Ballet Pictures

When I was young and taking ballet classes I used to pour over ballet pictures for hours. Ballet movies were not yet generally available and they showed up few and far between in the movie theaters.

After I got into a professional ballet school, I saw many performances, so I became a little indifferent about seeing ballet pictures. I could watch the senior students in my ballet school and that fired my imagination and inspired me.

But if I were a young ballet student now, I would have a room plastered with ballet pictures. They are easy to get, and framed or not, ballet posters would be my wall paper.

My family moved a lot when I was young, so if it weren’t for that, I would have been cutting pictures of ballet out of dance magazines and pinning them up. My grandparents used to send my sister and me British magazines – and that was when I first saw ballet pictures of The Royal Ballet, and other English ballet companies.

I think I fell asleep almost every night with a picture of a ballet dancer in my brain’s movie screen. What else was there to think about?

I try to imagine what it would be like being a ten year old ballet dancer right now. There would be a million ways to look at photos or posters of ballet dancers!! Would I be overwhelmed? Would I change desktop pictures every day to enjoy the pictures of my favorite ballerinas or men in ballet?

Would I be checking my iPhone or ipad or whatever to see the latest ballet pictures?

I do check my Facebook page a lot and see pictures of both ballet and contemporary dancers that I trained with/taught/admired/adore – people who are country or world famous or – are the photographers who follow them!

I see tweets by people who follow me, whom I follow, or who tweet articles I’ve written about ballet stuff (ballet turnout, pointe shoes, pre pointe exercise, pointe shoe exercises).

And I am so glad it is so easy to click onto a page written by Wendy Perron of Dance Magazine or a post from Nina Amir (“My Son Can Dance”), or from Nichelle at Dance Advantage. This is such a good time for me.

So that is my story – but what is yours? Do you crave ballet pictures? Would you love to see yourself in those beautiful ballet pointe shoes, a beautiful Swan Lake tutu or a long classical Giselle tutu? Is this a realistic goal?

Whether this realistic or not, I get it. And the world class ballerinas who WERE born to dance, who have danced the classics and more, who did guest all over with the greatest ballet companies of the world – they get it too. They know exactly what is in your soul. You are in good company!

Are some of us born with ballet pictures in our brains? I would not get in line to contest this premise….I would walk away quietly.

According to Neurolinguistic Programming and other psychology and brain wave researchers, what the content of the PICTURES in your brain are, matters more than than the “real” universe around you does. In terms of your emotional energy and approach to life.

If you were born seeing ballet images, but do not have the ballet body or opportunity to train in ballet – maybe what matters is that you surround yourself with ballet pictures and – are happy!

If you feel like you are just a smidgen short of being able to train in ballet or contemporary dance classes, get a great dancers guide showing you how to train your brain.

Ballet pictures in YOUR brain - how to take advatage.