Why You should consider practicing Ballet...

Hello Marie, Your commentary on this subject really interested (and spoke to) me;) My first portal into crossdressing was dancewear when I was around 19 (I'm 62 now)..I remember getting my first set of leotard, tights, ballet shoes and a tutu(and yes it was pink) through a mail order catalog in the 80's, dressing up, and loving my reflection in the mirror:)...Since then, I still dress occasionally and watch ballet exercise videos and try to practice doing 'plies';)

Hello Marie,
Yes as my daughter danced and I was backstage, I would fantasize as being there on stage with her. I was jealous when the boy would dance with her and imagine I was the lead male in the leotard. My mind eventually drifted off to thoughts of me being in a ballet dress and wondered what the toe shoes really felt like. I never took the next step but now after reading your article I think it would be a great class to take for exercise and discipline. Thanks for the inspiration.

Hello Marie,
Yes as my daughter danced and I was backstage, I would fantasize as being there on stage with her. I was jealous when the boy would dance with her and imagine I was the lead male in the leotard. My mind eventually drifted off to thoughts of me being in a ballet dress and wondered what the toe shoes really felt like. I never took the next step but now after reading your article I think it would be a great class to take for exercise and discipline. Thanks for the inspiration.

As an undergraduate, I used to walk from the railway station to the main campus where I took an Arts and Humanities degree (and later did teacher training).
On my route lay the lower campus with its School of Dance and I generally slowed down or stopped there as I'd have a view into one or two of the dance studios where - depending on whether the curtains were drawn or not - I could gaze enthralled on numbers of beautiful girls in ballet attire in class.

My fascination with what to me is the "Latin of Dance" had begun much earlier, when I was at primary school and school concerts often included a ballet (or other dance genre) item, the performers being virtually exclusively girls.

I also happened to have befriended at high school a boy who was deeply involved in Spanish and Flamenco Dance (and who was also somewhat effeminate and later openly gay).
He went on to study dance full time and although his calling was Flamenco, the structure of the course at that time meant a core element of Classic Ballet, with contemporary or other dance forms being added on at the end as a "speciality".

The upshot of it was that I had a pretext for regularly dropping in at the ballet school where I'd have coffee with my friend while being able to view the dancers in class or practising in three different studios. There was also ample opportunity to interact with them. Most were women with only a sprinkling of young men, almost all of them gay.

What I came to enjoy was the frankness and ease with which the women interacted with the males - perhaps because as "gay men" they were not perceived as a threat (whether their "gayness" was real or erroneously assumed).

At the relatively advanced age of 49, I finally reached a work-life arrangement (and a level of "I don't care" emotional maturity) that enabled me to enroll in an adult ballet class.

I had studied books and invested in video courses beforehand but although the level I started at was graded "Absolute Beginner", it was really tough.
I must add that I was fit and nimble, as a result of lifelong Karate pratice. However, hardly anybody in my class was an "absolute beginner".
Most of them were adult women (25 - 50 years of age or so) who had clearly had ballet training in their childhood or youth.
The only other man in my class was slightly older than me (definitely not gay) but he clearly also had some background in ballet practice.

Neverthless, I attended zealously on a twice weekly basis for a year and a half but then dropped out when my wife - who had been most supportive - sadly passed away.

I wore male ballet attire in class and was very much viewed as a male and treated as such, in terms of steps and routines demanded by the discipline.

I spite of this, however, I found that the women tended to let down their guard with me and also conversed among themselves as though no male were present.
There was something thrilling in all of this, as though I were either another female in the room (or perhaps just a fly on the wall).
I was often intoxicated by this overwhelmingly female ambience, drunk on the feminine aromas and chit chat before and after class.
I must add that for practice at home, I wear the female uniform, viz. pink ballet tights, pink ballet slippers and woman's leotard (either blue or maroon, usually).

My wife's death affected me deeply and the resultant stress led to all sorts of mysterious, almost crippling aches and pains.
Although after a few years of alternative approaches (including body stress release, acupuncture and mindfulness meditation) I am feeling physically well again, I am unlikely to go back into a ballet class.

Love,
Katherine

Like most I am not very graceful at dance but admirer it nonetheless. Knowing what I know now I surely would have taken ballet when a teen since I agree with you Marie Claire. I do wear leotard tops a lot and tights but never had the tutu.