Hours before the dawn breaks, I board a bus wearing warm-up sweats, my hair already pulled back ready to be set in a tight bun. I lug a large bag filled with the many items needed for the day and a garment bag keeping my precious costumes away from anything that could damage them. As the bus starts its trek, we grab our pillows and blankets and try to catch a few snoozes before arriving. Towards the end of our trip there, our routine music fills the air and we sit and think of the routine. Visualization is somehow extremely helpful.

Several hours later we arrive at our home for the next 10 or so hours. The smell of hairspray and makeup wafts through the school and an electricity ignites the air. Sensing the nerves and the excitement, we walk through the school to our designated room.

The next hour, we scramble to get our hair done and our makeup on. My hair is slicked back with ridiculous amounts of gel and hairspray - which is discovered to be an equal rival to cement. No, there is no way my hair is coming undone on the floor today. To add to that, my coaches paste a strip of rhinestones to the top of my head along my part with eyelash glue - that I know will take me at least an hour and three shampoos to get out.
Makeup is caked on - foundation, three or four layers of eyeshadow, fake eyelashes, eyeliner, bronzer, blush, and two layers of bright red lipstick.
My tights and first costume are already on, in addition to my warm-up sweatpants and jacket.
With a nervous flutter in my stomach and hairspray fumes filling my nostrils, I begin to stretch out to the soft music playing in the background.
Before I know it, we're rushed off to our floor-check time. The next 5 minutes none of us talk, except the coaches, who demand to move 4 inches to the left or stand on just outside that line. We're lucky if we even have time to run through the routine.
We walk quietly in a straight line back to the room. Remember 3rd grade? Exactly like that.
Back at the room we sit in a circle, close our eyes, and imagine our routine as the music is played.
In between, we grabbed bananas, apples, carrots, or celery to keep our stomachs from growling.
Then it's time for the Parade of Athletes. We line up for our entrance, our arms glued to our sides, smiling straight up to our parents and other spectators. We're proud to wear the name "Centahnas" - it means something. It's not just a dance team - it's family. A family of sisters who love to dance - so much so that we're willing to put our bodies through hours of scrutinizing work to create perfection to music.

Soon it's performance time. We line up in the shoot, completely silent, doing some last stretches and trying to perfect our technique on the things we forget and the things we don't do perfectly. My stomach flutters and my legs feel like jello. I get in "the zone"...that moment when I hear nothing else and think nothing else except a keen awareness of our impending routine. I hear nothing around me, just myself counting in my head "5-6-7-8", thinking of the routine.
Then before we're announced, we gather, peering into the gym. Our parents, flooding the middle section of the stands with red white and blue, cheer loudly for us. "CENTAHNAS! CENTAHNAS! CENTAHNAS!" They hold up letters spelling our team name.
And now, the "Century Centahnas with 'Paint it Black'. The choreographers are ...." and as we're announced, we run out onto the floor, quickly finding our spots and getting in our first pose. We wait as our heart pounds, preparing for that first beat. "What's my first move?" I think.

The music starts, my body starts moving, and for the next 3 minutes, my heart pounds, adrenaline shooting through my body as I smile, wink, and make cute facials way up into the crowd. Before I can feel it, the music ends and I land in my final pose. I wait to hear "5-6-7-8", and I get up with the rest of my team to quickly and quietly move off the floor.

Now it's time to get ready for the next routine - quick change costumes, change hair-pieces, change shoes! We do this 2 other times for more routines, and finally we sit to watch our competition. They're good. But so are we. They practice hard. But so do we. They practice for hours and hours. So do we. They love to dance. But so do we.

Once everyone finishes, all the teams gather on the floor in their respective circles and jam to the music played on the speakers while the judges scores are tallied. When it's finally time for them to be announced, we sit on the floor, crossed our arms and holding hands as we wait in suspense. We scream, jumping up and down, when our name is called. Sometimes we placed really well, 2nd and 3rd, sometimes we placed not as well, like 5th. But we're still proud of how we danced! Our parents flood the floor with their cameras, ready to snap several hundred photos of us with our trophies.

And finally, it's time to pack up and head home. It's around 6 pm. The three hour bus ride back is filled with everyone watching the routines on their home cameras, watching how they did and how everything looked. Constantly analyzing our every move, we make mental notes to remember that for the next practice.

And somewhere around 9 or 10, we finally arrive home, exhausted from the day, but proud of how it went.

This is where I belong. I belong in the land of dance competitions - spending a Saturday at a school filled with parents sporting their child's team's colors, dancers wearing their costumes and warmup sweats, a land filled with the aroma of sweat, hairspray, makeup, and the air filled with music and the cheers from the crowd.

This is familiarity. This is exhilarating. This is long and tired hours. This is so much hard work all coming down to one day of competition - about 9 mintues worth of dancing and hours worth of waiting and watching. This...this is home.