It’s nine o'clock at night and I’m at the studio bending and contorting my body beyond its limit as sweat drips down my face. Twenty-plus hours of my week are spent twirling on pointe shoes and leaping in jazz shoes, resulting in bruised toenails, blistered feet, and bloody toes. I compete at cutthroat competitions with some of the most proficient athletes of all time and come home with sore muscles and aching bones. I am a dancer, and I go through the same hardships as any other athlete, yet I am told that dance is not a sport. This ideology that dance isn’t a sport is a fallacy that our society must quickly be made aware of.