Ever since I was a little girl I dreamt about being on the Indianettes dance team. Dancing has been a part of my life from the age of four up until now. When I was younger I was not the best dancer but I loved it, and my mom already paid for my classes so i was kind of stuck doing it anyways. My eighth grade year I was preparing to tryout for the Indianettes, I was stretching, working on my technique, and working on my jumps and turns. It turns out that the old coach Sheri Bradley quit and the Indianettes had a new fairly inexperienced coach named MariAnn Barfus.
I wasn’t very confident about making the team. Long story short, I ended up making it along with Jaidyn Harris, Hannah Hyde, Daphnie Colpron, Carson Davis, Becca Osterhout, Mechelle DeYoung, Skyler Wilde, Kate Smith, Rylee Truempler, Nicole Murphy, Kaitlyn Underwood, Mady Field, Miranda Smellie, Mattie Davie, Jesse Anderson, Anna Garrett. Tryouts were in May and practice started by the first week of June. At first practice started out well, everyone got along and worked together just fine. As time went on tension grew and drama started to take over.
A lot of the girls got in fights and we very rarely worked as a team like we did in the beginning. Getting ready for school in the mornings was the worst because you could just feel the tension with some of the girls on the team. There were even a few fights down in the locker room which was kind of scary for a little freshman like I was. Eventually a few girls started getting ready in different bathrooms and other places to avoid everyone being in the same room. As the year went on practices got harder because no one was working together and everyone argued with each other and that really affected us during competition season.
A lot of the girls on the team quit throughout the year which were Daphnie, Carson, Mattie, and Jesse. As a freshmanI was not in all of the dances but I still would like to say that I still had a fairly positive attitude throughout the year. I was very determined to be successful and be the best that I could be which was sometimes difficult when a lot of negativity was going around on the team. Through many hours of practicing and choreography i learned that having a positive attitude and working together as a team make a huge difference in performances and how you interact with the team.
Skipping forward a few months to competition season, districts as just around the corner and all we had to do to go to state was to beat the Diamond Dancers, which was Century High School’s dance team, in at least one dance. The problem was that not a lot of the girls wanted to go to state and just wanted the season to be over. All of the negative attitudes and lack of determination by half of the team was really discouraging and unfair to those of us who wanted to go to state so badly.
Finally districts came around and as a team we didn’t perform our best because there was so much tension and no one was working together. As a freshman I was only in the team’s hip hop and kick. I tried to dance to the best of my abilities but I found that even I didn’t want to go to state by this time because there was so much drama. We ended up losing to century in all of our dances which was devastating because before the new coach MariAnn the indianettes were the best and made it to state every year..
By the time of districts I had a pretty close knit group of friends on the team including, Jaidyn, Hannah, and Becca, so it wasn’t all as bad as it sounds. On the bright side after being defeated by century we still had one more thing to be excited about and that one thing was going to nationals. Nationals is a dance ompetition where teams come from all over the united states to compete and this year it was held in california. This was the one thing everyone was looking forward to all year, we got to go to Disneyland, the beach, and got to compete with a lot of extreme teams.
Our first day in California we got to go to Newport Beach and go shopping and everyone was in their own little group not really interacting with the rest of the team. On the second day we went to Disneyland and we were all pretty excited to get there. Overall the day was really fun but Kaitlyn Underwood stole a stuffed animal from one of the stores for her oyfriend and then made out with a random guy within the hour after, so that was interesting. The next day was the day of the competition. At this point no one really cared about winning, everyone just wanted to have a fun week in california.
This trip was mostly for team bonding after a tough loss but of course not a lot of girls got along and there were the different groups so the team bonding didn’t really turn out so well. After we got back from our trip to california our season was pretty much over except for our spring show about a month away. Spring show is just a small showcase of all the dances we ave done throughout the year and anyone was welcome to come and watch. Leading up to the show we didn’t really practice much because we already knew our dances like the back of our hands so we only had practice the week of.
Practice was good that week except for the last day, on the day of spring show, Kaitlyn Underwood decided not to show up to practice in the morning. Everyone was trying to call her but about halfway through practice my coach decided to just take her out of every dance and change everything. It was super stressful for all the girls on the team considering that the show was that night and e only had an hour to practice all the new changes. Everything worked out by the show and our routines actually looked pretty good considering the circumstances.
I also got awarded freshman of the year because of my determination and improvement I showed throughout the season. My coach that year also quit which was probably for the best, even though she was a great person she didn’t really know how to be a good coach which was okay. Looking back on my freshman year of dance I realized that I learned some important lessons from my team and the experiences from that season. One thing that I learned was the mportance of teamwork and how it can affect each individual participating as well as the team as a whole.
There was so much drama and contention the the team that year so it was hard for everyone to work together and be united as one. Another lesson I took from that year was how having a positive attitude can make or break any experience you may be going through. If you have a negative attitude it not only affects you but it also affects those people around you which isn’t very good for a whole team. Freshman year also taught me how to put up with people I don’t particularly like just for the sake of not creating ny drama and keeping the team as one.
At times I wanted to quit so badly because the year was so hard but I realize now that if you endure some things to the end then you will feel more accomplished in the end. All the experiences previously stated definitely made me the dancer, team mate and captain that I am today. Even though it was hard i am forever grateful for all the lessons I learned and all of the friendships that were formed from dance team. I definitely wouldn’t take anything back from that year and i’m glad I didn’t quit and give up on dancing because I think I would have definitely regretted it.
