One of my favourite interests in life is ballet dancing. I’ve been taking ballet lessons as a child, and returned back to it again as an adult a few years ago. Taking ballet classes brought so many incredible benefits into my life (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual).
These days I miss being in the ballet studio, but ever since the global pandemic hit, I’ve been ‘religiously’ attending ballet classes on Zoom every Thursday. Of course, this feels slightly different, compared to the studio classes, but the benefits I’ve been receiving have been equally wonderful.
Ballet teaches you so many things. It teaches you discipline, it helps your body posture, it teaches you to be fully focused and present in the moment, and it also teaches you be more patient with yourself, while learning and mastering new moves and techniques.
Today, I would like to talk about some of these benefits and I’ve picked three I’d like to focus on. And this doesn’t mean you only have to take ballet lessons to experience similar benefits. Absolutely not. You can choose any activity you like, which can help you feel great and it’s good for your mind, body and soul. And as a bonus, the benefits described below, can also help you create a healthy mind-set for achieving your goals.
1) Ballet teaches you to more present
When you are ballet dancing you have to be fully present and focused on what you are doing. The ballet moves require your full focus and participation. If you find your mind wandering, you can get easily lost and suddenly you are not keeping up with the music and the rest of the class. You have to be fully present in the moment. I find this extremely helpful, because my mind is very busy most of the time. When I’m in the class, however, I leave my worries and daily concerns aside, and fully focus on what I’m asked to do by my teacher, so I can experience the full benefits of the class.
2) Ballet teaches you to be more patient with yourself
Being patient in ballet is very important. You have to practise, practise, practise, and then practise some more to master the dance moves. This can be a hard work. It is in ballet I learned to be more patient with myself and stopped comparing myself to others. I stopped being so hard on myself and I accepted, that if I want to get better at it, I need to be more patient with myself while maintaining a regular practice, which is extremely important.
3) Ballet teaches you to be disciplined
Another great thing I learned from my ballet lessons and ballet teachers is to be disciplined. As I mentioned above, you have to be patient with yourself, but that patience needs to be also supported by discipline. To be able to accomplish any dream, you have to have discipline. You have to practise regularly, you have to believe in yourself and you have to drop the excuses. When any obstacles arise, you take a deep breath and you keep practising.
So whether you choose ballet or any other physical activity, I hope you enjoy it, I hope it will make you feel good and it will bring many benefits into your life, including building a healthy mind-set for achieving your goals in life.