It bothers me when people say show choir is not a sport, because it is. Yes I understand that it's not a very physical sport compared to some, such as football or soccer. But it takes a lot of work to put a show together. At most, we have three months off, otherwise we're practicing every week for a couple of hours. It takes a lot of stamina to get through a whole show and perform it well. If you don't believe me, take a look at Cedar Rapid's Kennedy High School's Varsity show choir Happiness Inc. in their prime back in 2012. Most of the people who say show choir is not a sport, haven't seen nor performed in a show choir. You shouldn't judge something you have no experience with.
In a soccer tournament, the players probably play four or five times for around and hour to an hour and a half, depending on how well their team does. In a show choir competition, a singer would perform for about twenty minutes then be done, unless they make finals which adds another twenty minutes to that. I understand that a sport like soccer has more physical activity. However not every sport requires the players to do intensive physical activity for long periods of time. Take cricket for example. That is definitely not as active as show choir but it's still considered a sport to many people around the world.
Show choir auditions are help in April. Then you have the months of May and June off. Most directors have choreography camps during the months of July and August. Once school starts at the end of August early September, practices start to be once a week. Come October, practices are scheduled for twice a week. These twice a week practices are constant until January hits, then we practice even more. January through March is classified as show choir season. We have competitions almost every Saturday, as early as five o'clock in the morning to as late as one o'clock in the morning the next day. So it can be said that these show choir competitions are literally all day events. About a month or two after the last competition, we have something that's called the "Going Out Concert" which is one last performance of our show before the seniors leave and the year is officially over. So needless to say, if you're involved in show choir, it's pretty much your life.
Singers have to learn to breath from the diaphragm to get a good breath support for each note. Your diaphragm is a muscle. It takes a lot of energy to breath from the diaphragm, not to mention on top of the dancing. If a performer is truly going full out and is committing himself or herself to the performance, they should walk off the stage out of breath and sweating through their clothing. During practice, our director will make us do crunches, pushups, sit ups, etc. He will also make us run the length of the school, then perform our show directly after that. Not only does it take a huge amount of stamina, it also takes a lot of mental ability too because you have to be constantly thinking about ten different things at once. You have to think about your breathing, the dance moves, your vowel shape, the note you have to sing and when to sing it, etc. Most people think we just get up there and sing a simple song and dance a simple dance. People shouldn't judge something that they don't know much about. Keep that in mind the next time you see a show choir perform.
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