Like so many of the best and worst things in life, it sounded like a good idea at the time. Passing by the bulletin board at the Parks Department rec center where I swim and run every morning, I found a flyer announcing that beginner adult ballet classes would start October 6. In general I eschew things that emphasize grace and form, like ballet. I had taken ballet lessons when I was four, and again when I was 12, but the lessons never really took; as a child I was clumsy and graceless, as an adult, I was convinced that clumsiness and gracelessness was just my lot in life, and I’d best adapt. Ballet was just not mine to have. Then again, I’d never thought that inflexibility and stiff joints and short, tight muscles were mine to have, either, but I’d been having them, and they were turning me into the shuffling, haunted shadow of myself I’d become this summer. I was tired of my knees hurting, tired of being unable to do a quad stretch, tired of being horrified every time I caught a glimpse of myself walking by a store window. Fate, watching all of this and smiling, placed in my path my long-lost copy of Sex Tips for Girls by Cynthia Heimel, where I found this inspiring passage:
Also called “flexibility training,” stretching seems of minimal importance—just something you do when you wake up—until one day you notice a dancer take her ankle and put it nonchalantly behind her neck. Then, naturally, all the ramifications are manifest, and one understands why men are always fantasizing about dancers.
I signed up for Adult Ballet the next day.
“Hmm, you’re the only person who’s signed up for class,” said the desk clerk at the Rec Center as I wrote the check. This could only be a sign of good things, I thought. It’s a beginner class, so we won’t be doing anything too difficult; it’s an adult beginner class, so we really won’t be doing anything too difficult; and look, I’m the only person in class! And the class isn’t being cancelled for low enrollment! Woohoo! I went to Capezio and bought a pair of leather ballet flats, feeling the part more and more with each passing day.
On the first day of class, I showed up at the Rec Center, sweaty, out-of-breath and laden down with 20 pounds of vegetables, thanks to a subway mishegoss that prevented me from taking the vegetables home before class. I changed into an oversized t-shirt and the lycra tights I wear when I run, and my brand-spanking new ballet flats. I sat down outside the studio, where a Pilates class was finishing up—and looked up to see a stunning young Asian woman, dressed in a leotard and a pair of sweats rolled around her hips in the way that only dancers can roll them, sit down and slip on her own ballet shoes. Her shoulder was narrower than my ankle. We walked into the studio together, where we were joined by three other people: a leggy, sporty brunette who said she was not a dancer, but who obviously did plenty of biking and rock climbing; a woman in her late 60’s or early 70’s, who had taken the previous class over the summer and who obviously knew what she was doing; and a young woman barely out of her teens, with perfect posture and the tiniest waist I’d ever seen. As we moved the barre to the middle of the room, the tiny-waisted woman brought her left leg to the top of the barre and began doing demiplies with her right leg. I looked at myself in the mirror and knew I had made a huge mistake.
Dear friends, I wanted to run. I looked in the mirror, at everything that looked nice and curvy when I’d left the house that morning, only to look wide and shapeless at that moment. I looked at arms, breasts, legs, those ridiculous slippers on my feet, and thought, why? what am I doing here? I wanted to run, but I did not. I thought of the voice mail Bunni had left me as I dragged 20 pounds of vegetables up a staircase, the one where she patted me on the back for trying something new and potentially spooky, and reminded me that I came to class with a tremendous advantage, namely, that I was not depending on ballet for my livelihood, and thus was free to relax and have fun. I also thought, as I often do when I am faced with a daunting challenge, of Lisa Simpson at military school, who replied to Bart’s impatient “I thought you came here for a challenge!” with “Duh! A challenge that I could *do*!”
We started slowly, sitting on the floor, holding one foot, then the other, by the metatarsal, rotating it gently, feeling the interconnectedness of our bones and muscles. I don’t think I’d ever considered my feet all that carefully, except, of course, in a disparaging manner ("Look at the size of those feet! I have meat feet!") We curled back onto the floor, one vertebra at a time, stretched, released, stretched again, rolled up one vertebra at a time, and I thought that I just might get the hang of this. Then we began learning the positions, and I nearly lost my nerve all over again. Assuming first position is tricky when you have big calves; holding your arms in low fifth position when your triceps and breasts are in the way is even trickier. I lost count of how many of these moments I had, moments where I wanted to flee the room and holler no, no, no! Mistakes have been made! But no, I was here for a challenge, and not necessarily a challenge I could do. I stayed. I stayed through every demiplie, every tendu, every degage, every grand plie—and then it clicked. Our teacher, a firm, no-nonsense, warm, funny woman, was helping one of the dancers correct her form. She described the process of being aware of your spinal column, of how it should feel when your knees and hips and feet are in alignment, of how your shoulders and neck feel when you consider their relationship to your spine. I listened to her, and I looked in the mirror, really looked for the first time, and decided at that moment to stop standing in the way that I thought would hide me most effectively, and to stand instead in the way that would keep me in alignment, belly and bum be damned. I can’t say it was graceful, but I can say that there was a shape, evoking movement and eventual power; it would carry me through grands plies and jumps and arabesques; and it was mine.
About fifteen minutes before the end of class, the teacher looked me full in the eye. “You’re not doing badly,” she said. “Not badly at all. We’re covering more than I usually cover in a beginner class.” I have never been so glad to be called “not bad” in my life. I have the rest of the class, and the rest of my life, to put my ankle nonchalantly behind my neck. For now, I am just fine with being Not Bad.