Unconvinced? Look no further than these GIFs.

1. All right, so here we have a GIF of some ice dancers. Right off the bat, it’s pretty clear that the people in this GIF are basically just dancing. They are performing coordinated rhythmic movements according to an established choreography. This, we can agree, is true. But then look at what they’re dancing on: ice!

2. This GIF invites a similar reading. When you look at it, two things immediately stand out: 1) the ice, and 2) the dancing. Never has it been more apparent than in this GIF that ice dancing and dancing on ice are, in fact, one and the same.

3. Take, for instance, this spectacular ice dancing GIF. Notice how the dancing couple is using the ice as a dance floor? Having established the dance-floor nature of the ice, it is now extremely difficult to contend that ice dancing is anything other than dancing on ice. Surely, you agree.

4. Still skeptical? Then consider the following dancing GIF. Obviously, the dancers seen in this GIF are not dancing on ice. But imagine, as an experiment, that they are. Are they not, in this imagined scenario, ice dancing? Of course they are! Very well then. Do you follow?

5. Sure, it’s easy to get thrown off by the ice part, which isn’t like normal dancing that tends to happen on wood or cement. But as this GIF beautifully illustrates, ice dancing is, at its core, dancing that just happens to be done on ice. Observe:

6. Think about it. Is there dancing in this GIF? Yes. Is there a man and a woman? Yes. Is there music? It would seem so, though it is necessarily absent from the GIF, which is by nature a silent medium. Aside from that, everything’s there. It’s just dancing on ice. Ice dancing.

7. And it all points to one conclusion. When you talk about ice dancing, you’re more or less talking about dancing on ice. Though it is true that ice dancers are skating, while regular dancers are just stepping. These are very different skills. Come to think of it, perhaps ice dancing isn’t so neatly summed up as “dancing on ice.” Perhaps it’s more like hockey, which is actually done on the ice. Though it doesn’t really involve dancing. So, in that way, it is not like hockey, but it is like dancing. And there’s definitely some gymnastics in there. Hmm…

8. Nonsense. The thesis holds. As this GIF clearly shows, when broken down to its constituent elements, ice dancing is essentially just dancing on ice. QED.