Why Ballet? Why begin as an adult?

Photo: Fabrice Herrault

It's Tuesday morning, and I am taking a moment at my desk to contemplate why any adult might want to take a "beginner" ballet class, and why am I a good person to teach such a class? This is not my first "go 'round" teaching adult beginners how to do ballet, in truth I have done it many times before. This is however my first time writing about it specifically. 

Truthfully, my approach to teaching physical skills to adults is greatly influenced by decades of teaching adults of ALL abilities how to kayak on rivers, open water, and lakes. Teaching recreational sports to adults has long been studied by the skiing industry and applied across other physical sports. Two highlighted practices to consider when learning a new skill as an adult, is good guided instruction and consistent repetition.  And since it can be frustrating to be a beginner, it is important to have an interest in the chosen activity.

There are countless reasons to take up ballet as an adult, and below I offer one perspective and how one dancer chose to take up the challenge.

Without consulting Finis Jhung I am going to introduce him to you here. Today, Finis Jhung is a much sought out teach of adult beginner ballet students, and he is based in NYC. As a teacher, he became fascinated with teaching adult beginner ballet and has produced numerous videos and online streaming content to serve his students and the broader public. In 2018, Jhung released a pictorial autobiography that covers his stellar career as a professional ballet dancer, and the many others with whom he crossed paths both during and after his own performing career. Check him out https://finisjhung.com/

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The foreward is written by a long time student of Jhung, Natalia Shulgina:

...I listen with an amused ear to my American rheumatologist's suggestion to "try ballet" for gaining musculoskeletal stability and strength.

... Yet, the idea - fallen on fertile ground of countless childhood hours spent mesmerized, watching black-and-white reruns of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadere, Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, and Spartacus from the Kirov and Bolshoi - quickly gains the attention of my tired mind and a body aching for movement. I begin to contemplate the unthinkable: learning ballet, for the first time, at the age of 40.

Thus begins my journey into the world of the "adult ballerinas."

...Classes are most plentiful for children and teenagers. Lessons for adult learners with previous experience in ballet are second in availability. But instruction for "absolute beginner," adults with no previous experience in ballet, is extremely difficult to find.

(Ballet for Life: A Pictorial Memoir, Foreward, p. 14)

I have the utmost respect for ALL teachers, and I also respect that individually we can't suit the needs or interests of all students. We can hope to suit some of the dancers we teach all of the time (to paraphrase John Lydgate). :-)

I look forward to our first class together at Taylor Dance West, 307 W 38 Street, 9th floor, NYC.

Richard