A couple of weeks ago, I went through a brief, but intense existential crisis having to do with ballet. After a couple of rough days of classes, I started questioning if it was time for me to quit taking classes. Turning 40 has hit me pretty hard. 30 did the same way. Most people don’t experience what I’ve experienced, but for me, I felt pretty intense physical changes almost immediately. Sure, maybe it’s all in my head, but it’s enough to be palpable and both times I questioned how I should continue.
I didn’t stop, and I kept going into classes. My schedule changed the following week, and I ended up in different classes than I usually take. Because these are open classes, they are always mixed levels, but some are labeled “beginner/intermediate,” while others are “intermediate/advanced”. Usually, I am in the latter, but for the schedule change, I took the former. We were doing a combination at the barre one day, one that was more complicated that it initially seemed, and one of the students felt frustrated because she felt “like a noodle” (if you’ve taken ballet, you get this). This was a reality check for me, as the teacher told the class we all feel like noodles sometimes. You can look at someone who seems like they have it all together, and they are actually feeling like a noodle. We just have to be comfortable feeling uncomfortable if we’re going to be in ballet, and doing our best to feel better class to class.
This hit me at the perfect time, because I went into that class barely feeling like I should be there. It’s very difficult to know what you could do at one point in your life, and having to come to terms with what you are capable of right now. But, the mindset has to shift to what I “can” still do, rather than what I “can’t” do. I love ballet, and love dancing, and I want to continue as long as I can. My Mom had her best dancing years in her 40’s and still made plenty of gains, and I have to remember that and hold her memory close.
On another issue, I’m lifting weights again, and this time, I’m never going to stop. I love lifting, but there have been times when I felt like it made me overly bulky when I’m already very muscular. But, it’s time for this mindset to shift as well. Now that I’m over 40 and looking into the next phase of my life, I’ve got to take care of my body differently. My husband is much older than me and has maintained his health through weights since he was a teen. He has to alter how heavy he lifts and what he does, but no matter what the routine, it’s always been a combination of weights and sprinting for him, and it’s worked great. His birthday rolled around, and he did a leg workout and ran sprints. I’m also going to add in running sprints a few days a week.
Since I’ve been lifting, I’ve felt stronger in my ballet classes, and especially PBT. Which seems kind of weird, because the routine I’m following has nothing to do with dance. There’s a lot of different opinions in the dance world about how to cross train, with some people following workout routines that look like Extreme Ballet (adding leg or arm weights and bands but continuing with ballet exercises), and ranging to more what I’m doing, which is anything but ballet. I don’t have the answer for what is the “best” one. The concensus is that we should be cross-training, but there is zero concensus on what cross-training should be for dancers.
Unpopular opinion from me? My personal jury is still out on all of it. Not that I’m saying don’t cross train, but the best dancers I’ve ever seen are still from the 80’s, and they didn’t cross train like we do today. I think sometimes we forget that ballet is a workout and is athletic, and if we are sacrificing in time just doing what ballet is on doing what ballet isn’t, there’s a possibility that it might work against us more than for us. And, our bodies need rest as much as they need more work, and sometimes we forget that rest is work for our muscles. Overdoing it is a thing, in and of itself.
The most progress I made in my life I was dancing no more than 2 1/2 hours a day, 5 days a week, and I had so much school work on top of it that I didn’t cross-train. Today, we put dancers in full-time day programs, and there’s a lot of bragging about dancing 20 or 30 or 40 hours a week, and then doing a million summer intensives. But, I just don’t see the entirety of the ballet world running this schedule getting better by doing this, and it’s making me question a lot of things, including many of my own former opinions on it.
Again, I’m not saying we should suddenly change course and not cross-train, but I’ve been interested in the fact that I’ve found such positive changes from a weight lifting routine that is not intended for dancers at all. When I taught fitness for ballet dancers, I tried to do a little bit of everything, but I always tried to include the exercises I’m doing now, and not keep it solely to the “Extreme Ballet” exercises. Again, I’m not saying those are bad either, but it’s all a big experiment, and it’s also going to vary person to person what benefits them the most. I think we all have to run our own experiment to see what works.