Happy September, !

What are you learning this fall that’s super fun?

One of my favourite "tricks" to develop as I was learning ballet, was balancing for a really long time. Plenty of steps took me ages to get the hang of, but for whatever reason, balancing clicked for me early on. It did however, take me a couple years to realize I was good at balancing and figure out how to keep improving it into my ballet superpower!

Balancing relies on making teeny tiny adjustments as you go. If you're tipping to the left, shift a little to the right. Shoulders falling behind your hips? Float 'em right back on top. Instead of holding on tight and hoping for the best, notice what's going on in your body so your internal balancing systems can do their thing. The more you practise, the smaller and more subconscious those little wobbling adjustments become.

Learning to observe and adjust without judgement felt empowering, and carried me through all kinds of ups and downs in dancing and life.

You're never done in ballet. You can always keep improving the coordination of new steps, lifting your legs higher, doing more pirouettes, or dancing with more personality and character. For me, that's great news! I love that I get to keep learning and growing twenty years in.

For a lot of us, there’s also an element of taking care of our bodies and minds where they’re at right now, and acknowledging injuries, pain, chronic illness, and the weight of the world affecting how we play and move — which doesn’t make it easy to stay non-judgemental as we try to improve our dancing.

The deeper work of ballet lies in striving to balance:

• being safe and gentle with your body so you can keep participating.

• freedom of movement and having fun.

• taking on technical challenges and corrections, with a critical eye that’s not too critical.

So how can dancers find balance?

Checking in with your breath — yes, you’ve heard this one from me before, but it really does help slow down bustling thoughts, build your body awareness, and get your core engaged for physical balance, too.

Adapting your classwork to meet you where you’re at — in beginner ballet this fall, we’re adding seated variations, breaking up the class in non-traditional but evidence based ways, and encouraging learning through watching and listening as well as moving!

Keeping a dance journal — write down your corrections to see if you can notice any patterns and simplify what you’re working on, and keep track of what goes well, too. Did you stay in touch with your breath, turnout, or port de bras for a whole exercise? Was there a step that felt free and joyful?

Practising what feels good — the thing that tipped me over the edge to being a fantastic balancer was having fun with it. It felt good in my body even when it didn't go perfectly, so I kept exploring what I could do! So, practise the steps that make your heart sing, and seek out stretches that make you go ahhhhhh.

Let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear how you’re finding balance in your fall classes.

To feeling good, having fun, and improving along the way,

Natasha

P.S. Check out one of ballet’s most famous balancing sequences, the Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty, and read about its history here.