“It was the best performance we’ve done by far!” all said by junior sensation dancers Shaffer Brown, Payton Leap, and Sanya Suri. FHC’s Sensations are reflecting over their wonderful performance at Nationals while awaiting for state which will be held next week. Varsity sensations performed past the second round in semis but could not make it to finals. In jazz, sensations unfortunately did not make it past prelims. Despite the loss, the team feels like the performances for both were the finest they’ve ever done. Shaffer Brown recalled that they. nailed their tricks and had outstanding energy. 

“We landed all of our tricks, we had our heads up, we had faces, and we had tons of energy; these are key elements that other teams might not have,” said Brown.

Along with having energy and positive vibes, the team had amazing synergism and coordination with one another. Payton Leap tells that the team has gotten closer together ever since 6 seniors left the team in the previous 2018-2019 school year, and they’ve performed the best as a whole.

“We all were finally working as a team and we all felt a vibe from it; we felt really good,” Leap said. 

The Nationals held over 1,200 teams from 36 different states, consisting of 25,000 athletes at Walt Disney, while nearly 80,000 attended the performance. The team held mixed feelings for it, feeling intimidated or excited entering the competition. Leap felt nervous about performing, feeling anxious for the numerous teams they were against in the category they were in. 

“I was very nervous because usually we’re in the medium category, but this year we were in the smaller category, so there were a bunch of new teams,” Leap said. 

Some felt exhilarating energy and thrilled to enter the performance and determined to succeed and move forward in the competition. Brown felt determined that they would win over their other opponents. Although they went through knock downs, Brown feels like they would move forward and keep their heads up like they did before. 

“We felt very hungry, and determined to win and beat all the other teams; we’ve worked so hard and we’ve kept pushing forward,” Brown said

The performance strengthened the team’s bond to each other, and they became more connected like a family. Suri thinks that this bond helped them become more motivated and harder workers. The team believes that since they have come together and become closer together, they’ve succeeded and gone much further than where they started

We became such a close group of people and became more like a family, which made us more close knit as a team,” Suri said. “It makes us motivate each other more and look out for each other.”

Reflecting over nationals, Leap is motivated to perform harder and is determined to do better at State. State’s competition is next week and is their final major competition. 

“It’s made me want to work harder since we didn’t get to make it to finals, and it’s made me want to try my hardest and do better so we can do good at state,” Leap said. 

Sensations are feeling prepped and ready to give it their all at State, and they feel determined to win. Brown wants to show how far they’ve come in the season and is ready to show how astounding their dances are.

“We feel very prepared and very determined to succeed there; Our goal is to become state champions, and we want to show them what we’re made of and how much we’ve worked,” Brown said.