Ballet Beautiful: Transform Your Body and Gain the Strength, Grace and Focus of a Ballet Dancer (12 page)

I have spent years dancing and working out in a leotard and love the comfort and ease of wearing one when I work out. I also enjoy wearing a pair of my ballet slippers because they make me feel graceful and elegant! They also provide a great grip on some of the mat work and allow you to slide your feet with ease in the standing Blasts. This gear may help you really get into a particular mood or mindset. But bare feet or socks will also do. Ballet Beautiful is a flexible program, and that holds true for your outfit—you can wear whatever you wish and whatever enables you to move with confidence and ease. I do, however, recommend wearing form-fitting pants that let you see the lines of your legs so that you can track when your knees are truly bent or straight, for better form.

I suggest sipping water throughout your workout. We all have heard that it is important to drink eight glasses of water a day and to stay hydrated; this is such common advice that many of us may even forget why water is so necessary for our health—especially when working out.

Water keeps your muscles fluid instead of tight and allows oxygen to flow through your body as you work out. Water’s many other functions include boosting metabolism, flushing toxins, and regulating your body temperature.

Your body loses water as you exercise, so the harder you work out, the more you need to replace the fluids. It’s much healthier for you to sip as you go rather than deprive your body of water during an intense workout. This may be obvious to you, but it wasn’t to me, so I want to take a moment to expand!

When I started dancing with the New York City Ballet, I was only 16 and I didn’t receive a lot of guidance on how to take care of my body. I wasn’t in the habit of drinking a lot of water because it wasn’t something that I did as a kid taking ballet in Charlotte. And when I suddenly found myself performing and dancing 70 hours a week, I didn’t know how much water my body needed. I experienced a period of terrible fatigue that was a total mystery to me. I can clearly remember being exhausted constantly and thinking it had to be something in my diet, that I wasn’t eating enough protein or carbs or vegetables. . . .

One Saturday afternoon I was feeling particularly bad after taking class in the morning and dancing three ballets in the matinee. When I casually mentioned that I had only had a coffee to drink that day, one of the older girls in the dressing room explained to me that I was probably deeply dehydrated (I was!) and that I should start drinking way more immediately. I bought and drank a big bottle of water, and from that day on I tried to make drinking water a regular part of my routine. When I made this simple change, I cannot tell
you how much better my body felt. My fatigue lessened, and my energy increased dramatically. It was a lesson I’ll never forget.

I find that one of the best ways to stay hydrated is to keep a water bottle with you at all times. You don’t have to spend money on exotic mineral waters that promise better filtration or purity. But you might want to think about investing in a water filtration system so you can refill your bottle from home and sip on it throughout the day.

The Ballet Beautiful Principles      Before we get started, here’s a reminder of the Ballet Beautiful principles:

Ballet dancers have incredibly strong centers because we are constantly pulling in and engaging our abdominals. This action can change the simplest step, exercise, or even resting position into a great ab workout. This doesn’t just mean sucking in your breath to try to flatten your stomach. Connecting to your center is about pulling in your lower abs, the place between your hip bones and underneath your belly button. It’s what happens naturally when you laugh or gasp with surprise.

The key to elegant posture is keeping your neck long and your shoulders down. Sometimes, in an effort to keep your chest open or shoulders back, you might tense and pull up your shoulders. Instead, think about opening your chest, keeping your neck long and graceful like a swan, and gently pulling your shoulder blades down into your back. You are lifting through your chest and center as you push your shoulders down.

The easiest way to hurt your joints is by forcing your range of motion. Be mindful of the range of motion in your knees and hips and be certain that when you take a standing plié (a bend in the knees; see “Your Ballet Primer” on
page 49
), your knees line up right over your toes. My joints are very flexible, and your position may not be as open as mine. That’s okay! Be mindful of what works best for your body to protect your joints, and take it slow.

When I talk about the concept of stretching long through your muscles during an exercise, this is what I mean. Learning to work with your knees fully straight and in a lifted, strong position will radically change the shape of your legs and take years off of your figure. Work with your knees either straight or bent—no in between. When doing any straight-leg exercises on the mat, like my Inner Thigh Series, it’s important to keep your knee pulled up (but not locked) and engaged while stretching long through the leg. The same is true for my standing exercises—pay close attention to the bend and stretch in your knees. Not only will this help you shape your legs beautifully and get rid of saggy over-the-knee skin, but it will strengthen your joints and protect them.

One final note before we get started: make sure to read through the workouts first so you can familiarize yourself with the movements and pace. You can even “mark” the steps before you begin, testing the shape of your body in each movement without fully exerting and performing the full exercise. Dancers do this all the time when learning new combinations—marking the steps first. Marking is like writing a rough draft or taking notes with your body and your muscle memory, and it’s a great way to get familiar with new steps and movements. Discovering a new way of moving and working the body may seem awkward at first, but trust me, you’ll get the hang of it in no time.