I am lying on my back. Sweat is trickling from my temples
through the curls of hair above my ears, around to the back of my
neck and then dripping onto the vinyl mat. My left leg is bent at
the knee; my right leg is wrenched across my left leg to form the
number 4. My left hand is stretching through the hole of the 4 and
pulling my right leg forward, grasping in vain for my right hand
behind my right thigh.
Literally, I am tying myself in a knot.
It’s not what I had in mind when I signed up for The Ballet
Workout. The idea originated last September with Sal, the
player-manager of my softball team, towards the end of another
injury-riddled season. I pulled my hamstring for the ninth time in
six years, then pulled a groin muscle compensating for the
hamstring, then pulled a muscle below my ribcage sneezing. Maybe,
Sal said, I ought to work on flexibility. He suggested yoga. But
I’ve always held a dim view of yoga, of the in-your-face serenity
of its practitioners — as though the ability to bend your leg
behind your head translated into spiritual enlightenment.
The Ballet Workout seemed more likely. For one thing, it wasn’t
an actual ballet class, so I wouldn’t have to wear tights
or dance slippers. For another, I’d once briefly dated a woman who
taught me the five basic foot-positions, so I figured I already had
a leg up. Besides, I’d been told several times that I looked
relatively graceful playing centerfield … so I thought maybe I’d
turn out to be a natural at ballet, that I’d end up doing Nureyevs
from one end of the studio to the other.
THAT IMAGE LASTED FIVE MINUTES into the first class. It lasted five
minutes only because Anna, the instructor, was four minutes late.
As the class — nine women and me — waited for her to arrive, I
watched myself in the mirror. I looked like a dancer. I
was wearing a sleeveless gray T-shirt and black bicycle shorts and
a light blue bandanna tied across my forehead. As I rolled my head
from side to side, loosening up, the stark overhead light was
shadowing my high Bolshoi cheekbones.
Finally, Anna entered the room. She was a petite woman with dark
brown hair, very pretty, in her late twenties. She walked up to me
at once and glanced down at my feet.
“You might want to loose those.”
She meant my Converse Chuck Taylor hightops.
As I unlaced the sneakers, Anna stepped to the front of the
class and called out: “Warm-ups.”
The rest of the class collected vinyl mats from the corner and
then slid down onto them, and I followed their lead — thankful
that neither of my socks had a hole in the toe. As we shifted from
one side to another, rotating our legs at odd angles to loosen our
hip joints, I still felt vaguely adequate. The first real trouble
came when we rolled onto our stomachs. Anna told us to extend our
right leg and left arm; this I managed by pressing my forehead into
the mat for a kind of tripod balance. A moment later, I heard
Anna’s voice above me. “Head back! Head back! That’s right. Now
chin up!”
The instant I pulled my chin up, I keeled to the left — banging
my high left Bolshoi cheekbone onto the edge of the mat and wood
floor. I glanced up at Anna, forcing a smile, a signal that only my
dignity was hurt. Then we reversed arms and legs, then back again,
back and forth. The rest of the class was flexing and arching, a
flock of swans; I was a buckshot goose stiffening with rigor
mortis.
Next, we rolled onto our backs. “Hands beneath your rear-ends,”
Anna shouted, assuming the position herself, “small of your back
pressed into the mat, legs straight up in the air, feet turned out
… now your legs come apart.”
All right, I had my hands beneath my rear-end.
“Legs up in the air,” she called to me. “Up in the air.
Way up. Straight knees! Straight knees! That’s right. Now
your legs come apart. Just let them fall apart.”
Reluctantly, my legs drifted apart: Got it, I
thought.
Then I peered at Anna in front of the room. Her legs were
extended to 3:45. I glanced up at mine: ten minutes to two.
“Now legs together!”
I brought mine together.
“Now back apart … see if you can go further.”
I was still at ten to two: Anna was now at 4:40.
As we continued our floor work, straightening and rounding,
coiling and relaxing, I came to realize that she was boneless, a
cross between a woodland sprite and a gumby. She was doing things
with her body that I couldn’t have done if I’d been able to step
out of my skeleton and twist from the outside. Still, Anna managed
an occasional smile in my direction. I was pleased, too, that none
of the other students seemed to notice how awkward I felt. They
were too focused on keeping up with Anna’s instructions.
AFTER SEVERAL MORE MINUTES on the mats, Anna told us to stand up
and catch our breaths. When I glimpsed myself in the mirror, what a
change I saw! I had sweated through the back and sides of my
T-shirt, and my hair was soaked into ringlets that lined the rim of
the bandanna.
The woman next to me whispered, “Good workout.”
“Is it over?”
She laughed softly.
“Feet in first position!” Anna called.
That, I knew I how to do: knees straight, heels
together, toes turned out to 180 degrees. Anna nodded in approval
as I teetered for an instant, then steadied myself.
“Now, demi-plié …”
As the words left her mouth, Anna sank in a perfect line towards
the floor, her feet still opposed, her heels still together, her
thighs and calves diamonding out, her arms billowing at her sides;
a second later, she rose again to her full height, her knees
straightening, her arms rolling upwards at the same pace as her
torso. The movement was breathtaking in its simplicity and grace. I
watched her do another, then, on her third call, attempted my first
demi-plié.
“Good!’ she said.
I nodded to her: No problem.
“Now, with me, on the beat … plié …
plié … plié …”
The word itself became the count, the forceful plee the
dip, the breathless yeh the rise. For a half dozen
pliés, I was keeping up, adapting to the cadences
of her voice. The two of us were partners, bodies in motion
together. But then, accidentally, I glimpsed myself in the mirror.
The truth hit hard. I was not Anna’s partner. I was a dancing bear.
No, I was one of those Ray Harryhausen clay dinosaurs that lurch
between frames of film. The hunch in my shoulders as I curled my
arms was australopithecine.
“Right leg brushes forward and back! Foot pointed! Now … brush
… brush … brush …”
As I watched my right foot swinging forward and back, I was
determined not to look in the mirror again. My balance was shaky. I
wobbled on my left leg twice, but I continued to brush. For the
remainder of the class, I sank back into myself, focused on Anna’s
directions, mimicked her movements half-heartedly. What I wanted,
throughout, was to be back in centerfield, circling underneath a
fly ball, doing something I was good at — and I wanted Anna
sitting in the bleachers. Watching me. Nodding her head.
WHEN THE CLASS ENDED, I HURRIED out. Never again, I
thought. That resolution intensified the following morning: I ached
in places I’d never ached before, felt spasms where I didn’t know I
had muscles. Still, as the week wore on, I began to waver. The
aches faded, the spasms petered out. I was left with the
recognition that ballet was the first physical activity I’d ever
been bad at. Sure, I’d been mediocre at lots of things, but never
bad. I began to feel for those kids in the playground — you know,
the last picks of the pick-up games, the Philips and Marvins and
Iras, who seemed predestined to watch grounders dribble through
their legs or pop ups ricochet off their chests. They
always came back. Week after week, praying perhaps that their
bodies would start to follow their wills, that their mental images
would suddenly match reality, that the recipe for athletic
coordination would finally dawn on them.
Of course, it never did.
Nevertheless, that is my hope now as I return week after week to
The Ballet Workout: that someday, suddenly, I will glance past Anna
and into the mirror and see something that resembles a dancer.
