When I was three years old I wanted to be like Nadia Comaneci. I didn’t quite understand what the Olympics was back then, nor what the hell this girl was doing on those bars. But I was entranced by her every movement and what she could do with her body. Every somersault, every twirl, every split, leap and landing – even to a mere 3-year-old was the image of beauty and perfection. And I told my mother I wanted to be just like that. I wanted to be a gymnast!
Of course she had other ideas and enrolled me in ballet instead. I can’t recall what my first classes were like, but I must’ve enjoyed them quite a bit as I slowly forgot about my girl crush on Nadia and her kick-ass swings on the parallel bars. The fascination I once had in seeing such exquisite form on a pommel horse was replaced by the sheer excitement in simply slipping my small ugly dance feet into a new pair of Capezio’s. With the ribbons. Oh, those lovely pink satin ribbons. The smoothness of the pale rose-coloured strips of heavenly fabric was what made the slippers. All of a sudden, my quasi arch-less feet didn’t look as bad anymore. At the very least, they came close to looking a bit more like a real ballerina’s. And made me feel like one too. I became pretty engrossed in ballet that I had forgotten I was even interested in gymnastics in the first place.
But unfortunately, my love for ballet started to wane as I got a little older. I became a bit more tomboyish, spending a lot of time with two guy cousins my age. I wanted to do judo like they did. I played with their Tonkas and action figures, and built robots with Lego. Soon, I was feeling pressured to be going to ballet class when I could be roughing it up with the boys on a Saturday afternoon. I didn’t care about scraping my knees gliding down their driveway on a skateboard. I also started to care less for pink, and would later be nauseated at the fact that my whole room and almost everything in it was bloody pink. I started to puke pink and for the next 30 or so years never even wore the damn colour.
I must’ve been around 11 or 12 when I eventually quit ballet shortly after a Christmas recital. I was so happy to not have to give up my weekday afternoons and Saturdays to dance that I’ve never looked back on it since. Until now.
And this is where my new journey as a returning ballet dancer begins.
Ballet Bones 