Is competitive dance a scam?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All these activities (including travel soccer) are a scam if you are doing it for anything other than current enjoyment and building life skills. If you think there is some financial payoff or elite status at the end of this, then it is a total scam.

This is such a great perspective and a rare one on DCUM. There's usually one side screaming "kids are overscheduled" and another screaming "but your kid will never be a D1 recruit." This is the sensible middle ground - do it because your kid loves it and is learning life skills from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are a judgy b about the outfits and cheerleaders are athletes. You could not do 1 150th of what a cheerleader can do. Very different from dance.

A lot of studios, the clothes and the dances have input from the dancers. I've seen a very fun tap scene done with overalls and neckerchiefs, with non-revealing moves. There's going to be a mix. And dance is about seeing the human body. Stop making it into something shameful

Get that head checked loon

[Anonymous]

Is it a scam? No. Just because you are uncomfortable with the subculture (which I can understand why you would be) doesn't make it a scam.

I think moving to full-time ballet is a great option, if your DD is amenable to that. What about dance does she love? Is it ballet? Because if you shift to a ballet-only studio, it is going to be full-tilt ballet. And there is quite a subculture there as well. Yes, eating disorders are a thing with ballet, but I'm not sure that it is any worse than it is with students of other forms of dance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are a judgy b about the outfits and cheerleaders are athletes. You could not do 1 150th of what a cheerleader can do. Very different from dance.

A lot of studios, the clothes and the dances have input from the dancers. I've seen a very fun tap scene done with overalls and neckerchiefs, with non-revealing moves. There's going to be a mix. And dance is about seeing the human body. Stop making it into something shameful

Get that head checked loon

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is no more of a scam than lots of things that parents do, particularly travel sports and the like

Not comparable. Travel sports are putting little girls in full makeup, hair rollers, sequined crop tops and booty shorts and having them to provocative dancing for “judges”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is no more of a scam than lots of things that parents do, particularly travel sports and the like

Not comparable. Travel sports are putting little girls in full makeup, hair rollers, sequined crop tops and booty shorts and having them to provocative dancing for “judges”

Lol this is a path that can end like Britney Spears.

Many people actively want that outcome (booty shaking stardom).

It's not really very surprising that the path to that goal starts early. Like the Mouseketeers with Spears, Aguilera, Timberlake, and Gosling. They all did show dance training as kids.

[Anonymous]

Travel or Competitive anything is a scam. It’s just not needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Travel or Competitive anything is a scam. It’s just not needed.

How old are your kids?

Needed for what?

Without the answers to these, it's impossible to tell if you are serious or not. Unless I know if you have tried to have a middle or high schooler in a recreational sports program, swim stroke technique program, or low-key dance program and been happy with the level of instruction and competition (if there is competition), I don't know if you know what you're talking about.

[Anonymous]

There are dance studios that have modern, jazz and ballet which may be a better fit. Most do twice a year dance recitals.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what OP is getting at. Her gripes don't describe a scam.

The one way that competitive dance feels a little more scam-ish to me than travel sports is that the studios sort of inflate the competitiveness of "competitive" dance. Like, you try out, but all you are really competing for is where you will stand during the numbers. Or you go to these competitions and every team seems to be winning several awards of some sort. With sports there are more cuts and winners and losers.

[Anonymous]

Yes. A million pay for play “competitions” with dubious awards for basically everyone. How is it possible that multiple of my friends’s kids have won the super diamond platinum award or whatever at “nationals”? lol. Pressure to be at the studio a minimum of [way too many] hours a week? The girls seem like fine dancers but it is absolutely a money-making enterprise with little concern about anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are a judgy b about the outfits and cheerleaders are athletes. You could not do 1 150th of what a cheerleader can do. Very different from dance.

A lot of studios, the clothes and the dances have input from the dancers. I've seen a very fun tap scene done with overalls and neckerchiefs, with non-revealing moves. There's going to be a mix. And dance is about seeing the human body. Stop making it into something shameful

Get that head checked loon

+1

+2

[Anonymous]

This is every sport now - get them tracked young and in year round with lots of expensive competitions / tournaments / costumes or uniforms etc because its businesses to make as much money as possible per kid.

Every sport pushes these things now - the youths sports industry can make way more money off a kid doing it year round with 12 tournaments a year requiring 5 different uniforms than something like just playing rec basketball in winter only used to be. Its not nefarious any more than any other industry but does make youth sports suck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure what OP is getting at. Her gripes don't describe a scam.

The one way that competitive dance feels a little more scam-ish to me than travel sports is that the studios sort of inflate the competitiveness of "competitive" dance. Like, you try out, but all you are really competing for is where you will stand during the numbers. Or you go to these competitions and every team seems to be winning several awards of some sort. With sports there are more cuts and winners and losers.

This is the same as travel sports. Every club will happily put most any played on a travel team, they just have different levels based on talent. But they're not turning anyone away (I know this as a the parent of a very mediocre soccer player and every season the coach pushes us to join the more intense, year round, and expensive travel teams). Of course he wouldn't make the best travel team but they happily make a travel level for the mediocre players too

Dance studios are the same - they have different levels based on talent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these activities (including travel soccer) are a scam if you are doing it for anything other than current enjoyment and building life skills. If you think there is some financial payoff or elite status at the end of this, then it is a total scam.

This is such a great perspective and a rare one on DCUM. There's usually one side screaming "kids are overscheduled" and another screaming "but your kid will never be a D1 recruit." This is the sensible middle ground - do it because your kid loves it and is learning life skills from it.

None of these activities are teaching time management skills or how to set appropriate priorities, that's for sure. Look at how many people in these activities are homeschooled because the activity is too intense to be compatible with 30+ hours of regular school per week. If you're looking at a competitive dance studio or travel team and half the kids are homeschooled in some fashion, run.