was then. And even though I've experienced some major life changes since I first stepped out on the court this season, all I can feel is grateful.  In dance and outside of dance this season has humbled me. I've learned to take absolutely nothing for granted because this life guarantees us nothing, so we have to be grateful for every last bit of it. As a dancer I feel like I've grown, pushing myself to improve my strength and technique. I've spent hours in the  studio working on turns and flexibility to the point where I can say I'm really proud of them now. In addition to that I've also invested more in myself. Taking not only time to workout but to rest and recharge. I dance better when...

I'm a chronic over thinker - always have been, always will be. There are days when the world feels as thought it set against me. The weight of every single word I utter pressing down on me, crushing me into the floor beneath my feet. It's those days when I feel like I can never do enough, achieve enough, be enough. It's exhausting. But there's always a new day and I have plenty of them. That's what I try and remind myself.  It's on days like these I re-watch old dances. I have a folder on my laptop labeled "High School Performances" and though the search history isn't frequent, I re-visit it on the bad days. My whole life I grew up a studio dancer. The difference between studio dance and dance team is night and day. Studio dance is usually ballet, lyrical and modern based. The performances are on stages with different costumes for each piece. Every dance has some sort of theme or story it tells. Studio dance is highly emotional. I have been in danc...

 If I had to pick my favorite day of the week it'd be gamedays. There's nothing I love more than arriving at the stadium when it's completely empty: just me, my team and the court beneath our jazz shoe clad feet. The roaring crowd is great and all but sometimes the silence is peaceful, the court lights shining steady beams of light on us as the jumbo-tron is dark. I soak in the feeling for as long as I can until we inevitably have to go back to the locker room where the flurry of gameday preparations await us.  The gameday routine is clear, a methodical list of steps we complete in the same order every gameday. It's comforting knowing that at least once a week every step of my day is nailed down to a tee - no modifications or alterations. I like to wake up early on gamedays and get in a workout to jump start my likely sore muscles. After a warm shower and peony scented body wash, I head to class. Classes always pass alarmingly quick on gamedays. I run home, quick lunch ...