While dance and basketball are very different, they still have a number of similarities. In dance your instructor gives you certain moves to do in the dance, and where to go on the stage. It also can be a team and individual sport. Like when a girl does a solo, then it’s an individual sport, but when they do a group dance, it is a team sport. There are also many types of dancing. There is ballet, jazz, hip-hop, lyrical, tango, contemporary, modern, etc. In dance we compete four times a year. Our competitions are usually in Wisconsin or Illinois. (So we don’t travel very far.) The dance season is basically all year round. We practice constantly until our competition season comes around. For our dances, we have to use music, so then we know when to do certain moves. When we perform, we are required to wear make- up and have out hair in a bun if we are a girl. We have to wear it because then on the stage with all the lights our skin doesn't look pale like a ghost.
If you want to play basketball, you have to be decently fit. You have to be fit because for the whole game you are running back and forth down the court. To play basketball, you need to find a basketball. And for dance, you don’t use any sort of ball. Basketball is always a team sport. You practice with your team, and you play in games with your team. You play games every weekend on Saturdays in many different cities. We usually travel to cities about an hour and a half away. But for dance, we travel a little farther, but not as often as basketball. The basketball season runs from November to March. And we practice two times a week for those four months with games every weekend. In basketball there are certain plays that you have to know, kind of like dance, but different. Some of the plays we use are shuffle, motion, box, diamond, split, etc.

Now you know how dance and basketball are different from each other, and we can look at the similarities they have. In dance and basketball, you have to be a very active and energetic person. You have to be active and energetic because in these two sports you are always moving. You also have to wear certain clothing. Like in dance you have to wear tights and a costume when you perform, and in basketball, you have to wear your basketball team jersey. They both include a lot of dedication and time. You have to be dedicated so then you will enjoy it more and you can win every game or competition. They also both have a teacher or coach. In basketball you have a coach who teaches you all the plays you need to know, and how to dribble, hot to shoot, etc. In dance, you also have a coach who teaches you all the different dance moves and how to tell where the eight count in the music is. Basketball and dance both have many rules. In basketball, you can’t run with the ball in your hands, you can’t step out of bounds, you can’t push people, and many more. In dance, you have to point your toes in the movements, have to stay with the beat, have to wear makeup and have your hair in a bun, etc. Finally, they are both competitive sports. In basketball it is competitive because you want to win all the games so you can go to the state tournaments, or win the tournament you are part of, in dance you want to do better than all the other dance schools that are at the competition, so you can get better scores than them. Basketball and dance are two totally different sports, but also have similarities.