Preseason football workouts have already begun as the players look to get a leg up on the competition. Some players will weight train, others will run, but all should dance.

No one would expect two hundred pound, 6’2” former defensive lineman Arnold Taylor (’06) to do ballet. But, in his sophomore year, Taylor got involved in just that in addition to his promising athletic career, and reaped the benefits from the ballet’s focus on footwork.

A current senior at the Naval academy, Taylor ignored the skepticism of others and instead followed in the footsteps of many athletes before him and signed up for ballet in 2004. Greenbay Packers wide receiver Donald Driver is an avid believer in the benefits of moving yoga, and the entire Detroit Lions football team takes a Pilates class once a week.

“Ballet helped me strengthen my mind and focus on the task at hand,” Taylor says. “Whether in dance, school or on the field, it taught me to concentrate so I could perform my best.”

Although ballet would eventually help Taylor athletically, he originally joined after advice from his karate instructor. In the beginning, Taylor never entertained the idea that ballet would help him with other sports, but after several intensive dance workout schedules, he saw not only his dance, but his game improve.

“I never expected ballet to help me from getting injured, but it increased my flexibility so I was able to take hits that would have knocked out other guys,” Taylor says.

Though he received flack from his teammates at the beginning of his dance career, Taylor says that they came around when they saw how much he had gained from it.

“Football and ballet are very similar yet very different,” Taylor says. “They both involve intensive workouts and a lot of focus, but have huge obvious differences.”

However, Taylor is not the only Whitman football player to gain focus and improve his technique through dance. Current linebacker Tony Atkinson found the fancy footwork and fast paced rhythm of the popular dance video game, Dance Dance Revolution, essential to his success on the field.

DDR is a video game in which a player stands on a special mat, and dances along with the instructions on the TV screen. Levels range from beginner to expert, and get much faster as the game goes on.

“I made it to expert after a few weeks of playing,” Atkinson says. “My feet would be moving so fast that I would have to hold on to a chair to balance myself.”

The maneuverability that Atkinson has gained through hours of DDR has transferred onto the football field, where he found himself more easily dodging opponents and staying lighter on his feet.

“It was crazy how much I improved through just a video game,” Atkinson says. “I started playing DDR just for fun, but stuck with it to improve my game.”Atkinson’s teammates found his endeavor humorous, but nothing out of the ordinary.

“Tony has always been a video game junkie,” teammate Zach Yamamotto says. “It didn’t really surprise any of us that he was playing DDR. To tell the truth, I think we all were just surprised that it helped him so much.”

Yamamotto was not the only one shocked at the unexpected advantages that Atkinson gained through dance.

“Dancing might be out of the ordinary for the normal high school football player,” Atkinson says. “But to all the haters out there: don’t put it down before trying it.”