So today marked my first ballet class in about two months. My lovely instructor, Carla, from Ballet to the People (congrats on winning Dance Blog of the Year, btw!!!) told me she could hardly tell I hadn’t taken class in that long. I guess it’s the old Ballet Brain at work!
I literally just coined this phrase yesterday while in class. I guess it already has a name, and that name is “Muscle Memory” but I think Ballet Brain is more fun. Basically, it’s the brain that takes over and lets you move naturally even if you don’t understand what it is you’re doing.
The prime example was an across the floor we were doing that involved two sautés, and then a…. um… spinny sauté (such a technical term, I know!). We were marking the combination and my normal brain was just like “What the what?!” I could NOT wrap my head around what we were trying to do, and to be frank, I still can’t.
However, once the music queued up and we began, I just… did it. It’s like my normal brain switched off, and my Ballet Brain took over. I now understand the mantra of “STOP THINKING SO MUCH.” Ballet isn’t for thinking– it’s for training, and learning the art and movements, and just letting your body make it happen. Overthinking it tends to just ruin everything I try– I end up going the wrong way, adding an extra step where I shouldn’t, and in general getting lost during combinations where if I just STOPPED THINKING my dancing would improve. I gotta trust in my Ballet Brain. She’s got this!
Some Assemblé Required 
It’s freaky how that happens. When I began ballet again, almost a year ago, I was afraid that I’d have to completly start over. Then the music started and I put my hand on the barre it just happened, legs and arms just started moving as if it had only been a few weeks off, not several years.
It blew my mind, the brain is such an amazing thing.
It’s good to see your back at it!
Thanks! Yeah, grad school and then the holidays really threw me for a loop. But now I’m back and as excited as ever to dance!!
And I’m glad I’m not the only one with the ballet brain! When I had got back into it back last January after a year and a half hiatus, I was also shocked about how things just happened if I didn’t overthink it.
You’re lucky you have so much natural facility, Joie, not everyone does! Taking class last week I stood next to someone who’s been dancing for over 10 years and she was counting the music to herself (softly, but I could hear her) and it drove me crazy that she was counting 1-2-3-4 when the music was clearly a waltz. She got the steps right but her timing and phrasing was wrong. She clearly did NOT have a ballet brain!
I never thought I’d hear someone say I have natural facility. As a matter of fact, I’ve spent most of my life so clumsy that most people that know me would snort at hearing it! Haha!
And, maybe the dancer DOES have ballet brain… she just doesn’t know that turning your mind off and letting the ballet brain do its work is what makes the magic happen! I know how it works and I can’t always remember my own advice– last class is my case: I could get the steps if I wasn’t thinking about NOT looking at the floor. The moment I started thinking about lifting my head, BOOM there went the steps. Haha! There I go trying to think again!