It was the night before the night before Christmas and thirteen lithe ballerinas be-tutu’d and be-pinkslippered poised and twinkling join company to perform their tights off to an adoring audience of …One. Yup, I am back in another village hall  in rural Gloucestershire, this time sweating slightly in a tulle skirt and my daughter’s multicoloured angel wings. It’s my last ballet lesson of term.

I think a lot of girls have had a brief ballet career as children. I managed a lesson aged 4, but was told by Miss that I should probably move to tap as I wasn’t ballerina shaped. So, I did tap for a week. I wasn’t tap shaped either. Lucky for the floor I got into horses and never looked back. 

Until now. 

I have a funky kind of inflammatory arthritis and lots of equestrian injuries which have led to me having, in the words of my cheery rheumatologist “the hips of an 80 year old.” He suggested that alongside injecting medication and flattening my immune system I need to be stronger, lose weight and get flexible. My options were yoga, dancing, pilates or do nothing and have my joints devour themselves. 

I have tried yoga and pilates. Fabulous exercises but my overactive inner voice and constant flow of crap ideas and anxiety usually put paid to my meditation and I leave more stressed than I start.

Wait, what? Why ballet? 

I thought, if I’m thundering about doing leaps, trying to remember where to put my feet and not bang into my classmates, I probably won’t need to worry about ‘emptying my mind’ or whatever. Maybe I’ll give it another go. I google ‘can you do ballet if you’re a bit chubby and 40?’ Turns out you can! About 10 miles up the road.

Mum and me getting our plies on! Note how level I am keeping my wine!

My mum’s reaction was hysterical laughter. Aligning with usual feedback I have had about my form (one brief boyfriend had complemented my legs as being … strong..”I mean, in a good-for-digging sort of way.”) Then mum realised I was serious and laughed even more. It didn’t stop her from immediately adopting first position and dropping down into a grand plié. We then started singing the sugar plum fairy and got all Bolshoi in the kitchen. She was excited for me and started muttering about me needing a hairnet and how she was going to make me drawstring bag for my shoes.

My first class

I stick my head around the village hall door. Scattered all over the wooden floor are women in various states of dress; most of them folded in two, flexibly pulling on their shoes without even bending their legs. Our teacher has one of her legs, in pink tights, casually plonked on a table while she scrolls through her phone. 

What is it with ballerinas? Do they start off at the point of being long and graceful with perfect hair and duck feet? Or does ballet turn them into it?

“Is this the, um, ballet class?” I say rather pointlessly.

Our teacher welcomed me in and tells me to take my place at the barre: a small stack of green chairs that we ‘lightly’ rest a hand on to stop us falling over during our exercises. I am in my socks.  She asks “Do you have shoes?” I did, but wondered if I somehow had to earn putting them on! Clearly I had regressed back to being age 4 and needed firm direction. I peeled my stiff pink shoes from their wrappers and stuck them on over my socks and padded back to my chairs.

So who are the other ballerinas?

I joined an over 50s group thinking it would be slow paced. Ha ha ha. This group of women are hose riders, lifelong ballerinas, fashionistas, singers, dance teachers, potters, artists and scientists. They are all beautifully turned out with perfect blow dries and full make up on. Then there was me with my fluffy hair and a tracksuit and my ballet slippers sticking out at the bottom looking conspicuously new. There is nothing adagio about this lot.

A stage whisper comes from behind me, I turn round to find my classmate pointing at one of the ladies at the front – “follow her, she knows what to do with her feet.”

My feet, built for digging not pointing!

The music starts. The first instruction: “demi-plie in first” – feet in a v with heels together and bend knees. Easy? Well if the snaps cracks and pings I hear in my toes, ankles and knees are anything to go by my joints disagree. “Another!” Then “rise up into demi-pointe” I wobble about on my tip toes and cling onto my chair as everyone else lets go and raises their arms out into a pretty circle in front.

“It’s simple.” Our teacher tells us, gracefully flicking her hands into a neat bras-bras. “All you need to do is point your feet, squeeze your bottom in and under, pull your sides in-and-up, torso long and strong, shoulder blades pulled down, make your head float and have a beautiful face.”

I suddenly can’t see. 

A gentle nudge from the lady in front to me brought me back to the room “you are supposed to be facing the other way, we pulled up into fifth and turned around….” I had contorted my face so tightly in concentration that my eyes were screwed shut and I hadn’t noticed. Luckily there are no mirrors.

After 45 minutes we have completed our barre exercises and return our chairs to the side of the hall. I finally find a part of this I can do- standing about chatting and admiring my classmates’ legwarmers! They are all amazingly welcoming and reassuring (as well as being enviably flexible). “Don’t worry, I have been coming 6 years and I still have no idea what we are meant to do sometimes.”

Centre. 

With no chairs for moral support we stand spaced out in the hall for the second half of the lesson. This is the more prance-y half where we gallop about the hall, stand stalk-like on one leg and generally look floaty and beautiful. Our teacher asks us to run across the hall. Yes! I can run! So I sprint to the other side of the room on her say so but find myself all alone in the corner. I turn around to see the rest of the company running with their legs beautifully straight out in front of them and holding their skirts up at the sides!l

“Remember we are in our ballet shoes…. Not our wellies!” 

I ask, puzzled  “are we meant to point our toes when we run??”

Pause… She gives me a puzzled look…“We ALWAYS point our toes.”

I have now done 6 lessons and absolutely love it. And I manage to keep my eyes open.

Ballet is a wonderful escape, makes everything ache and makes me laugh. I now plié obsessively whilst I am peeling potatoes and waiting at checkouts. I walk up the stairs and around the house like a mallard trying to keep my feet turned out. I may have found an exercise I might stick to. And, yes, I now possess a leotard but am still not sure how to make my head float.

Who knows… Giselle next year? Or maybe I’d settle for the The Tin Man.

Us in our christmas finery. Sorry for the low res, but you get the gist of our cohesive vibe.I’m furthest right.