Want a toned body? Try ballet

File Photo

File Photo

Published Nov 11, 2016

Share

Forget yoga or Pilates: increasing numbers of women in their 40s, 50s and beyond are slipping on their tutus and turning to ballet.

Once seen as an intimidatingly elitist discipline, ballet is being embraced by middle-aged women in a bid to reap the physical and mental benefits of this demanding dance form.

And well they might. Research suggests that ballet maintains flexibility and bone density well into your later years and could also ward off dementia. That’s as well as improving your figure, looks and confidence, relieving stress — and maybe even helping your love life.

READ: Using a smartphone before bed ruins your sleep

Certainly, ballet’s calming effects are one of its big draws for middle-aged women such as Dorothy Flower, 58, a partner in the law firm RPC.

Dorothy lives in Dulwich, South London, with husband Neil, 70, a retired lawyer. They have a son, Nat, 35. ‘I absolutely love my job, but it is immensely stressful,’ she says.

‘I’m almost never home before 9pm, having left the house at eight in the morning, and I frequently work at weekends, sometimes all weekend.’

She has been going to classes every Monday evening for the past 11 years and tries to keep it sacrosanct. ‘I have to focus so intently that I can’t think about deadlines or clients, or anything apart from what my body is doing — or trying to do!’

Dorothy says she wants to carry on ballet dancing well into her 90s and, according to Michelle Groves, director of education and training at the Royal Academy of Dance, there is no reason why not. Ballet teachers around the country are reporting a big increase in middle-aged women signing up for classes, Michelle says.

‘There is absolutely no upper age limit for aspiring ballerinas. One of our oldest learners was in her 80s and we had a student who was 71 who took her first ballet examination.’

Pauline Devine, 60, found that ballet gave her back her strength and confidence after breast cancer.

‘I was diagnosed ten years ago. It was a complete shock. I needed chemotherapy, radiotherapy and multiple operations,’ says Pauline, a retired lawyer who lives with husband Alan, 69, near Hay-on-Wye, Powys.

‘Afterwards, I developed severe depression, which led to me leaving my busy and challenging job. It’s no exaggeration to say that ballet restored my self-esteem.’

Pauline started beginners’ adult classes four years ago, having never danced before. ‘It was quite scary at the beginning,’ she says. ‘But I left that first class feeling thrilled, excited and overwhelmed.’

That might strike some women as counter-intuitive. It may seem that ballet — an art associated with impossibly slim, beautiful young sylphs — is the last thing on earth that would make a middle-aged woman feel better about herself.

But once women actually try it, they feel different, says Michelle Groves.

‘It certainly gives learners more body confidence that radiates out to others,’ she says.

Body confidence is all well and good, but it has to be said that the outfits are not for the faint-hearted.

When you’re wearing pink tights, a leotard and a wispy wrap-around skirt, there is no scope for concealing that tummy-roll. But one big incentive is that women who take regular classes soon acquire an enviable slender figure — and hold onto it.

For any woman who has ever wanted shapelier calves or slimmer thighs, or suffered the twin curses of cellulite and saggy knees, the evidence is clear-cut: ballerinas have great legs.

Dorothy Flower credits her enviably slender figure to her dance lessons, and says her husband is ‘delighted’ she is in such great shape.

‘Regular ballet has made me more flexible and toned, especially on the thighs. I think it’s particularly useful exercise for women over 50 because it gives you an energy and elegance.’

Intrigued, I decided to try it out for myself with a lesson at the London Russian Ballet School.

Like many little girls, I once lived and breathed ballet. One performance of Sleeping Beauty, watched on the family TV in the Seventies, was all it took to transport me into a magical world of tutus and tiaras.

I devoured ballet books and took lessons in a church hall in the North East with a semi-tuned piano, where I dreamed of being barked at by an instructor from the Bolshoi.

The only problem was that while the other dainty little girls executed perfect pirouettes, I lolled about plumply in my black leotard, looking for all the world like a baby seal squirming on a rock.

Mercifully, for all concerned, I soon abandoned my eight-year-old ballerina fantasies. But the daydream hasn’t died completely.

When I arrive at the class, shaking with nerves, I question my sanity — because this is not just any old ballet school.

The LRBS was founded in the mid-2000s by Harriet Pickering and Evgeny Goremykin, who was a leading soloist at the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, where he danced for more than 20 years.

It’s the only one in the UK to offer training in the ultra-demanding Russian technique, which is more athletic and gymnastic than the English system.

Based in South-West London, it takes a small number of full-time students for ballet training alongside academic study, and offers classes after school for talented local youngsters.

To help finance classes for poorer students, it offers lessons to ‘adult amateurs’, or people like me.

Inga George, who has been given the unenviable task of taking me for my first class in four decades, was a leading ballerina at the Georgian National Opera and Ballet Theatre. So far, so daunting.

‘We don’t baby people, not even the beginners,’ says Harriet. ‘The Russian system has produced some amazing dancers. It is very tough. Very uncompromising.’

READ: Why stress makes you fat

We start off with simple head rolls, and progress through basic work at the barre. It’s very hard, both physically and mentally: even basic pliés (bends from the knees) are tough on my legs.

‘Don’t stretch elbows!’ orders Inga, who displays astounding reserves of forbearance.

At her command, I raise myself onto my toes and think it best not to mention the agonising cramp in my calf muscle.

I can’t seem to get my feet in Fifth Position (a standard placement of the feet) and keep forgetting to point my nose daintily at the end of each manoeuvre.

But even with my limitations, ballet is already making me feel more graceful and feminine.

From the instant that Inga tells me how to stand, how to balance and how to move my arms and hands, I feel more poised and more powerful. That confidence-boosting effect is not unusual. ‘Ballet is about how to present yourself,’ explains Harriet. ‘If you stand better, you look better. If you walk into a bar and are a single woman, it gives you a certain power.’

The boom in later-life ballet means forty or fiftysomething is no longer considered a particularly advanced age for a dancer.

‘We get phone calls from women who think they can’t do it because they think they are a bit fat, or out of shape — but they can,’ says Harriet. ‘Ballet is for everyone: all ages, all shapes, all sizes.’

And there may be even better hidden benefits.

‘I’m not sure if ballet can actually improve your love life, but it is glamour and we all need a bit of glamour,’ adds Harriet.

Christina Lock, 68, who lives with husband Barrie, 70, in Petersfield, Hampshire, did not take up ballet until she retired ten years ago, after last having a few lessons as a girl.

‘It was very daunting to do it again after 45 years,’ she recalls. ‘At 58, I was the oldest in the group and felt quite nervous. But I loved it immediately.

‘I’ve done every kind of exercise — from aerobics to yoga and running — but nothing compares with ballet. The feelgood factor is immense and there’s a wholeness to it as a form of exercise: it touches your mind, body and soul.

‘It’s hard work physically, although gentle on an older body because it leaves you feeling supple, but it’s also good for your brain because you have to co-ordinate yourself. I always leave feeling like a million dollars.’

Michelle Groves says that the advantages of ballet go way beyond the purely physical. ‘In terms of fitness, it improves muscle tone, which helps as we get older and things start to go south,’ she says.

‘Ballet improves core strength and flexibility, which help with balance and co-ordination. It promotes good posture, which makes you feel and look younger.

‘What is less well-known is that it can help people mentally in terms of improving long-term memory. You have to remember the steps, which can be a lot harder than you would think. There are studies that say dance helps with dementia and Parkinson’s.’

Psychotherapist and author Christine Webber, 62, from Brighton, where she lives with her husband David, agrees. She believes studying ballet has made her brain sharper than ever. She started lessons in 2009, after her mother opposed it when she was a child, and now takes three classes a week.

‘It’s not just my physical condition that has improved immeasurably — particularly my balance and core strength — but, after about six months, I was surprised to notice that my brain felt sharper, too,’ says Christine. ‘Remarkably so. The extra energy has led me to decide to return to writing fiction after 29 years of writing self-help books.’

For busy mums, a ballet lesson can be an excellent way of taking time for themselves.

Louise Nevin, 51, who lives in Highgate, North London, with her husband Mark, 56, a songwriter and psychotherapist, says ballet is her break from motherhood.

She is a violinist, with three sons aged 12, ten and five, and took up ballet in 2013 after seeing an advert for a class with a crèche in a local church hall.

‘My youngest son started school this year, but my life as a mother is still very busy. I don’t get much time to myself but, for me, my ballet class is a precious hour or so in my week which provides that.

‘If you go to a class wound up about something, you end up forgetting all about it because you have to concentrate so closely.’

After my own lesson is over, I look in on a class of young students Evgeny Goremykin is teaching.

He is strict, pouncing like a hawk. Then he spots me. ‘You. Hold the barre,’ he says. I obey instantly — and my heart lifts.

Finally, I’ve been barked at by a Russian ballet master from the Bolshoi. I’m never going to be the next Darcey Bussell but, 40 years on, at least one bit of the dream has come true.

Daily Mail

Related Topics: