Moshing: the deliberate act of colliding with other people while jumping up and down, usually occurring when students are especially “hyped” or “lit” at school dances. As of last year, it has been banned, though it continues to happen. 

No moshing means no more pointless injuries or being wedged between jumping, sweaty bodies. No more coming back home smelling like a blend of various perfumes, sweat and other preferably unnamed smells. 

After attending this year’s Homecoming dance, I’m actually quite thankful that moshing has been targeted for elimination. Personally, if I were to ever spend $100 on a suit, I’d find it rather annoying if some teenagers decided to ruin it with their moshing. 

This year, after moshing at the Homecoming dance — a terrible idea — I came home smelling like alcohol, a blend of perfumes from Victoria’s Secret and Marc Jacobs and colognes from Old Spice, and the odor of at least 20 other people. It was not pleasant.

Even worse, after coming home, my mother was very suspicious. I think she thought I was doing something sketchy and not entirely legal. Fortunately, I was able to explain to my mother that moshing was the reason I smelled the way I did. That was a pretty close call.

It doesn’t help that moshing is also extremely dangerous. Plenty of people have been severely injured after getting hit or trampled on during a mosh pit. 

As a water polo player, if I were to ever suffer a serious injury from moshing, I would not only miss multiple games and set back my career as an athlete, but my coaches and my teammates would also brutally embarrass me for the rest of high school life (and maybe longer).

So why exactly are some people disappointed by the ban on moshing? I have no idea, but we’d probably all be better off if we weren’t colliding into each other and risking all kinds of unpleasant and dangerous results.