For me, in fact, the enjoyment has always been the main consideration and the healthy exercise only secondary. If it were more generally known how it feels to take ballet classes, the studios would be packed and there would be waiting lists to get in. It can also induce a wonderful peace of mind. A young lady told me, one day at the end of class, that she had come there tired and cross, after a sleepless night full of cares, and that the class had restored her good humor. Ballet does such things for you.
Some people have a natural physical gift.
Certainly this must be true of anyone who becomes a professional dancer. But the person I mean to reach doesn't have these gifts. To him, ballet is a funny art in which ridiculously garbed people dance in outlandish ways, and ballet classes are for little girls who want to learn to move gracefully or who have ambitious mothers. That is the way it looked to me, and I hope that maybe I can implant in such a reader's mind the notion that ballet might be a challenging, rewarding, and joyful experience.