The ballet dancer

What it’s actually like. What they don’t want you to know.

It looks easy, but it is anything but.

Not only is it hard to be flexible (unless you’re born with natural ability), but it takes so much strength, muscle in legs, and core strength to gracefully perfectly lift your legs up. When you stretch, it hurts and it’s easy to pull a muscle (which is a horrible feeling).

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON POINTE SHOES. Those tiny beautiful things are deceiving. They are the devil himself. Two seconds on top of your toes.

Think about just this concept: balancing your entire body weight on your toes. Sounds terrifying enough, right? Wait because it gets much, much worse.

It hurts, hurts right away, too bad! You have to do stuff, not just stand there. Put up your legs, put even more pressure on your toes. Your toes hurt? Too bad, you have to get through the 2 hours of your lesson. Oh and don’t even think about complaining.

It’s all a show. It’s all a lie.

The audience will never know how bad it hurts. You have to make it look easy. Graceful. Elegant. You must be beautiful and perfection itself. Smile through the pain, with a perfect, pain-masking, smile plastered to your face for the duration of the show. Don’t even dare thinking about crying and messing up your face or stage makeup.

What about turns? Super easy to roll an ankle. You have to be very careful up on pointe shoes, because it can happen in two seconds.

But what I personally hate about ballet isn’t even all this. It’s the costumes, the hair, the makeup, and the imposter I start feeling like once I have no control or say in my appearance. Everyone is made to look the same, and your self-expression is taken away as you’re turned into a ballerina robot army (okay I know it’s dramatic but…) It’s already hard enough to love yourself in life. How can you do that when you don’t even have control of who you’re forced to become?

I remember that in way shows were actually my least favorite days ever. Because I just felt horrible all day. In a tutu, bun, with the exact same accessories, and makeup that I hated. I felt like someone else got to decide who I was, I didn’t feel like myself, and I felt as if I had no control over it (and control is something I like, as I’ve come to learn).