Returning to ballet as an adult can be a wonderful, rewarding though sometimes overwhelming experience. As an adult ballet teacher you may find that kindness and understanding are your best tools to guide expectations for your returning adult student.

Returning With The Same Brain… But A Different Body

A genuine challenge for your returning adult student is their mind-body connection. In their initial contact with your studio they may have sounded confident in their recollection of technique and terminology. This confidence often dwindles as they draw closer to putting their hand on the barre in their first class. It’s important to reassure your returning student (before their first class) that nothing will feel like it used to, because they are living in an adult body that is entirely different to the dancing body that they remember in their youth.

Your language during the on-boarding process for your returning adult student can help to diminish fears and shape their experience.

“You will feel as though you have no strength, very little control, and your balance has gone on holidays and may never return! Please try not to worry about any of that because it will all come back in time. The only thing I’m concerned about today is whether you walk out of this class with a smile on your face because it feels good to be dancing again… because you want ballet back in your life.  The joy is everything, the rest is just process and why you keep coming to class every week.”

Once your returning student understands that ballet technique will feel different, it’s time to encourage them to be in the now, with the body they have. As with the competitive element of ballet training, body image is closely tied to ballet ‘worth’ in young people. Negative attitudes towards body image may even have been instrumental in why your returning student left ballet in the first place.

Brains are amazing in the knowledge they retain, unfortunately muscles don’t respond the same way they did in the past, and it’s important to help your returning student make peace with this. Remind your returning student of the time that has lapsed, and the life they have lived since they last took a ballet class. Acknowledging the feelings of frustration or self-doubt that creep in (often too easily), then letting them go is a skill that you can assist your returning students develop.

Returning To A Past Love

Helping your returning adult students anticipate the emotional and physical aspects of being in the studio again is a great responsibility, but also a privilege. Watching the rekindling and deepening of their connection with ballet is a genuinely rewarding process that will unfold over months and years to come.

An unexpected delight waiting for your returning adult student is the discovery of the sheer joy of dancing, purely for his or herself. Yes, there will always be the demands of the technique, but the motivations for dancing are entirely different in adulthood. Young people dance for career aspirations or team ambitions. Adults dance for their own pleasure; for physical benefits, creative outlet, stress relief and connection with other like-minded adults. This freedom can be an overwhelming discovery and at first, may spark unexpected emotions that as a teacher you need to be prepared for and ready to support. Keep the Kleenex at the ready! Rest assured that with encouragement and care these emotions will settle, and your returning student will embrace ballet with a renewed perspective.

Returning With Ballet Baggage

For a returning adult student, childhood experiences define the thoughts and emotions that surround ballet. These powerful experiences will be influential until new adult experiences have been laid. Sadly there are many ballet horror stories from generations past; you may even have experienced some yourself. Listening to the stories and events that shaped your returning student’s ballet history will help you to understand the intensely personal, emotional journey they are about to take.

Regardless of a happy, or not so happy ballet past, anyone who has trained extensively in their youth deeply understands ballet’s competitive nature. It’s crucial to set the expectation that your studio is a non-competitive environment. Building this awareness is the first step to building trust, and when trust is established a returning adult student is able to start forming a new, adult-appropriate and rewarding relationship with ballet. You want them to feel safe to explore this new relationship with ballet as they are now

Adult ballet has no barriers – it’s a celebration of dancing in the present, however your returning student will need care to navigate their new ballet reality. They deserve time and patience from you, and themselves, to reconnect and develop anew their ballet technique.