The one change that worked: I took up ballet – and learned to live in the moment

Working long days as a corporate lawyer, I needed an exercise regime to get me out of my head. Reviving a childhood passion helped me reconnect with my body

My earliest memories of ballet will be familiar to many childhood dancers: ribbons, shoe fittings, hairspray (lots of it). I attended my first class at about four years old and continued off and on until my early teens, when I started to focus on other activities and on studying for exams. Since I was never planning to become a professional dancer, I didn’t consider that ballet would become an important part of my adult life. But today, at 32, it is one of my most meaningful passions – and I am so grateful to have rediscovered it.

That happened in my early 20s, when I was a corporate lawyer in London. The job involved a lot of late nights and desk work. I was looking for a fitness class that would get me out of my head and back into my body and I stumbled across a beginner ballet class. There, I was amazed to find that I remembered some of the patterns – the position of the spine, the arm movements (port de bras) – and the French terminology. But what struck me most was how good it felt to move with a group of dancers, to adopt the discipline of the ballet technique and see myself improve – if only by a small amount – by the end of the class.

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