Awww, you’re so sweet! Thank you! Keep up the good work! This reads like an excellent (female-friendly) blog for dealing with middle-age body issues and fitness goals. The kind which is SOOOO hard to find thesedays on the web (EVERYTHING all place else is obsessed with: the sz 1, 22 y.o.’s in ridiculous yoga clothing I’m sure don’t even know what the true meaning of Namasté is).

Facing mirrors with the consistency dancers do is extremely challenging. It would be doing a disservice to all dancers (from pre-professional to recreational and everywhere in between) to pretend as though there aren’t intrinsic challenges.

By supporting dancers to find a positive view of themselves IT IS possible to hold onto that joy of movement. And I fully relate to the “pear shaped” body thoughts but I’m no longer willing to compare myself to a piece of fruit! I’m a person 😉 and so are you. xo

Growing up into a pear-shaped body in front of all these mirrors and noticing (seemingly, overnight): white tights are making your hips now look like you’re carrying sacks of flour around your sides(!), I absolutely understand, can be a very dangerous confidence tipping point for ANY young woman if she believes she doesn’t have an outside support structure. Luckily, for me, (beyond: realizing I was too rebellious, lol!, to work-toward having elite level discipline at it) my parents never let me go down that road and knew that, in the case of my liking Dance, it had come from hearing a lot of music always being played around the house as a kid and just loving to move to it (so: it was a feeling already implanted in me nobody was ever going to take away — no matter what I chose to do in life).

Thank you,
Cristina S.