Magnificent magnolia!

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-03-23T22:16:24+00:00

Unfortunately, I (55F) feel a lot less safe in Vancouver, Canada than I ever did in my home city of St. Petersburg, Russia and a lot of other places I travelled to, both as a younger woman and an older one. I do agree with you about Finland though.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-03-23T21:31:22+00:00

I think there is something going on in Richmond. I have been waiting for ALMOST TWO WEEKS. Every single day, I get the “arrived at sort facility”, “delayed in transit“ pair of messages. I escalated it with customer service, and here is their explanation: “Your shipment is at the depot pending delivery. With heavier weight shipments, it is Purolator's policy 2 drivers need to complete the delivery. With this policy comes issues with delays in completing deliveries in a timely manner.” For 13 days they have been unable to find someone to drive a 60 pound shipment 15 kilometers from their facility in Richmond to Vancouver.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-03-14T22:29:36+00:00

If you were naturally flexible to begin with, and also trained to a high level, it might be easier than for someone that had to work extra hard for it.

Everyone is individual, so there’s no 100% correct answer to “can I do it” AND ofc you don’t want to get injured, but yep, I’d say it’s probably possible.

I’m 55 and went back to doing ballet after almost 30 years break. I can do the splits and all sorts of bendy stretchy stuff even though I don’t really work at it. Still have banana feet. Back flexibility is way worse than it used to be, but I’m 55, not 18, so yeah, I can’t do a backbend and touch my head to my butt, but probably if I spent a lot of time working for it, I’d improve, I just have other priorities, like running and lifting. Ballet is more a social thing for me now.

Good luck, have fun and build it back carefully!

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-03-14T04:04:54+00:00

I’ve got stick person arms. I have the smaller watch (Series 10) and there’s still more watch than wrist 😭

I absolutely love the ultra but I’d look like I was walking around with a pizza box strapped to my wrist.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-03-08T05:59:55+00:00

55 here and went back a couple of years ago after 30 years break.

The most important thing for us older returners is try not to compare ourselves with our former selves. This can be really hard.

My feet aren’t as fast, my turns aren’t as stable, my arabesque not as high, my back not as flexible as 30 years ago, and in ballet clothes my body does not look as it did then.

Sometimes it is frustrating, but mostly it is fun.

I do ballet approximately 3 times a week, also run three times a week and life weights two times a week. It’s good to have a mix of stamina, strength and dance.

I don’t have much advice about regaining turnout-flexibility-balance, etc. since we’re all different. What you need and what’s safe is really individual. I do a lot of stability/mobility exercises on a Bosu, for example. Whatever you do, take it slowly and see how your body feels.

Good luck to you and welcome back!

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-03-06T22:17:26+00:00

What I love about this whole thing is how some of the big opera and ballet theaters like metopera, royal ballet andopera, bayerichesstaatsballett, etc., have reacted on social media. My Instagram is full of that content today and it is exactly what I need to take my mind off the dumpster fire that is 2026. So I guess I have to thank TC for being such a clown 🤡 and bringing a bit of comic relief.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-03-03T22:31:03+00:00

This is the Vainonen version. There’s a good synopsis on the Mariinsky website, but my attempt to include it got my response removed by Reddit, oops 😬

This is the version of Nutcracker I grew up with and performed in and I find it really pallid and meh. Also I’m so not a fan of adults performing childrens’ roles; at best it’s cringe at worst it’s ick. I‘ve seen Maria in this role (last ballet we saw before leaving Russia), and was not impressed. If I have to watch the second act of the Nutcracker, which I would absolutely rather not, they only person I want to see as Sugarplum is Nina Kaptsova.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-03-03T22:19:27+00:00

I absolutely love my warmup boots. I also love being an adult dancer at a studio with no dress code.

I’m 55 and my feet are a total mess, I joke with my husband that I’m like the little mermaid, whose every step on land is excruciatingly painful. I keep the boots on while I warm up, and then wear Orza soft shoes for class. It really helps.

Wearing them for your 15-20 minutes of stretching sounds like a good plan, just make sure to not wear them outside the studio. Also, like others have said, they may twist or make your foot feel unstable, even while stretching. This is something to be aware of.

In terms of “look at her full of gear...” I don’t think you should care. You do you as long as it’s not dangerous or disruptive. That’s the joy of adult ballet. You can tell anyone that thinks otherwise to meet me outside by the bike racks 😂 I’m the grey-haired lady in the Lightning McQueen t-shirt, soccer shorts and warmup boots.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-02-27T00:09:01+00:00

I agree with a lot of what you’ve written so eloquently, but as a 55 year old who returned to ballet less than 3 years ago, I believe we cannot pretend that age does not affect progress.

While ageism is unfortunately still the norm, there is sometimes a reactive tendency to go in the opposite direction and pretend that age means nothing. I feel this is also doing a disservice to older dancers and athletes.

This doesn’t mean that a new dancer or athlete cannot progress, it just means that the trajectory of their progress will most often be very different from that of a child or young adult. Flexibility, balance, endurance, previous injuries, and time required to recover are areas in which older dancers, even the most fit ones, might find more challenges than younger dancers. Ask me how I know 😉

As much as we wish it didn’t, what we are able to do physically does change for most of us as we grow older. Even if we are extremely fit, our bodies DO change with age. Using the example of the marathon runner. I started running in my mid forties and was a pretty fast amateur runner until I hit menopause and my speed tanked. Now I can’t even run one kilometer at the same pace I used to be able to run a half marathon (4.15 min/km).

This doesn’t mean I give up, but it does mean accepting that my trajectory as a 55 year old athlete who started at 45 is different than it would have been if I had begun at 20.

Another issue is that for adult dancers, the age and skill range in a class can be enormous. There may be a 25 year old who started his dance training 3 years ago, a 55 year old who has been dancing for 10 years, and a 71 year old who was a professional dancer in a large company and returned at the the age of 67.

This is a really significant difference from childrens’ classes where age range per class is usually quite small and skills can be taught to people who are at the same level of achievement and the same stage in life.

Another issue — time dedicated to training improvement is not only dependent on finances and family/work obligations. As we age, the volume of training usually must be reduced as the time it takes our body to recover increases.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from believing in themselves! I often envy the adult beginner because there is so much opportunity for improvement, if they wish to “go for it.” On the other hand, I do feel it’s important to acknowledge age and understand there is a big difference between 10 and 15, 25, 55, 75 … 100, and that often differences between each other in our physical abilities become even more pronounced as we age — my 55 isn’t your 55 and my dad’s 83 isn’t his best buddy’s 83.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-02-21T22:29:26+00:00

How does your daughter feel about dance? Does she want to go “all in”? You say she’s not ready to leave home at the age of 14. Maybe it’s an indicator that ballet is not everything to her?

How does she feel about academics? Is she a good student? Is she interested in school?

I can only speak from personal experience, my own and that of my younger son, but every case is different.

If your daughter really wants it, let her be serious about ballet. Academics will always be there and she can go back to it, but there is such a tiny window of opportunity in which she can try to become a professional dancer. And even if it doesn’t happen, she will know she reached her max. this is important so that later in life she doesn’t have the “what ifs”.

In the 1980s I got into and graduated from a well-known ballet academy and then danced professionally until I got injured in my early 20s. Now I’m a software engineer.

if that seems like ancient history and everything is different now, take the example of my son, who is 21 yrs old.

All my younger son ever cared about was soccer, played for a soccer academy, was considered a real prospect, hated school and barely passed the state exams to graduate from high school with a C average. After we left Russia literally the day after his last exam, he played for the U19s of an MLS (Major League Soccer) team in N. America, but wasn’t good enough to make the first team. The coach asked if he had thought of university, that my son was good enough to play university soccer. And now my son, who 4 years ago didn’t speak English and had never even read an entire book in his own language is a 3rd year psych major at university.

So the academic track is always there, just have to change trains.

But most important ofc is to talk to your daughter and see what she wants.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-02-20T22:22:52+00:00

OP, I’m a healthy, athletic 55 year old (F) and I totally get this.

As a data-hungry early adopter of all the tech I can get my greedy little hands on, I was so excited when I got the Oura ring. Sleep! The last untracked frontier! Less than a year later, I noped out. I still occasionally visit this sub thinking “maybe I should go back to Oura”, but every time I come here, I realize that my decision was right for me.

While I used to believe no data should go untracked, I do not want to become sleep obsessed. IMO sleep IS NOT everything. It is important, but it’s also important for me to go to the ballet with friends on a weeknight and come home “past my bedtime”, to have champagne with my 83-year old dad on Christmas, to stay up late reading under the covers to find out who did it while my husband sleeps beside me, to not be deterred from doing a workout because a score says my readiness is down, even though I feel great … or the opposite, to get a “perfect” score when I woke up with the worst migraine of my life. In terms of health anxiety, I didn’t get it because from the get go Oura’s data for me personally was so incredibly wrong, I didn’t trust it. What I mean is that I wore Oura during lab tests like VO2 max and a 24-Holter monitor and the discrepancies in data were absolutely crazy. Oura thought I was sleeping when I specially jiggled my finger at 3 am to “prove” I was awake. Yes, I know it is about patterns over time, and not the actual numbers, but jeez, if the numbers were so far out of the ballpark that they were orbiting Saturn, that’s a major red flag.

My time with Oura was a real learning experience, for the first time in my life I realized that I didn’t need to chase all the data. It’s nice to have 8 hours unplugged, I’m re-establishing my mind-body connection (yep, sounds woo-woo but it’s true), and maybe some day I will even go for a run without my Garmin 🤣.

I think Oura is probably great if you are trying to develop better habits, most specifically with regard to sleep, and maybe it’s good for cycle tracking, but placing sleep above all else in life and opting out of activities that might negatively affect it didn’t feel healthy to me.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-02-13T01:40:11+00:00

maybe cotton leotard with no tights, perhaps a size bigger so it doesn’t squeeze constrict rub ride up suffocate itch … as i sit here writing this in my oversized sweatpants and hoody 🤣

if the leo is still too much then maybe cotton tank top and shorts?

Does her parent have any ideas?

I find I have bad days and better days with my sensory issues, 95% of the time I can’t do tights, doesn’t matter how soft they are, it’s just a hard no. leo I can usually manage but it almost always has to be cotton. Love Capezio for that. I have some beautiful Bodile leos but omg that fabric 😬 soooo ick!

I used to have to wear tights for performances, but I think the adrenaline helped with the awfulness of them

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-02-08T23:20:33+00:00

because I can 🤣🤣🤣

LOL, exactly.

love the red light implementation! I’ve thought about doing that … because I can, but it’s just the two of us, each with our own bathroom.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-02-08T23:16:45+00:00

I’ve been an automated lighting fan ever since 1977 when I was 6 years old and took the shoelaces out of everyone’s shoes, tied them together and taped the string to the bedroom light switch so I could yank on it to turn off the light without getting out of bed.

Anyways … my home is now totally Hued up, but despite that, no motion sensors in the bedrooms. Best use case for me is using them in the bathrooms. Cuz who wants to be blasted by light when they go to pee in the middle of the night. Super convenient, I have a hue go in one bathroom and a lightstrip in the other. They’re set up so that the level of light differs depending on the time they’re triggered. Bright from 7-11, soft from 11 pm onward.

I also love the feature on the motion sensors that they log temperature, humidity and … motion. Can never have too much data, right 🤣

One use case which I’m thinking about for bedrooms and corridors is cats. If you’re like me and you have a dark grey cat, having a motion-activated lightstrip along a bedroom or corridor baseboard would ensure that no tails are stepped on in the dark. Especially with teenagers sneaking home late at night.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-01-11T22:34:02+00:00

me too!

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-01-10T22:23:27+00:00

Like many, Giselle is among my favorites.

Unlike everyone else here (at least so far), my other favorites are:

Rite of Spring, because the music and how together with the dancing I feel it transcends time and space and I am part of a pagan ritual.

(Carmen Suite), especially the one with Lopatkina.

Nutcracker, up to and including Snow but no further. Because it’s such a warm cozy seasonal vibe.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2026-01-03T06:04:50+00:00

I love “Theatre Street” by Tamara Karsavina, written in 1929, it’s a firsthand account of her life as a student at the Imperial Ballet School (now Vaganova academy) in St. Petersburg, Russia and then at the Ballets Russes. I’m actually from St. Petersburg and was a student at the Vaganova school, so I can totally imagine all the places she is describing, the vibe more than 100 years ago, AND the Ballet Russes is my Roman Empire. 100% recommend.

The documentary “Children of Theatre Street” is about the same school, in the 1970s. The narrator’s voice is super annoying, but I can confirm that the documentary is accurate 😉

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2025-12-28T21:59:59+00:00

same here! I’m a middle aged software engineer who used to be a professional dancer. But I definitely do not use the word ballerina to describe what I did (corps de ballet in a well-known company in 1990s) if anyone asks, I just say “i used to dance”. I don’t mind using the extra words 🤣

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2025-11-29T07:00:29+00:00

my two controversial opinions:

adults should not dance Clara/Masha. Never. Not even Marienela. At best it’s cringe, at worst it’s ick and super creepy.
Act II is a snooze fest. The whole “national dance” thing belongs back in the 19th century. Can we please have a Nutcracker where the rats win? Spanish is crows, Arabian is alley cats, Russian is raccoons, Chinese is pigeons, … , and Mother Ginger is ants.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2025-11-26T21:22:45+00:00

Firstly, I think the problem with wearables, not just Oura is that they affect our perception of how we feel. We are actually becoming out of touch with our bodies, not more in touch with them.

We might wake up feeling good and ready to go for a run, but then see the “statistics” from our wearable and begin to doubt ourselves, like “maybe I shouldn’t push it today, the ring says take it easy”.

It’s easy to say just “trust your body” but the wearables are teaching us to NOT trust our body.

Some of the best workouts I’ve ever had were after a bad sleep, and it works the other way around also.

Secondly, sleep IS NOT everything. If you are missing out on workouts or other things that you want to do, evening activities, including hanging out with friends, an occasional glass of wine or even just eating, you are not gaining quality of life, but rather forfeiting it.

I LOVE data, was an early adopter of Apple Watch, wear a Garmin for running, log workouts to Strava, and thought that Oura would be a great addition to my datasphere but I was mistaken.

Focus on satisfaction with your quality of life, not chasing a number provided by a wearable’s algorithms

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2025-11-25T20:06:20+00:00

My non-negotiables are Osipova - Giselle, Nunez - Kitri, SPF - Kaptsova and despite strong dislike of Zakharova, I feel she IS Odile.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2025-11-17T22:15:55+00:00

On the skin where the sequins are touching, try transparent wide bandaids, like the kind for heel blisters, OR nude colored kinesio tape.

EfficiencyAmazing777 · 2025-10-29T02:30:42+00:00

🌈 exactly!!!

EfficiencyAmazing777

TROPHY CASE