Ballet fun

As a fresh and fruity teenage girl, I could be found in the ballet studio for about ten hours a week. Classical, modern, jazz. I did everything and often as well.

At one point, I traded the barre for the bar and only used my pointe shoes for decoration. They hung casually on the knob of my lingerie drawer, with which I was mainly trying to impress male passersby, I must honestly say.

Last week, I signed my five-year-old daughter up for ballet lessons, and before I knew it, I had asked the question: “Are there also classes for adults?” Ballet. My old love and the new love of Doutzen Kroes, Lily Aldridge, and of course Karlie Kloss. They hang at the barre three times a week.

Why does ‘everyone’ suddenly stop doing yoga but dives into the ballet studio? First of all, I don’t think yoga will disappear, but people do want something different from time to time. And in ballet, you work from your ‘core’ with every exercise, which means you constantly engage your abdominal muscles and not just during the abdominal workout in the gym.

Look at a ballerina, and it seems as if she is floating over the floor. That’s because she always keeps her stomach ‘in’, her shoulders straight, and her head lifted as if there’s a string from the top of her head to the sky. This way, a ballerina actually trains all day. Squeeze your buttocks together and tighten your stomach. Even when you’re waiting for tram 2.

Look at a ballerina, and it seems as if she is floating over the floor. That’s because she always keeps her stomach ‘in’, her shoulders straight, and her head lifted as if there’s a string from the top of her head to the sky.

According to Mary Helen Bowers, ballet instructor at Ballet Beautiful in New York, we need much less cardio (and thus calorie burning) than you think. A minute or six or ten is enough, she says. I like that. No red or blue flushed face, so you can easily meet your loved one for a drink, recovery, a cup of tea.

Through the many leg lift exercises, you also train the outside of your leg, which combats cellulite and ensures a nice, high butt. I also find the classical music and the French terms very contemplative. Phone off, calm music on.

Then I haven't even mentioned the outfits. The outfits. I was interviewed this morning for Editie NL about the ballet hype, and the location was ballet store Papillon. I immediately indulged in two outfits, a great one-piece that serves as a ‘warming suit’ but which I will now spend every Sunday in, and such a lovely voile skirt.

So sorry yoga, for me no more uhm but plié, developpé, and hatsekiedee.