Balance and turns

I danced ballet for six years, until I was 14 and didn’t want to anymore. I had taken classes several times a week, danced in Nutrackers and Coppelia and Giselle, in pointe shoes and tutus, with girls both mean and sweet. Some of those girls had stiff flappy arms and “feet like milquetoast,” as my larger-than-life teacher would say. Others got better and better until they were whipping out double pirouettes and leaping through solos, their svelte bodies completely under their command. I was in the middle, not bad but not the best. I had graceful arms and good feet, but not a remarkable amount of strength or precision. I wasn’t overweight, but I wasn’t the slenderest. Middling.

When I joined the company as an apprentice and graduated to dancing pointe, everything became harder. I couldn’t seem to keep up as well as I had before. The competition among the girls was more blatant. I started dreading class. I looked at my body in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and was disappointed. I imagined doing other things after school. And I decided to stop.

It was a big decision for a 14-year-old, and I can still remember my mom standing in my bedroom doorway, motionless and stricken, as I told her the news. It was the right thing for me to do, and I didn’t regret it, but it closed the door on a big part of my life. I nudged it open once in awhile by dancing in a school play, or writing about my experiences in a college workshop, or attending Joffrey performances here in Chicago. But I never took another class until a few weeks ago.

I actually can’t remember now where I got the idea. I still love the art form, and I think I suddenly realized that I could be part of it in that physical way again—put on ballet shoes and practice tendues and developés, follow my hand with my eyes as I Iift it to first position. What did I have to lose? If I didn’t like dancing, I could just stop. So I looked for a low-key adult beginner class and found a well-regarded studio right in my neighborhood. I Googled whether you need to wear a bra with a leotard. (Seriously, I could not remember how I used to handle that. The answer for me: no.) I went to a dance shop and bought a leotard, footless tights, and canvas shoes. I had strange, angsty dreams. And then I showed up on a Saturday morning, and I danced ballet for an hour.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for the past few weeks, now that I’ve taken four classes. The surrealness is wearing off a bit. That first class was alternately amazing and conflicting and just beautifully strange. I could not believe how much my mind and body remembered. I could hear my old teacher’s voice in my head, guiding us through the steps. My feet could still point the way they always had, and my legs felt strong and sharp, my arms and hands graceful. My balance, though—good lord. You’d think my core was made of Jello. And could it be that at 35, my memory’s starting to fuzz around the edges? Or was it always this tough to memorize the combinations?

My classmates were mostly women, some younger and some older. Most of them had danced at a young age like me. One of the things I noticed right away was this beautiful open space where the judging used to be—we weren’t sizing each other up, dividing the good and the bad and the middling, bringing the politics of popularity into the mix. We were just spending our Saturday morning doing something that we enjoyed, getting some exercise, admiring and listening to our lithe, petite 50-something teacher who has obviously been a professional ballerina all her life.

So much is different. Instead of an actual piano or a scratchy record player, the music comes from an iPod. My hand that holds the barre has a wedding ring on it. My hair isn’t in a bun, studded with bobby pins and secured with a net; I need my mom for that, so a ponytail does the job. It feels unnatural to turn out my feet, to balance in a passé relevé. Have I mentioned the lack of balance?

So much is the same. I take an inordinate amount of pleasure in doing barre work, just like I always did. Thanks to running and strength training, I’m in decent shape, much as I was back when I was dancing several days a week. My grand battements look pretty darn good. I know how to hold my head, and I don’t sickle my feet. I think my body’s proportions are pretty much the same. Also, newsflash: It still takes a healthy dose of courage to watch yourself move around in a leotard and tights.

My body still doesn’t do what real dancers’ bodies should do. I still am not one of the best. And see, there’s the thing, one of the reasons I’m especially glad to be taking this class. I have always been a perfectionist, a child who abhorred coloring outside the lines, who became accustomed to getting A’s, who was a good writer, a group leader, someone who got the job, who got promoted. Who set goal times for races and then, almost always, achieved them.

The first winter that John and I were dating, he bought me a pair of ice skates so we could go skating together. I didn’t know how to skate. A few turns around the crowded rink, clutching an orange road cone for dear life while 10-year-olds soared past, turned me off completely. I didn’t feel like I could do it, and that embarrassed me greatly, and I put the ice skates away and never used them again.

Being a perfectionist is both a good and a bad thing, of course, and I’ve always felt bad about those skates. So for the past four Saturdays, as I’ve faced myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror and realized I am not the best or thinnest dancer in the room, nor will I ever be, I’ve also told myself that that’s OK. I am not there to be the best and thinnest dancer in the room. I am not there to spin double pirouettes and be cast in the right parts. I am there because I love ballet, and I want to work my body, and it feels good to get in touch with that long-ago part of myself that danced these same steps.

If I can learn that, really learn that, along with balance and turns and combinations, I think this will be one of the best decisions I’ve yet to make for myself. My teacher says that balance can be strengthened simply by standing on one foot as you wait for the train. It can become second nature. I’m going to believe that’s true.