Suddenly, the smooth playing of the piano slows to a stop and your heart rate does the same. However, the respite does not last long, as the teacher calls out another rigorous combination. You get in formation as the music introduction begins, giving you only a moment more to catch your breath before you embark on another test of your strength and wits.

    “Plié down 2,3,4 and up 2,3,4. Now lunge 2,3,4 and elevé 2,3,4.” The teacher’s voice calls out the combination, competing with the accompaniment from the piano, this is no different from the hundreds of practices.

   Finally class is over and you let your worn muscles relax. Only 45 minutes before another rehearsal starts and you want to get the most of this short break.

   Hesitantly, you untie the knots of the ribbons on your pointe shoes, knowing new blisters are lurking underneath the hard shell of the shoe. You pull your foot out, finally free from the tight confines of the box.

   Only two new blisters this time and one bruised toenail, better than last week’s pointe class. You brush it off as you cover your toes with yet another layer of tape.

   From the depths of your overflowing dance bag you pull out an Ace bandage and carefully wrap it around your pulled hamstring and try to ignore the new pain in your knee, hoping that you can make it through another three hours of dancing.

   At times, you feel like giving up, leaving all the pain and hard work behind. However, you remind yourself that these are the sacrifices you choose to make. However, it’s all worth it for the feeling of accomplishment.

   In a world where freak-dancing and jerking are considered forms of dance, ballet is often passed over as a boring art. Too often, ballet brings pictures to the mind of skinny girls in bedazzled tulle, prancing around a stage on the tips of their toes. However, the stamina, technique, and training required to be a ballet dancer should over qualify it as a sport rather than a simple form of dance that only the elderly, and snobby connoisseurs enjoy.

   One of the most eminent aspects of ballet is dancing on your toes, which is more formally called dancing on pointe. What looks as if it requires little to no effort not only necessitates incredible strength, but also pristine balance. It takes years to master the art of dancing on pointe and endless practice can only take you so far, considering dancing on pointe is also dependant on the natural flexibility of your feet.

   Ballet dancers must possess not only physical, but also mental strength, to be able to memorize countless combinations and intricate choreography. Thousands of patterns swim around your mind, not to mention the counts of the music, endless formations, and don’t forget to smile!

   Ballet can be mistaken as a flowery art because dancers are trained to make their feats look easy and effortless, unlike the professional tennis players or overdramatic soccer players on TV. Keeping the hands flowing and free of tension is a challenge that can take years to perfect. When doing countless sets of arduous jumps and leaps, a ballerina never allows the audience to see the pain and weariness she feels, but keeps her body relaxed so as to appear effortless rather than strained.

   Technically speaking, ballet is an art. But this is not due to the fact that ballet requires great physical strength. It’s the devotion to beauty, sensitivity, and emotion that make it a fine art, but the necessity to possess unbelievable strength and grace put it in a higher tier than other forms of art.

   Dancers require all of the physicality and resilience that athletes do. Even so, ballet is often disregarded as a real sport.

   In both dancing and sports, the participants use their bodies as instruments for success. However dancers do not have a soccer ball or a baseball bat to hide behind. Because the body is their primary tool, injury is a given, and pain is no stranger.

   Ballet digs deep into the human mind to display inner thoughts and feelings and communicates them through the motions of the body. Every movement a dancer makes has passion and meaning behind it.

   The next time you happen to see a dancer work, know that everything he or she does has a deeper significance than what sometimes appears on the surface. Ballet takes complete mental and physical control of body and mind. That plié is not just a simple bend of the knees, and those elevés are more than rising to the balls of your feet.