Is dance a sport? When asking eighth grader Carter Koppman, he states “Dance is not a sport because it is super easy to do,” Eighth grader Addison Fox argues against this, saying “Dance is a sport because anything that you put physical effort into and compete in is a sport.” The Cannon Falls dance team season has started up again this winter and the Junior Varsity team is putting in lots of hard work. At the first invite, the JV kick team placed first and the JV jazz team placed third. Seventh grader Ellie Flemming, when asked about her team placements says “I’m proud of what places we got, and I think we will continue to get better scores.” They hope to improve throughout the season.
The JV kick roster includes Melody Morgan, Ruby Lichty, Ellie Fleming, Karina jandro, Sabella Jensen, Evie Larson, and Teagan Shaack, as well as Kylie Sindt, Ruby Kyyra, and Audrey Hyllengren adding to the JV jazz roster. These girls put in a lot of hard work and effort into the team in order to benefit themselves as dancers and the team as a whole. According to seventh grader Audrey Hyllengren, “I think the work outs and cleaning the dance will really pay off in the end, because we will be even stronger than we are now, and it will reflect on our scores.”
A regular team practice according to eighth grader Ruby Kyyra includes “warm up, then workout, stretch, work on dances, then do the dances full out.” Kyyra talks about the hard work that goes into the team saying “Every practice we always try our hardest and focus so we can see the results when performing our dance.” They have two and a half hour practices every day after school and competitions on Saturdays. The season started in October and ends in January for the JV team. Until the season comes to an end, they will continue to put in the effort that it takes to be a Bomber dancer.
Transitioning into the Bomber Dance Team isn’t an easy thing to do, according to the many new seventh graders, including Ellie Flemming, Melody Morgan, Audrey Hyllengren, Ruby Lichty, and Caroline Sjoquist. They went from practicing a couple hours a week to almost three hours a day. “You have to have a lot of commitment to the team, and put a lot of effort and determination into everything you do,” says Audrey Hyllengren when asked about the big changes from Just for Kix to the dance team. For these seventh graders, the pressure is on them. Audrey Hyllengren and Caroline Sjoquist both dance on varsity. To handle the pressure of being on a team with girls with much more experience, Sjoquist says “I talk to one of the girls on the team, they are all super encouraging and supportive.” Overall these girls are “excited” and “looking forward to the rest of the season.”
As for the rest of the season, this team is very dedicated to bettering their skills and dances. Eighth grader Karina Jandro, when asked what she is looking forward to, states “I’m looking forward to the rest of the year because I think we will continue to improve and get better scores as well as getting closer with the girls on the team.” As some might not consider dance a sport, to these girls, it is one of the hardest sports to do.
