Ballet Class - Week 1

Yesterday, I stepped into my first ballet class with a mix of jittery excitement and the kind of awkwardness that settles in when you’re about to do something you’ve dreamed about but never dared to try… I was nervous and scared. I didn’t know the names of any positions, nor did my body yet understand the forms it was being asked to make. But I believe I will, over time. I walked into the studio, nerves buzzing, and found my way to the “Swap Shop”… a corner and back end of the sitting room…  filled with tidy bins of gently used leotards, jazz shoes, tights, and slippers, some items holding the faint memory of someone else’s beginning. It was perfect for someone like me, who has so many dreams but not enough spare dollars to buy them new. I tried on a few pairs of slippers, with the help of Shelley (her daughter started the business with just kids at first but then the program slowly blossomed when she and her adult friends started practicing ballet)… I finally found a pair that fit, and as I looked down at my feet, I thought, These might carry me through an entire semester. Maybe more. Maybe less. Wear and tear.

Even before the class began, even days before… my mind leapt years into the future. I could see myself as a professional dancer, auditioning for community theater productions across Salt Lake City, my ballet training folded seamlessly into my singing after I take vocal lessons through the music department at SLCC. I imagined weaving in my poetry and music, creating something that makes people feel less alone. I saw myself as a famous woman… not famous in the shallow sense, but in the way that means you’ve left a mark, become a lighthouse for others who grew up in darkness. Maybe famous enough to donate half my earnings on a yearly basis to my favorite charities and still have money to survive with my family.

I’ve always carried those feelings, those visions of grandeur. Since childhood, I’ve believed I was a natural-born talent, someone who could inspire and influence… not through force, but through a kind of rare resonance. Yet, life never quite reflected that belief back to me. I learned to keep those thoughts hidden, to dress them up as humility because talking openly about your gifts often gets mistaken for arrogance. I hated the thought of being seen as egotistical. Even on the days when self-doubt crept in like a storm, there was still that deep, unshakable pull inside me saying, Don’t listen to them. Don’t shrink. Don’t let go of this fire.

It’s a strange and lonely thing to have so much belief in yourself and so little permission to speak it aloud. The world teaches women like me to talk down about ourselves so others feel more comfortable, to disguise confidence as modesty. Over time, I began to believe that confidence should always be quiet and hidden, that ambition should live in secret. I am slowly unlearning that lie… not for the woman I am now, but for the little girl I once was, who deserved to see herself as powerful without shame.

When the class began, I was immediately aware of my body in the mirror… my size, my movements, my awkwardness. Our teacher, Emily, a graceful woman from New York, introduced the basics. She went slowly enough for most, but to me it still felt too fast. She couldn’t have known how much my body thrives on slow learning, how every adjustment in my posture feels like rearranging decades of habit. Still, the room felt kind. I learned a few things, received high praise from her for certain steps, and became aware of the muscles that would need more practice to shape the positions correctly. I didn’t mind. I love the idea of going slow, savoring the process, coaxing the body into new shapes.

And yet, a thought kept flickering: If I had started ballet at eight years old, I would have soared. I can see it so clearly. As a child, I would run around the backyard on the balls of my feet… just like ballet dancers balance. I leapt over pinecones, pretending I was already one of them. There was a rope tied to a tree branch, and I would grab it, spinning until the world blurred, then dash across the yard again. We had a cement half-wall around a small garden, and I would balance along it for hours, like it was a stage only I could see.

For years, even as an adult, I’ve walked and run on the balls of my feet without thinking. I never realized how much this unconscious habit had sculpted my calves until strangers began complimenting them. It always felt like such an odd thing to admire… of all the things about me, why my calves? But now I understand: little me had been training for ballet all along, without realizing it. She carried herself like a dancer, even in the absence of mirrors and studios.

So here I am, years later, finally in the studio, finally stepping into what was always meant for me. Yes, I’m doing this for fun, a hobby to bring joy into my life. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope to master the basics and, one day, audition for programs within Rise Up School of Dance or community theater productions. My dreams are still big, still golden and sprawling, but I’m learning to let them unfold slowly.

The room was sort of full… several of us moving in imperfect unison, each carrying our own reasons for being there. I imagine we’ll grow more comfortable with each other as the weeks pass. One girl already dances en pointe, her toes encased in the satin armor of pointe shoes. She’s clearly been at this for years, and yes, that’s intimidating. But I also think I could learn from her, once I’m brave enough to ask.

It struck me, as I scanned the room, that I was surrounded by women of all ages, sizes, and colors… women who carried determination in their posture, even if their steps were uncertain. There was something deeply reassuring about that. Ballet may have its traditions of strict uniformity, but here, in this little class in Salt Lake City, it felt like there was room for all of us to carve out our own beauty.

And maybe that’s why this moment matters so much to me. Because ballet isn’t just about the lines of the body or the precision of the steps… it’s about daring to see yourself as someone worth watching. For most of my life, I’ve worked to become invisible in order to survive: in foster homes, in abusive households, in situations where standing out meant danger. Ballet is the opposite of that. It asks you to take up space, to be deliberate, to show yourself.

It’s a risk for me to be here. Not just the physical risk of a new skill, but the emotional risk of letting people see me try. Of letting people see me want. I’ve spent so many years protecting my ambitions from the gaze of others, afraid that if I spoke them aloud they would be laughed at, diminished, or taken from me. And yet here I am, in a mirrored room, in pink slippers, moving toward something I’ve wanted since I was a little girl leaping over pinecones in the backyard.

Ballet is already teaching me more than steps. It’s teaching me that my body remembers things I’ve forgotten… balance, strength, joy. It’s teaching me that humility doesn’t have to mean hiding, and that confidence doesn’t have to be silent. It’s reminding me that the little girl who ran barefoot on the balls of her feet is still here, still dreaming, still ready to leap.

This class will run from August 13 to December 10th or 17th… That’s eighteen weeks of mirrors and music, of stretching and stumbling, of learning the vocabulary not just of ballet, but of my own body. By the end, maybe I’ll be able to name every position and form. Maybe I’ll even audition for something. Or maybe I’ll simply be stronger, more flexible, more certain of my place in my own skin.

Either way, I’ve already taken the first step. And for someone like me… someone who has spent years hiding her ambition… that’s worth more than the perfect plié (that’s all I can remember because my husband says it often- I assume because it’s a funny word to him) … it’s more than any “perfect” form or position… It’s the quiet, graceful beginning of being fully seen.