It is marvellous in my retirement years to be able to engage in a new subject like ballet, which I started learning 3½ years ago at the age of 63. I've loved watching it all my life, ever since I saw the Red Shoes film as a tiny child and then watched Doreen Wells and Anton Dolin dancing on stage in Coppelia. But my mother could not afford to send me to dancing classes. I also believed the commonly held myth that, if you haven't started ballet by the age of 7, it's too late. Then, a few years ago, I discovered that Norfolk Dance holds classes for adult beginners, and as soon as I could get a place, I was in there.
Yet before I did that, I’d had to do some preparatory work on myself. During my career in a demanding sedentary job, there was little time for anything but work, and I became very overweight for a long time. After retiring I was eager to develop new interests, and getting fit and losing weight were a high priority. I did a lot of walking, and when a Sports Centre opened in my local village about 6 years ago, it gave a great boost to my aim, providing lots of helpful activity classes. I was soon going 3 times a week or more to aerobics, Pilates and yoga. This worked off the calories, made me more supple, and prepared the way for when adult ballet classes would appear on the horizon.
I tried to eat sensibly in this period, but was not getting on very well with weight loss on my own, so I had myself referred to a National Health dietician, under whose excellent guidance I lost 2 stones in 2 years. I was still not at the kind of weight I wanted, however, and certainly not the shape, and I was starting to put on a bit of weight again, so I followed up a leaflet put through my door and joined Slimming World.
This organisation meets once a week, weighs everyone and gives advice and support. Its system of diet is very sensible, not forcing people to be forever counting calories, but recommending an emphasis on certain types of foods over others. Some kinds of food can be eaten as much as one wants, but with others one must be more sparing, and some foods one should try to avoid altogether. As with the dietician's advice, one tries to cut down as much as possible on fats and sugars - and pastry and ready-made dishes are major culprits here. But Slimming World has good psychology and recognises that people need occasional treats; it is also non-judgmental and warmly applauds every minor success.
Their system seems to work, and it is possible to lose at least a pound or half a pound a week with it. I lost a further 2½ stone with them, making a total loss off my top weight of around 4 stone, and I have got a proper hourglass shape back. The community of slimmers who attend these classes are of great support, and are very nice people with whom one wants to keep in contact.
So, having lost a lot of weight and become very fit since retirement, I was in a better position to take advantage of the ballet classes I’d discovered. It is an excellent way of keeping fit and developing confidence and good posture, as well as letting you follow out a lifelong interest in a practical way and maybe even indulge childhood fantasies. And it is by far the most generation-mixing activity I've been involved in, for we have students ranging from in their teens and twenties through middle age to at least their sixties, representing every decade. (And the tap-dancers seem to go on into their seventies). And we are all passionate about it, and get on well.
Ballet is difficult, but the problems are perhaps more mental than physical, as it is much more of a struggle than it used to be trying to remember sequences of steps. But one does eventually progress, and while I'm clearly not going to make a career out of dancing at my age, I can still get a lot of satisfaction and sense of achievement from it. From one class a week at first, I went on to do six a week at one point, but have now settled to a regular four a week as I've discovered more being put on and as I've gained in experience myself, able to attend classes at a variety of levels. I find it very helpful to go to both beginners’ and more advanced classes, as there is a difference of focus in each. Sometimes one wants to learn more detailed technique, and at other times one wants to be challenged more.
As well as our regular classes, Norfolk Dance and the Theatre Royal, Norwich regularly arrange workshops for us with visiting ballet companies (Northern Ballet, Rambert Dance, the Richard Alston Dance Company and local choreographers), which have stretched us quite a lot. In these we learn sections of current repertoire that is actually being performed on the stage by professional dancers. There is also a 3-day ballet summer school each year where we learn a lot from total immersion in the art, with repertoire ranging from classical to modern, including character dance. And from time to time there are study days on completely different forms of dance that I have been to, such as South Asian Dance, which add interesting strings to one’s bow. In Norfolk I live in an adult dance student’s paradise!
Ballet term is beginning again just now after the Christmas break. Normally an occasion for unalloyed joy, I’ve been troubled for more than two months by an ailment called ‘benign positional vertigo’ (dizziness and sickness) which has got in the way of some of the classes. Twice recently I’ve had to sit out half the class when the dizziness has become too much. Normally I’m very fit, so this is a great bugbear and I’m really fed up with it. There doesn’t seem to be much that doctors can do about it, but I’m starting to try complementary medicine as it has gone on for too long already. It’s uncertain whether it’s a virus, but if it is, it’s lasting a long time. This is the current cloud over my paradise, but I hope we’ll be able to defeat it. Arthritis hasn’t stopped me dancing, so I don’t intend that this should.
Anyway, having otherwise got my fitness back, defeated obesity and embarked on an absorbing skill, I feel inspired to urge others who would like to change their lifestyle for the better to do the same. Less weight is more energizing and rejuvenating, and activity keeps you supple. And the company of other people who share your passion is of great support. Anyone can do it! Why not give it a try?
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