#PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Become a ballerina at 25
the royal entertainment for those who likes suffering in style
Text and drawings by Maria Stoyukhina
Act I. Denial of the obvious
Actually I am not quite sporting girl. Self check, discipline, 6 times diet or monotonous exercises were always maddening for me. I could barely spend 3 months in the gym before my willpower was going to be enough and I pause my membership for the next 3 months. It lasted a long time before one incredible thing has happened.
I quit smoking in September 2017. It was an unexpected decision for everyone including me. I was standing on the terrace and smoking a cigarette when suddenly I realised that I will never smoke again because it doesn't give me pleasure anymore. And I really quit the next day. No withdrawal, no urge or reducing the amount of cigarettes per day.
I quit smoking in September 2017. It was an unexpected decision for everyone including me. I was standing on the terrace and smoking a cigarette when suddenly I realised that I will never smoke again because it doesn't give me pleasure anymore. And I really quit the next day. No withdrawal, no urge or reducing the amount of cigarettes per day.
I didn't need that because I didn't feel bad feelings like people trying to «stop smoking», but I missed the point - all daily small rituals of smoking people and had no idea what to do with that.
People call Aristotle the great philosopher not without reason. Of course, not only for his Metaphysics but also for his unique possibility to look inside things and true nature of human beings. Thousands of years have passed and his saying is still alive through time and space: «Consuetudo est altera natura»
It becomes obvious that I need to form asap new traditions to replace old habits of ex-smoker with new.
Act 2. Looking for new opportunities and discovering new horizontals
I wrote about my sport's dislike for a reason. I knew of ballet thanks to it. Wroclaw is not the center of worldwide sport trends and some of them come late to us. I have not lived in Moscow for several years but read about all popular novelties in Russian magazines. That why I have learned about barre-fitness and body-ballet. Won't lie, still have no idea what the difference between them is, but I have already read hundreds of inspired articles about ballerinas' life, their lifestyle, rewatched lots of videos with their trainings on Youtube and I was just dying to know how it feels like to dance ballet! Not something «like» ballet.
One-two-three and Google shows me ballet schools in Wroclaw with free trial training. And I am still so grateful to the article in Lofficiel magazine which confirmed my desire to become a ballerina and certitude that i will definitely like it.
I would like to quote:
One-two-three and Google shows me ballet schools in Wroclaw with free trial training. And I am still so grateful to the article in Lofficiel magazine which confirmed my desire to become a ballerina and certitude that i will definitely like it.
I would like to quote:
“
If you are a philology girl with irrepressible desire for suffering, you will come to the right place!
And here I am, came to my first ballet lesson with hot eyed and ballet shoes in my hands. Interesting start for a girl, who hates any type of activity.
I spoke with the girls I am dancing with, and for them ballet is much more important discovery. For Asia Ślebioda, a philology student, ballet classes were a dream since she was a kid, but there were no ballet school at her home town. In Wroclaw Asia decided to take a chance. And she is the cool dancer with the most delightful pirouettes at our class! Urszula Malinowska is an artist and she is deep in love with art, every form of it. Of course, she couldn't just walk away from ballet, from it s incredibly beautifulness, softness and delicateness.
Every girl at our class is enchanting. I wish one day to talk with all of them and discuss their choice.
I spoke with the girls I am dancing with, and for them ballet is much more important discovery. For Asia Ślebioda, a philology student, ballet classes were a dream since she was a kid, but there were no ballet school at her home town. In Wroclaw Asia decided to take a chance. And she is the cool dancer with the most delightful pirouettes at our class! Urszula Malinowska is an artist and she is deep in love with art, every form of it. Of course, she couldn't just walk away from ballet, from it s incredibly beautifulness, softness and delicateness.
Every girl at our class is enchanting. I wish one day to talk with all of them and discuss their choice.
Act 3. Infinite routine
The classical set of aspiring ballerina includes ballet shoes, black body and hair in a bun. There are no pointes in long perspective because of features of the body structure: in theory grown up can wear pointes but in practice it has a high probability of injury. The problem is stemmed from fingers. They're not trained enough to hold human body weight. That's why the first 6 months or more everyone dances in ballet shoes and make feet stronger.
Well, I was all mentally prepared to face to face with ephemeral frail girls, lifting their legs without any difficulties over my head in this satin packs kingdom. The cute hippo like me could only dream to be welcomed to this community or at least try to live their beautiful life. Anyway I realized later, that the fears I was obsessed over were pretty far-fetched. But the situation, when I am unable to understand what my teacher is trying to say to me and what he is expecting me to do in a language I barely understand was a real cause for concern! Who could've known, hah!
In my opinion ballet is a dynamic motion system of human body and the main idea is control your body or a separate part of it. That is precisely why my misunderstanding of teacher's instructions how to do an exercice correctly was stressful for me at the ballet class for the first month.
Well, I was all mentally prepared to face to face with ephemeral frail girls, lifting their legs without any difficulties over my head in this satin packs kingdom. The cute hippo like me could only dream to be welcomed to this community or at least try to live their beautiful life. Anyway I realized later, that the fears I was obsessed over were pretty far-fetched. But the situation, when I am unable to understand what my teacher is trying to say to me and what he is expecting me to do in a language I barely understand was a real cause for concern! Who could've known, hah!
In my opinion ballet is a dynamic motion system of human body and the main idea is control your body or a separate part of it. That is precisely why my misunderstanding of teacher's instructions how to do an exercice correctly was stressful for me at the ballet class for the first month.
Quite quickly, I adapted to live in these conditions and soon it was enough to see the movement to repeat and does the same. I certainly make mistakes all the time, even in those movements, which I used to consider perfect, but at least I understand where I screw up this time.
I've always wondered how the class is going if being a professional ballet dancer is not your goal. What is the difference between us and them? And can we say that our lessons look like their routine?
Interesting and a very nice detail: in our school for adults classes always comes piano player and we dance of the piano accompaniment of the most famous ballets. Our suffering starts at the barre and there the basic routine takes place. The first chord sounds and we start with classic ballet choreography compositions:
I've always wondered how the class is going if being a professional ballet dancer is not your goal. What is the difference between us and them? And can we say that our lessons look like their routine?
Interesting and a very nice detail: in our school for adults classes always comes piano player and we dance of the piano accompaniment of the most famous ballets. Our suffering starts at the barre and there the basic routine takes place. The first chord sounds and we start with classic ballet choreography compositions:
Demi и grand plie
A bending of the knees
Relevé
A rising up onto full point or half point from the flat of the feet
Piqué
A step in and of itself
Grand battement
A powerful battement action in which the dancer"throws" the working leg as high as possible
Piroutte
The whole body turns on the points of the toes or the ball of one foot
Rond dejamb parterre
The circular movement of the leg
Thanks to ballet class I have become attached to look closely at myself in the mirror and spend sometimes so much time that even my husband is angry with me. I was afraid that everyone will be looking at me giggling because I can't do something, but actually no one cares, because everyone does the same - admired himself in the mirror. When Ania, an economic student, look herself at the mirror she sees as a lot of things she should work on as well as opportunity to work on her body and see the progress she makes. For Asia practicing at barre is the way to focus on and relax. She forgets about her problems, forget about all the world actually and focus only on dancing. It brings her joy and peace. Urszula is fascinating to watch herself in the mirror. She realises at this moment that human body can bear anything and always remembers that she has to love her body the way it is and love art even more.
Ballet classes is the perfect place for that. I learned how to raise my hand with grace, crane my neck and just pray everything would be done perfectly. The day fouetté and piroutte would be done perfectly - will be the best day of my life, I swear.
Ballet classes is the perfect place for that. I learned how to raise my hand with grace, crane my neck and just pray everything would be done perfectly. The day fouetté and piroutte would be done perfectly - will be the best day of my life, I swear.
After barre routine we do other routine: jump, do pas de chat, sisonne, various splits, pirouettes - everything that needs space. In my opinion the main difference between professional and non-professional ballerinas - the number of hours spent at barre. The professional dancers spend most of their time right here while lovers like us only 2 hours per week.
I am a lucky person because I have at once found the best school in Wroclaw. In such specific type of art as ballet, the role of the teacher is an improbably large. My fellows absolutely agree with me. Ania had dance experience in the past and and she believes that the role of the ballet teacher is definitely much more important than a role of hip-hop teacher, for example. Ballet teacher has always look at your posture and every move you take, so your movements will be clean and correct, because every mistake may cost a student an injury. A lot of styles of dance don't require such discipline as ballet, so teachers have less work to do. Though Urszula think that the role of the teacher is important in any case no matter what we dance. Speaking personally, i'm just sure that in a ballet the role of teacher plays a decisive role and he is responsible for if person will stay at ballet classes or will be disappointment. Our teacher - mr. Waldemar is the most passionate person who lives a life of ballet. We all admire him showing us the difficult movements and asking with a smile «Tak prosto?».
Of course not, but who cares?
In December we managed to coax our teacher to let us buy pointe shoes and he promised to consider the possibility of it after recital on February. We were good that evening and finally had a trial by fire. All invited guest were impressed with our performance.
Dancing in pointe shoes is really not so easy but hurts less than I expected. We continue our practice routine twice a week and I hope that this year I'll be able to come on stage in pointe and dance, floating across the stage, seemingly weightless, like a fairy princess and professional ballerina.
Time will show and the show starts!
I am a lucky person because I have at once found the best school in Wroclaw. In such specific type of art as ballet, the role of the teacher is an improbably large. My fellows absolutely agree with me. Ania had dance experience in the past and and she believes that the role of the ballet teacher is definitely much more important than a role of hip-hop teacher, for example. Ballet teacher has always look at your posture and every move you take, so your movements will be clean and correct, because every mistake may cost a student an injury. A lot of styles of dance don't require such discipline as ballet, so teachers have less work to do. Though Urszula think that the role of the teacher is important in any case no matter what we dance. Speaking personally, i'm just sure that in a ballet the role of teacher plays a decisive role and he is responsible for if person will stay at ballet classes or will be disappointment. Our teacher - mr. Waldemar is the most passionate person who lives a life of ballet. We all admire him showing us the difficult movements and asking with a smile «Tak prosto?».
Of course not, but who cares?
In December we managed to coax our teacher to let us buy pointe shoes and he promised to consider the possibility of it after recital on February. We were good that evening and finally had a trial by fire. All invited guest were impressed with our performance.
Dancing in pointe shoes is really not so easy but hurts less than I expected. We continue our practice routine twice a week and I hope that this year I'll be able to come on stage in pointe and dance, floating across the stage, seemingly weightless, like a fairy princess and professional ballerina.
Time will show and the show starts!
