This story is from Stuff

Dressed in all black with a shaved head, septum piercing, and tattoos, I look more likely to dance in a grungy mosh pit than a ballet studio.

Attending ballet class was a secret childhood dream of mine – I was an unabashed tomboy as a child, but secretly envied the acrobatic girls I went to school with, who could jump and dance and stretch their slender legs any which way.

Ballerinas in particular embodied a feminine aura that seemed almost mythical, like they lived only in the fictional stories of Swan Lake and Giselle, stepping straight out of script onto stage.

For a period during my childhood years, my favourite film was Barbie In The Nutcracker, which is exactly what is says on the tin: the classic Tchaikovsky ballet The Nutcracker reimagined with Barbie dolls (try showing this to your kids now and the awfully dated CGI might just freak them out).

Even if I spoke this secret shame aloud, I know my family wouldn’t have been able to afford ballet classes, and my dad would sooner have me play football or netball than dance in a tutu.

Healing the inner-child as a method of self-preservation and therapy has become incredibly popular over the years, with many social media users sharing the activities they undertake as adults to soothe the needs of the curious and often wounded child inside of them.

Some have taken to colouring and painting, others make nostalgic food, and I decided to attend adult ballet classes.

Nestled in the Auckland CBD, The Dance Domain offers ballet classes solely for adults, and is the only ballet studio in the city that takes ballet dancers with no prior experience.

The classes range from “complete beginners” to “pointe intermediate” and “advanced”, and for a weekly payment of $19, dancers can attend one class a week, while $44 weekly can nab you unlimited classes.

The studio is designed to take in anyone, from people like me wanting to live a childhood dream, to dancers who were ballerinas as kids and haven’t danced in years.

With no dancing experience under my belt (unless you count swinging my body around at a Karangahape Road club on a Friday night), I took up the complete beginner classes with faith that although I may not be too technical with my feet, at least my classmates will be in the same boat as me.

Up four floors with an old-school New York style elevator that needs to be manually pushed and pulled, you’ll find a large, white room with mirrors and barres (the handrails ballerinas use for dancing and stretching), and posters of ballerinas adorned across the walls.

Stepping inside the class itself felt like stepping into my own imagination – this is exactly what four-year-old Lyric had pictured ballet to be (the aesthetically pleasing vintage elevator was definitely a bonus).

My class was composed of a range from beginners, from women in their early 20s, like me, to women in their 50s.

Everyone had their own dancing attire, some in a classic leotard and others in leggings. As long as you feel comfortable, you can dance in anything you like. I have a regular uniform of a baggy shirt and shorts.

I regularly practise yoga and attend classes in my spare time and thought myself at least balanced and agile enough to tackle ballet without too many hiccoughs, but as elegant as the dance is, it’s still a workout.

I expected my legs to be worked, but hadn’t considered that the constant posing of my arms would start to wear me down. After half an hour, they were starting to ache from being held above and in front of my body for so long.

There’s also the need to focus on posture and holding your head correctly, which takes a bit of getting used to – I still find myself throwing my body slightly forward instead of holding myself in place when going from a plié (knee bending) to a jump.

It’s tricky and technical, and you understand very quickly why professional ballerinas dedicate so much time to this art form, but complete fun nonetheless.

It is an exercise, but it’s not just simply squatting at the gym or walking a treadmill. There’s a method to every step, a gracefulness and strictness to the way your body is held, a feeling of knowing the moves you’re dancing along to on (so far) amateur legs have been repeated thousands of times by famous ballerinas worldwide.

I came home from my first class on a wave of euphoria, feeling wiped out but so excited, and forced my boyfriend to watch my shoddy footwork and jumps.

The scariest thing about trying something new is the fear that you won’t be very good at it, and this is heightened when you begin an activity as an adult knowing there are children who are already experts.

I have a bad habit of giving up on things I’m not immediately good at, but being surrounded by other people in the same boat, as well as having a lovely instructor, made everything feel comfortable.

I don’t have an ambition to land the lead role in Romeo and Juliet, or to perform to anyone outside of class – just learning an art form that always felt inaccessible to me is worth it.