Wanting to win does not make you mean.
Competing hard and being a good human at the same time.
Competitive and kind are not opposites. The strongest competitors want to win AND want everyone around them to dance their best, because beating someone at their best is the only win that means anything.
The healthiest kind of competitive is trying to beat your own last performance. Cleaner turns than last time. Sharper landings than last month. That scoreboard is always available and it never requires anyone else to lose.
When your main rival is yesterday-you, other dancers stop being enemies and start being people on the same journey.
Clapping for someone else does not take points off your score. Cheering for a teammate, or even a girl from another studio, costs you nothing and tells everyone watching exactly who you are.
And here is the fun part: the girls you cheer for tend to cheer back. Competition season is a lot more fun with friends in every studio jacket.
You will lose sometimes. Everyone does. When it happens, you get about ten seconds to decide who you are: congratulate the winner, thank your teachers, feel the sting privately, and get back to work.
It is okay to be disappointed. It is okay to cry in the car. It is not okay to blame judges, teammates, or the girl who won. Disappointment is honest. Bitterness is a choice.
When you win, celebrate. You earned it. Then remember how the second-place girl feels, because you have been her, and you will be her again.
Say something kind to the dancers around you. Thank your teachers. Hug your mom. Trophies tarnish, but the way you treat people when you win is remembered forever.