Ballerina Body

Chapter 1

YOUR BODY IS PERFECT FOR YOU

So much of my approach to my life and career stems from my experiences as a child. My need to please and be the best, my yearning for structure and discipline, all started back in Kansas City, Missouri, where I was born.

When I was a toddler, my family and I moved to the small West Coast city of Bellflower. There were four of us kids then: my older sister, Erica, my big brothers, Doug Jr. and Chris, and then me. My mother would marry two more times, and that's when my baby sister, Lindsey, and our baby brother, Cameron, would come along.

There was such a ruckus in our household, so many personalities clamoring for attention, that it was hard for me to find my own voice. It became little more than a whisper, tucked deep inside, and I shrank within myself.

Shy doesn't begin to describe how withdrawn I was. When I went to school, my heart would pound as I sat in class, dreading that I might be called on to answer a question or to offer my opinion. And I worried constantly, about being tardy, about making a mistake on a test, about doing something, anything, that would upset the people around me. When I was seven years old, I started to suffer from migraines, sometimes feeling so sick I'd have to leave school early and lie down in a pitch-black room until the pain and nausea faded away.

My mother had migraines as well, and they'd started for her when she was my age. But I believe that my searing headaches were also connected to the constant nervousness I felt dealing with the turbulence of the world around me.

Our family moved often, from one small, crowded apartment to another, before we finally landed at the Sunset Inn, a motel near a busy highway in the Southern California city of Gardena. So much upheaval, so much uncertainty, left me longing for stability and routine.

In the midst of all the chaos, music and movement were my refuge. Pliés and fouettés, the foundation of my future, were still over the horizon. I wasn't aware of ballet yet. I'd never even seen a ballet. Instead, I escaped to the rhymes and beats of rappers and singers like TLC, Salt-N-Pepa, and our family's favorite, Mariah Carey.

When I wasn't creating steps to the pop song of the moment, I was mimicking the moves of the legendary gymnast Nadia Comaneci. I'd seen a Lifetime movie based on her life story and I fell in love with her fierceness and grace. I began to teach myself the moves that she performed so effortlessly, and I found that I, too, could execute a cartwheel or the splits with ease.

But it was ballet that would be my calling, and my salvation. And I found it on the sweat-stained floor of a Boys & Girls Club gym. Every day, after school and drill team practice, I would head with my siblings to the local Boys & Girls Club, an organization that gave countless children like me a welcoming space to play and grow. Elizabeth Cantine, my drill team instructor and a woman whom I, to this day, consider my godmother, saw the way I moved and suggested that I attend a ballet class at the club, which was taught by a friend of hers, Cynthia Bradley.

As I've said, I didn't have a clue about ballet. And when I made my way to the bleachers to sit and watch Cynthia teach a handful of students how to stretch and pirouette, I felt even more lost. Trying something new, in a group of strangers, was terrifying to a shy, cautious child like me.

But Cynthia spotted me sitting there and gently encouraged me to join the group. I didn't even have a pair of tights or a leotard. It took a few days more for me to summon my courage, but, finally, with gym shorts that were too big, and socks barely topping my ankles, I walked across the floor, joined the class, and put my hands on the barre.

I was thirteen, far too old in the eyes of many purists to be getting my start in ballet. But with that first class, I'd brushed up against my destiny.

"You're too big to be a ballerina."

That's what a random stranger said to me one night, several years ago, at a Manhattan club. His words stopped me cold and sent a jagged pain through my heart.

I was in my second year in ABT's corps de ballet, the large group of dancers who create the atmosphere for the ballet and who frame the soloists and principal dancers who headline the performances. My best friend, Leyla, and I had taken a cab that evening to hang out at a popular new club called Bed. It was the kind of place where after spinning on the dance floor, partiers lounged on couches, chatted over the DJ's swelling beats, and sipped cocktails.

I'd gone to the club to forget what had happened a few hours before. But that stranger's callous comment brought roaring back the memory of everything I'd experienced that day, along with my feelings of confusion and even despair.

That afternoon, members of ABT's staff said they wanted to speak to me, and I had a good idea what they wanted to talk about. I'd put on ten pounds. My breasts pulled at the seams of the costumes I shared with my dance mates and wore as one of the Willies in Giselle and as a cygnet in Swan Lake. It was as if I was now enveloped in someone else's body.

The changes in my figure had happened seemingly overnight. A couple of years before, at nineteen years old, I'd had a physique more akin to that of a prepubescent girl. My doctor had grown concerned about my ability to maintain the strength I needed for my strenuous dance schedule, so he prescribed birth control pills to help my body catch up to where biologically it should have already been.

Of course, over time, my ballet instructors noticed the change. So that afternoon, when they called me in, they told me gently but firmly that I needed to "lengthen." In the ballet world, that was a polite way of saying that I needed to slim down.

Their admonishment stung, just like the words uttered by that man at the club. I felt helpless. How was I going to lose weight? Where would I begin? I already spent up to eight hours a day rehearsing and taking ballet classes. During the season I performed several days a week. How could that not be enough? I needed nourishment to power through my classes and rehearsals. And at the end of a long day, I enjoyed a good meal, maybe even dessert. Did I now have to count every calorie and deny myself the occasional sweet treat? I was dejected. But as tough as those words were to hear, that conversation with my instructors at ABT, and the harsh realization that flowed from it, marked the true beginning of my fitness journey.

My path mirrored the rocky start of so many women. First you want to fit into a certain mold. Then you struggle to create or find a road map to get there. What I learned during my personal odyssey was sometimes painful, sometimes difficult, but always invaluable. No, I didn't have to lock my refrigerator and throw away the key, but I did need to eat more mindfully so that I could build my strength and give myself the breathing room for that occasional dessert or glass of wine. No, I didn't have to lift heavy weights and work out around the clock. But I had to learn what exercises and combinations of foods would keep my body lean and strong and give me the stamina I needed to get through my long days.

It took me a few years to get the formula exactly right. But when I did, not only did I feel fitter, not only was my body sleeker and more powerful, but I also had come to a realization that was more important than any other—I came to understand, to accept, that all along my body had been perfect for me.

My body was and is perfect for me, just like the body you're in is perfect for you. Didn't it pop out of bed when it was still dark outside and hold you up through homeroom, algebra, and band rehearsal after school? Didn't it carry you across the campus quad, through your procession of classes, and then forward, until you headed home from your part-time job? Didn't it carry your twins for nine long months and then usher them into the world? Hasn't your body held you in good stead through the decades, and isn't it sustaining you now in middle age?

Like I said. You are perfect.

You may have to start fueling your body differently so that you can climb the stairs without losing your breath. You may have to strengthen your core so your bearing is as regal as you are. You may need to incorporate some physical rituals that can help you feel more alert when you hit that midway point in the afternoon, or reframe your thinking so you can enter that marathon and run it to the end.

But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the body you're in, that your physique should be a replica of your favorite singer's, athlete's, or movie star's. It just means fine-tuning, tweaking, honing, what you've already got, taking control of and subtly re-etching the outer self that is divinely you.

How boring would it be if we all looked the same? No, really. Just as it would be monotonous, off-putting, and surreal for us all to have the same hair color, eye tint, and shade of skin, we are also not all meant to be exactly the same size.

I actually think fixating on numbers, whether they appear on the tag stitched to the back of your blouse, the scale that sits on your bathroom floor, or a sheet of paper where you painstakingly track the calories in every meal, is not the most productive path toward your healthiest self. The fit of your clothing, the vibrancy of your complexion, the intensity of your energy, are all, in my mind, better gauges of whether or not you are boosting your vitality and performing at your peak.

To be sure, many of the messages echoing through our culture make some women feel that we are all supposed to fit into the same waifish, cookie-cutter mold. Even dancers, often in top shape because of the grueling workouts we put our bodies through, have plenty of insecurities. After all, we spend a good part of our day in front of mirrors. Add to that the pressures of being judged by dance instructors, critics, and, most important, the audience, and it can make even the most confident performer feel tentative and unsure. But even those who do not spend chunks of their lives beneath a spotlight can feel self-conscious about their figures.

You don't need to internalize someone else's rendering of what it means to be beautiful and healthy. Rather than comparing yourself to photographs in a magazine or images on a television screen, the only visage you need to focus on is the one that stares back at you from your own mirror. And thankfully women are starting to rebel against limited and unrealistic notions of what it is to be attractive and are instead embracing their own unique beauty.

The mental snapshot of a ballerina's body has also changed. Women are flocking to barre workouts taught at studios and gyms like Pure Barre, the Dailey Method, and Equinox because they want to be willowy but not fragile, toned but not tiny, muscular but not masculine. They understand that the perfect body is one that is robust and healthy.

Sometimes we turn to strict diets to try to attain the body we desire. But dieting is often an ephemeral fix, rather than a long-term, sustainable solution. You can carve out the physique and lifestyle you want without limiting yourself to a handful of foods or severely restricting your calories. The healthier way to achieve your goals is by adjusting your lifestyle bit by bit, incorporating subtle changes that you can then commit to and live by.

I eventually realized there was nothing wrong with the natural changes that my body had undergone, but I had to learn to work with this new physique, to find the exercise techniques it needed to push through hours upon hours of rehearsal. I had to learn to listen to this new body, to know what nutrition it required to fuel performances that required sheer athleticism blended with a dancer's grace. I had to embrace my new physical self to attain my goals of maximum health and vigor.

As a dancer, my body is my instrument. I speak to the audience through every muscle and tendon, with every glissade and renversé. When I recognized those truths, my fitness journey became one of joy and not frustration. I wanted simply to respect my body, to get the most out of it that I could, in order to live my best life.

Your body is essential to you as well. That's why it's so important to love it, to have faith in it. Take a stack of sticky notes and paste reminders of all it does for you all over your mirror, or jot words of appreciation on the lined pages of your journal—My legs propelled me out of bed this morning. These shoulders gave a piggyback ride to my children. My arms allowed me to rake the soil in my garden on a Sunday afternoon.

There have been times when I doubted myself, questioning if I had what it took to advance from a member of the corps de ballet to soloist, and then, one day, to principal. I had many days when I thought I'd never master the mix of exercise and food that would help me maximize my endurance and effectiveness as a dancer. But an endless loop of self-doubt chips away at our feelings of self-worth, stifling our motivation and crippling our momentum before we take even our first step.

So, let the first act of our fitness journey start from a place of self-respect and appreciation. We want to polish the bodies that are our temples, not tear them down.

When negative thoughts rise in your mind and start to go round and round—My stomach is too jiggly! My thighs are too wobbly! My arms are too flabby!—push those self-critiques away and refocus on how singular you are, and how, with small changes and small efforts each and every day, you can become stronger, more vibrant, more sculpted, no matter what your natural shape.

By shifting my focus, changing my self-perception, and shoring up my spirituality, I have come to love the body that I am in. The muscles that ripple through my legs allow me to do thirty-two fouettés without crumpling to the floor. The curves that swell beneath my clothes help me to relay the message to the world that you can be healthy, fit, and, yes, voluptuous too. My physique, like the color of my skin, is helping people reconsider what a ballerina looks like.

You are fiercely, lovingly, and divinely you. My ballet-based fitness plan is simply going to help you maximize the wonderful body that you already have and enable you to be as fit, joyful, and dynamic as you can possibly be.

Chapter 2

GET INSPIRED

I've wanted to dance for American Ballet Theatre since I was thirteen years old.