At 35, I learned ballet

Once I hit my 30s, complaints about the signs of encroaching old age were no longer half-jokes. The chronic back pain, the stiff joints — it all became too real.

Among the fitness goals I had set back when I was much younger — those that I’ve failed to achieve — started to look like impossible dreams. Plus, whatever I believed to be the limitations of my body, solidified through years of repeating them like a refrain from a Top 40 earworm — “I’m not genetically predisposed to develop abs, I’m not flexible” — feel like immutable facts.

Taking ballet classes at 35 didn’t magically unravel any of these, but it did jolt me out of what I had thought was an already good understanding of my own body.

Illustration by Jannielyn Ann Bigtas/GMA News

I originally intended ballet to be a distraction from some emotional stuff I was going through last year. Given its reputation as one of the more technique-specific performing arts, I thought it would give me at least one hour of respite every week from thinking about anything else except what I’d be doing at the barre.

Eight months in, ballet is still as difficult as I had expected it to be — and my progress happens at a glacial pace — but within that difficulty is a lesson on how I should trust my body more and give it more credit than what I used to.

It’s not a totally new sensation; ages ago, I felt a similar kind of wonder three years into a semi-vigorous Vinyasa yoga practice. But something about how physically demanding ballet is makes it easier for me to leave my ego and most of my preconceptions outside the studio door.

Doing a plié, for example, which is one of the most basic but also most important steps in ballet, requires me to think not only about bending my knees as they point to the side but also how the rest of my body is aligned so that my back remains long and neither my butt nor my chest stick out; I can’t just “drop it low” to the ground like I’m in some dancehall competition.

Moving even just one limb requires the engagement of so many other muscles for stability, proper form, and those all-important lines, which make ballet beautiful to watch. As someone who is never the most graceful person in the room, that means tons of physical and mental work — and that’s just for one movement, never mind a complete choreography.

The discipline that ballet requires from me still gets me anxious before every class, but I manage it by trusting that I’d get the necessary corrections from my teacher whenever I need them (and I need them a lot). All I have to do is to listen, follow, and push myself to do my best.

I go to adult ballet class thrice a week — two weeknights after work and Saturday mornings — at The Lisa Macuja School of Ballet Manila.

Not only does that make my classes legit, it also comes with the pedigree that I’m being taught the notoriously rigorous Vaganova method at the only Filipino ballet school with official ties to the Russian Ballet Academy.

I’m pointing out these details to drive home the point that on top of ballet already being intimidating as it is, the training I’m getting isn’t exactly for folks who have low ambitions and expectations for themselves. 

Now, I have no dreams or illusions of becoming a professional ballet dancer; that horse has long left the stable and is now at the glue factory.

But when you’re at an age where you rightfully feel that you’ve seen, done, and undergone your fair share of sh*t, both good and bad, it’s nice to get swept up into something that’s not just new but also challenging enough to keep you interested and motivated.

In fact, I got interested in ballet to such a level that I said, “Sure, why not?” when the opportunity to join a dance recital came twice. Two dance recitals in just eight months at age 35 — not too bad, no?

But none of that would’ve happened in the hands of a more lackadaisical mentor. So props to my teacher Robert Peralta for being critical and demanding enough to keep me in line during class, for being so supportive and encouraging whenever anxiety gets the better of me, and for consistently explaining in clear terms how I need to direct my body to get a movement right.

The reward comes from seeing my incremental improvement in how high my arabesque and développés can go now (still not high enough), how physically and mentally stronger my practice has made me, and the basic fact that I’m learning ballet at my age. 

It’s a big deal to me that on a very good day, I can extend my straightened left leg in développé à la seconde up to almost 90 degrees from the floor. Although those days are rare, I think back to how I was when I was just starting my practice, and give myself a tiny pat on the back for the work I’ve put in.

Unlike before, when the main motivation for doing boxing, strength training, Pilates, yoga, jazz, and hip-hop dancing was to keep skinny, I’m now pretty okay with just letting my body get stronger and more capable, regardless of what shape that takes.

If my legs and thighs bulk up, then I’ll take them over skinny, weak-ass muscles. (For what it’s worth, I’ve gone down one pants size.) My body feels like the body of a 35-year-old. It’s not immune from the literal pains of aging, but it isn’t so far removed from the possibilities of what else it could do either. Maybe with all the stretching and strengthening we do in ballet class, getting to do a full middle split is one of them.

I like my body now, I like living in it, and that’s quite a gift that ballet has given me. — LA, GMA News