What it’s like to take up ballet when you are old

I’m not going to build up any suspense here. It’s terribly frustrating and it hurts. And I’m not talking 60 years, bad knees and a dislocated hip old. I’m talking in your 20s old.

Your body has pretty much reached the peak of its form in your 20s, which means if you have one leg longer or one foot bigger than the other, there’s basically nothing you can do about it. Similarly, if you are not particularly flexible, you might not be very successful in doing perfect splits – or maybe you manage, after a long, tiresome and painful period of your life that is probably only worth it if you like ballet as much as I do. And to think that your perfect splits will probably not even get you in a lousy show with (and for) late bloomer-ballerinas! However, unlike little five-year olds that start ballet and can build their body according to the moves they make, our ballet movements have to find a way around the imperfections of our body, an old, lazy piece of crap that would not even move a finger to allow us to look more gracious when we do something as sublime as this classical dance.

The sad(der) news is, ballet is the worst type of dance to have an imperfect body for. Yes, it’s beautiful and gracious like delicate white doves flying against a background of coconut flakes; but at the same time it’s the most unnatural dance ever. It requires your body to do things which are absolutely out of its normal range of movement; you would probably never ever find yourself doing something remotely looking like ballet in your every day life, unless you would be trying to sneak through those security laser beam networks that we’ve seen in Ocean’s 11, and even then I am not sure your body would be twisted to such an extent. If your body is not perfect, or formed perfectly as a consequence of a lifetime of daily ballet practice, I don’t see how you would be able to correctly do all that ballet requires of you. That a dance you do with your body and nothing else – hence, a free, natural dance – should be so unnatural, yet perceived as magnificently beautiful by us, laymen, is fascinating. Anyway, here is an example of something ballet-y you can not do with an imperfect body:

This is called the “fifth position” in ballet and it requires you to stand holding your feet against each other, facing opposite directions (both to the outside). Ouch. If you are, like me, in the unfortunate position of having a leg longer than the other (and I only found this out because of taking up ballet), you’re screwed. There is absolutely no way you will get the right balance, or not look like a forgotten lopsided statue in the main square of a mountain village, that has been rained, snowed and sat on for drinking on Saturday nights.

Despite all this, I took ballet classes at the sports university of Vienna – and not just once, but three times; three multiplied by one semester = three semesters. In the first semester my teacher was heavily pregnant, constantly grumpy and seemed to not care about having actual students in her class. It was a “Pilates+Ballet” class; she did her pilates part well, but her ballet instructions were terrible. None of us understood what we were supposed to do, since from the very first class she said: “Ok, now we will do the following sequence: starting in the first position, demi-plié, three times, with port de bras, then tendu three times, en croix, and at the end relevé, soutenu, and the same on the other side”. That’s not exactly what she said, as I suspect that is not a legitimate ballet exercise, but if you have no notion of ballet and you’ve just read this, you got a glimpse of how I felt then; also, it was expected from me to actually do what she said. So everybody was doing something, moving their legs somehow, it was total anarchy and an awkward mixture of crooked legs and arms.

My second ballet semester made me love ballet despite complaining about it all the time. The teacher was not a ballet teacher per se (which was an advantage!), but she was a dancer and actress with more than sufficient knowledge to train a class of beginners. She was tiny, energetic and very dear, and repeated everything so many times that I can still remember some of her common instructions and gestures. To give you a picture of how complex the whole ballet thing is: for a group of never-ever-to-be-professional beginners, she still spent 15-20 minutes in the first classes, later 10-15 minutes only to explain and correct our posture (long neck, eyes looking straight ahead, straight back, shoulders down, belly muscles flexed, butt down, feet anchored in the floor…insert unnatural posture element here). From her I also learnt that the extent to which we can open our legs (from the hip) for splits, like so:

is anatomically conditioned (aka you might not practice it and still be able to do it to a large extent; if you can’t naturally do it, practicing might help you to get better but it’s not really entirely up to you, but up to your old body).

Finally, the last ballet course I took was a nightmare, and it made me complain about ballet all the time despite loving it so much. It was a course for beginners and intermediates. My guess was that the guy had dreamt to train a group of professional ballerinas but somehow ended up teaching at the sports university instead. I am sad for him. But that is absolutely no reason to train a group of students of anything else but sports as if you were training the ballerinas of Bolshoi theater. Sometimes I had the feeling someone had to remind him that he is still teaching some grown up girls who do ballet in their free time, mostly because they, themselves, have unfulfilled childhood dreams. He would come next to you to observe your moves, and, if you made a mistake, he would puff grumpily; he would tell you that you can bend your knees more than that and would insist that you do it in front of him; and, most terribly, he had a favorite student that he would give as an example all the time and call in front of the class to show the rest of us how it’s done. Unfortunately, this method does not have even a remotely motivating effect on me, probably ever since the second grade of school.

Not to mention that the girls in this “beginner and intermediate” class were not just the average girls you meet in a sports class or at the gym. Ohhhh no. Most of them had extremely much knowledge, they were very good and the pretty tutus, dramatic look on their face when they bent backwards and gazed to the side (cambré) and the perfect balance when standing on their toes gave them away. The explanation? It’s a vicious circle; most girls do not dare to go to the next level class, because the instructors are so strict and difficult to satisfy, that they make them think they are unable to do anything properly (alternatively: they are actually not able to do things properly because…ballet). Therefore, they repeat the beginner’s class. Over and over again. The real beginners in the class are doubly discouraged: by the strict teachers and by their colleagues who seem to learn much faster and be much more talented than them (when, in fact, they are just third or fourth round beginners). Therefore, they take the beginner’s class over and over again, discourage the real beginners, and so on. I would assume it’s simply a miniature of what the world of professional ballet actually is like, but what do I know.

Next week I am starting my fourth ballet class. Beginners. After Mr. Bolshoi Theater showed me that I am not able to do a deep enough plié, although my knees are definitely more flexible than I think and know (yep, some people just know more about your body’s capabilities than you do!), I realized I am a lousy ballerina and not at the intermediate level. So back to beginners I go. As many times around as I need to feel confident with my moves – and, if I don’t manage, hey, at least I am doing fabulous workout for my thighs, abs and butt.

I went to the hairdresser where employees are (probably) robots

And it was fun - and scary.

It was one of those very fancy salons; you know, the kind where you are greeted by one person, a second one shows you to your chair, washes your hair and sensually massages your head and, finally, a third one offers you drinks ("Coffee? tea? prosecco?" Yes, that's right: prosecco), cuts your hair and styles it. You didn't know that kind of places exist? Me neither. Until yesterday.

So I wanted a super duper cool haircut, done by professionals who understand that curly hair is a pretty crazy thing to have, live with and style. I wanted to get something for which you pay more money, but then it looks so fabulous every day that you are confident enough to get out of your bed and immediately go out the door - metaphorically speaking; or not. I also wanted to get a haircut which stops me from pulling my hair in front of friends and saying: "See how awful it is? See??"

So I went to Fancy Expensive Haircuts GmbH, in Vienna's richest, most bourgeois district, where specialists are supposed to take care of your hair, no matter how crazy it is - or how crazy you are, for that matter. I was greeted by a cool young assistant, probably around 16 (yes, that is the age when people can decide to become hairstylists in Austria), with a huge smile - like, extending from one ear to the other huge. She took my coat (said thank you), showed me to the chair (I sat down, she said thank you), brought me a hot lemonade (thanked me for taking it from her hand), asked if I am sitting comfortably ("Yes, great." -"Thank you!" - "You're welcome?" That was awkward). While she was away, the receptionist came and asked me to fill in a questionnaire "so that we can adapt our services to your specific needs and your hairstylist knows what you would like to have". Oh okay - but she could have come in person and ask (does she even exist? I've met two people in this place already and neither of them was her). While I was filling in what turned out to be a very complex and personal questionnaire (What do you dislike more about your hair? a. It's dry; b. Your haircut; c, d, e, f. You have no self esteem and hate your hair regardless of what it looks like), the blond adolescent came to ask me if I would like a "Relax-aroma-mumbled-words": it was supposed to be a head massage with some smelly stuff. I told her smilingly I am not into that kind of stuff, she thanked me and left disappointed - yet her smile, the same one, not one muscle more or less involved in it, was still stitched to her face; I thought she would go yay, less slave work for her, but I started to think she liked that slave work...or was she programmed to like it?

Finally, She appears. The hairstylist. All dressed in black, with amazingly soft, straight hair. Super nice, super smiley. Looking in the mirror, I see blondie and another young assistant looking at me, as if waiting to receive orders or expecting me to stand up any second and furiously ask "Where is my...?" (insert object that one definitely needs to receive while being at the hairdresser and can legitimately be outraged if they don't). We talk about what I want; she says "super" to everything. Then I show her a picture of the haircut that I had found on the internet. "Wow, great! That's so cool" Yeah it is, and I want it, and that's why I am here, so let's just do this. She explains to me how she would do it, I make some jokes about my hair and the current haircut - no reaction. Smile. She tells me a few more details, I ask something, she answers, smile. She asks me if I want to drink anything, takes a breath, and recites the "menu"; I ask for water (Why on Earth did I do that when they had prosecco?). She then sends me away with Blondie, to get my hair washed. Blondie sits me down, puts a towel on my shoulders, turns on the water, gives me a head massage (Urgh, why is this even a thing?!); she thanks me after each and every action. I know her smile - the same smile - is still there. She washes and styles away silently, but I can hear her smile in her breath. At the end, she thanks me for having let her serve me while I sat down, leaning back like royalty, and takes me back to the chair (In my head, she also makes a very deep courtsey).

And then the cutting begins. She explains to me the science of hair and curls and cutting and styling with so much confidence, that I start to believe there must be scientific journals and papers on this topic. When I ask her stuff, she answers. When I open a topic or say something just to keep up the conversation she answers with one sentence, or just nods politely and smiles, nothing else. Then she starts again with the speeches on the science of hairstyling, and I feel the need to look at her in the mirror to see if she is reading from some notes. She is not, but her speech is almost mechanical and so full of big words, that I am somehow surprised to see no stack of paper or laptop next to her.

She is done. The haircut is lovely, so great, and my hair is amazing, and now it looks even more amazing, because she cut it with such style, and it will be absolutely fabulous if I buy this amazing product to give it strength and elasticity and some other terms dangerously close to my research field in mechanics (Yes, I bought it, I am a very nice client and consumer). And that was it. 60 minutes of being served, 15 minutes of being styled. After paying, She brings me my cardigan and coat and - no, She does not hand them to me, She holds them for me; so all I need to do is stick my long arms in the sleeves. Then I get chocolate and a bunch of other promotional stuff. I can't find my phone and receptionist, hairstylist, and two assistants all put on worried faces (smiles are still on though), they look around the room, until the hairstylist offers to call me so I can find it faster. I find it in my bag, smile, and they all seem to relax their shoulders in relief. I say goodbye and leave.

Walking away from Fancy Expensive Haircuts GmbH, I can't help but wonder what sort of people come there regularly, for which this kind of service is necessary: excessive politeness, readiness to serve, fake smiles and mechanical speeches with no real interest for the person - but for the client as a master. How much training does it take to make these little robots? Also, should I make them work more and be more arrogant when I go there next time? Because I can? And, finally, is the bunch of hair stylishly hanging out of my freshly cut bob on the right side of my head longer than the one hanging on my left side?