To the Editor:

Dance isn’t a sport. Huh. Well I’m here to prove you wrong!          

I know for a fact many people think all we do is prance around wearing tutus; trust me, I have been told before. But, in the end, aren’t we the ones with the six packs?

When you look out into a football field, what do you see? I see football players that are huge, and, when they are doing their pushups, their bellies touch the ground before their chins do.

Did you know that a second parallel position in ballet is the same as a free-throw stance in basketball? (Free throws, otherwise known as the “foul shots,” are unopposed attempts to score points for a team.)

I know dance isn’t the most interesting sport. I know that most people wouldn’t want to sit and watch people dance all day. Many other sports are much more interesting to people.

I have people come up to me all the time to tell me that dance isn’t a sport. I tell them, “Talk to the hand” because I bet they couldn’t do half the stuff we dancers can do. Dancers use 100 percent of their muscles when they dance while athletes in other sports don’t use 100 percent of their muscles.

Dance is one of the toughest sports, according to Guillermo Asco, a professional dancer, because dance is a year-round sport while other sports have down time when it’s their off season. Lynn Swann, in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has long championed the benefits of dance.

If ballet isn’t your thing, there are so many other types of dance options you can do — jazz, tap, lyrical, hip-hop; there is an endless selection. They all work 100 percent of your muscles!

Now tell me a reason why dance isn’t a sport.

Anna C. Williams

Guilderland