I was born to be a ballerina. Never mind my pot belly that I never learned to suck in when other kids did. Never mind my shrimpy stature and chunky thighs that looked chunkier in pink tights. Never mind my ever tangly hair that my mom practically had to yank out of my head to pin into Princess Leia pinwheels. Never mind that my tiny North Dakota hometown was 100 miles from the nearest ballet studio and left me on my own to choreograph my routines.
I was born to be a ballerina. I’ve always known this. My parents knew it, too, buying me not one but three tutus ― pink, violet, and white ― one of which I always wore from the minute I removed my Strawberry Shortcake nightie in the morning to the minute the TV shouted “Here’s Johnny!” in the evening and my parents shooed me off to bed. Then there was that magical Christmas morning when a shiny pair of real ballet slippers greeted me from the fireplace when I arrived downstairs still half asleep. And my parents always clapped with gusto as I ― with my girlfriends, who either a) were born ballerinas like me or b) let me boss them around ― flitted and floated about the playroom to the Grease soundtrack in one of our many “shows.”
You can imagine, then, how excited I was, some 30 years later, to sign up for Pure Barre, the new exercise trend that “fuses elements of ballet, pilates, and weights in a 55-minute intense session,” with a real ballet barre for authenticity. Now was my chance to show the world my inner ballerina.
I arrived at my first Pure Barre class one minute early. The studio floor was packed with tall, Hollywood-body twenty-something women in sleek black leggings and pink off-the-shoulder Flashdance-style tanks, their (long blonde glossy straight) hair twisted into tight buns or side French braids.
“You need a pair of socks to go in there,” the girl at the desk said while I shoved my own (still tangly) hair into a poky ponytail and smoothed out my grey T-shirt with the Volkswagen Beetles across the front. “You can buy our official socks. They’re $13.99.”
My toes bedecked in socks more expensive than my last pair of jeans, I found a spot on the studio floor just as the warm-up was starting. Aaaaahhh. Some deep stretching is exactly what I needed after a long day at work. I leaned back on the floor and started to “om.”
“Everyone up!” Around me, the Glamazons leaped up and began hiking their knees to their chests in synch. I followed suit, already wheezing. “And down!” We launched into every pilates ab exercise ever known to man (but usually spread out among several sessions in other classes I’d attended), including, for 90 seconds (so the instructor said ― I’m certain she counted to 90 at least three times, because I did in my head), a gut-ripping plank hold.
“And four slow push-ups!” Push-ups? How the hell do they qualify as ballet moves? Dowwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnn (count to 1,000)…uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuppppppppppppp (count to 1,000)… “Now fast push-ups! 78, 79, 80!” “Eighty more push-ups with hands together! On your fingertips! Tricep style! With tongue sticking out! Singing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’! Juggling ten balls!”
I kept glancing at my fellow Glamazons, certain something was amiss. Surely they, too, were sneaking breaks whenever the instructor looked away, or at least grimacing a little. Nope ― they were all moving up and down like robots, their faces passive, their make-up firmly intact.
“And that’s the warm-up! Now let’s begin!”
WTF?
Eyeing the door like it was an escape hatch, I reluctantly followed the Glamazons over to the barre. Maybe the real ballet would start now. As a born-ballerina, surely I’d be a natural at the barre stuff.
“Left leg bent and raised on four-inch heels.” (I later learned this means the highest tiptoe. Mine was more like an out-of-style low-heel pump that you only wear when you’re forced to as your best friend’s bridesmaid.) “Both arms off the barre and high in the air, because they can’t possibly be worn out from all those push-ups. Pelvis out. Right leg bent and heel back. Recite the alphabet backward and chew gum while trying to touch your nose and drink a cup of water upside down. Now pulse! Pulse! Pulse!”
I’ve never been a good listener. I need to see to believe. So I had no idea what on God’s green earth she was talking about. I sneaked a peek at the Glamazon to my left and copied her. The instructor immediately sidled over. “You’re hiking your leg (like a dog, she didn’t say but I could hear in her voice). Just isolate the muscle.” I concentrated on squeezing my butt muscle over and over, desperate to meet her approval. She studied my butt muscle for a long while, then nodded without smiling, moving on.
Three years later, we were still squeezing the same butt muscle, which, in the case of mine, had grown numb and tingly. “Okay, now on the floor in a headstand, neck wrapped around left little toe, right femur balanced on left eyeball. Now lift! Lift! Lift!”
I started inching toward the escape hatch with every lift, scheming how I might sneak out without the Glamazons noticing.
“Good work! Class is one-eighth over! On to abs! Grab a ball.” I picked up the red ball, but, as a born ballerina, balls were never my thing, so the little devil slipped out of my hands and bounced across the room. I tried to run after it, but my legs, not used to balancing on one toe for hours on end, buckled with each step. Meanwhile, the Glamazons were already lining the wall under the barre, watching the ball debacle while exhaling audibly in synch with one arm behind the barre and one leg pointed overhead, inching in and out. And this was supposed to improve the abs how? I couldn’t for the life of me figure this out, so I just concentrated on looking like I was working really hard and enjoyed the respite.
“Ab work over. Now seven minutes of intense ab work!”
I miraculously survived the next seven minutes, and the following two of lying on my belly pinning my arms and legs behind me like an ultra flexible Superman, but only by fantasizing about what I’d make for dinner later (something with pasta, something with chocolate, and something with alcohol). Then, finally, something that sounded like real dancing. “Three minutes left before the cooldown! It’s time for a little back dancing!”
Back dancing! What fun! I prepared to perform a series of leaps across the floor, the leaps I’d honed as a child to the rhythm of “Greased Lightning.”
“Into bridge position! Lift your torso! Higher, until your tailbone hits the ceiling and you can’t feel it anymore! Now squeeze! Squeeze! SQUEEZE!” Seriously, more ass work? I didn’t know how much more mine could take. The instructor dimmed the lights and the music launched into a giddy happy beat, like this was supposed to be the feel-good part of class. I can assure you my ass did not agree.
We did get to do a stretch series briefly at the end. I spent it catching the sweat dripping off my nose with my palm before the droplets could puddle onto the floor and cause an accident.
My dream of becoming a ballerina died on the floor of the studio that afternoon, surrounded by Glamazons who somehow looked exactly the same when class was over, unscarred and even perkier than when we began. As for me, I dragged my frizzy hair and numb butt muscles out of the studio, my knees buckling all the way. I made a mental note to rip my tutus into shreds the minute I got home, even before tearing into the bag of Doritos I keep for emergencies.
It takes a lot to kill a lifelong dream, but the requirement that my butt muscles contract for the span of an hour somehow did the trick.
