Broche Banter #44 -- Julia | On similarities between skiing and ballet
Today on the show, I chat with Julia, a ski instructor who recently began ballet as an adult.
We talk a little bit about how she finally decided to pursue ballet, first getting started following along on YouTube and then joining my online studio soon after that.
We also dive into the incredible similarities between skiing and ballet and how both need an incredible amount of control over rotating our legs.
The day after we recorded the episode, she reported back that she had told her other ski instructor friends about how some adults have limiting beliefs that they can’t improve their turnout or that they’re stuck with what they had, and the other instructors were legitimately confused. That’s how sure the community of ski instructors is that you can improve your turnout!
You’re sure to love Julia’s optimistic outlook and incredibly unique perspective. Enjoy!
Julie: Welcome to the show. Julia. I'm so excited to get a chance to chat today.
Julia: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Julie: Awesome. So we dance together at home but together on the internet, and you recently started ballet. Tell me how you got into it.
Julia: Well, I do a lot of other very physical sports. I'm a skier. I'm a ski instructor full-time. And I mountain bike and trail run and do off road triathlons and the like. So I'm always looking for ways to kind of cross-train and kind of maintain my strength and flexibility.
I did ballet as a child, so ballet has always kind of been in the back of my mind. And during the pandemic, I was looking for new and creative ways to do all that strengthening and stretching. And I came across online ballet. I think it was on YouTube. I forget what YouTube channel I was on. But I found a YouTube video and I was like, “Wow, that looks so cool, I’ll try it out.” And it just kind of cascaded I did like a deep dive into the YouTube ballet world. And then I discovered Broche and just like signed up immediately. I was like, “Oh, this is amazing.”
Julie: That’s so exciting. I have so many questions. Let's see where to start. So first of all, I'm curious, have you been able to work throughout this whole pandemic? I mean, your sports are outdoors, but I think there were still definitely some closures in terms of like ski areas and things during all of this. So what has it been like, from your perspective?
Julia: Well, the ski areas… so last March, we shut down until the end of last winter. And that was really sudden. It was kind of like I was teaching one day and then at the end of the day, they were like “Okay, you have to clean out your locker, we’re closed.” And that was kind of shocking. But I do backcountry skiing, so I was still able to get my skiing in. And yeah, I kind of took the summer off of work and was helping my mom with some health issues and doing the whole quarantine thing. Did a lot of mountain biking, and then this winter, ski areas have been open here in California. Operations look a lot different, but I have been able to teach ski lessons and do that full-time.
Julie: Awesome. Back to work good.
Is ballet similar to those thrill-seeking sports?
Julie: And what ages do you teach skiing?
Julia: Mostly age three - 12, but I do occasionally teach adults.
Julie: And so I have many questions about how in the world you teach a three-year-old to ski. But before we get to that, okay, so everything you named, there seems like, rather thrill-seeking or like gives you an adrenaline rush or like would be rather exciting.
And then we're talking about going to ballet where we move at a snail's pace. And the point is to move slowly and all of that. Does this scratch a different kind of an itch? Or do you find it actually similar? They seem totally different to me. But I'm curious about your perspective.
Julia: I think it's interesting because I think they're actually really similar because all those sports require very precise body movements. And ballet also requires very precise body movements. And it's really cool to finally get it right when you can feel in your body that you've got it right. So it's like in skiing when you nail that turn perfectly, or in mountain biking, you get the right flow. It's kind of similar in ballet when you like, nail a turn, or land jump perfectly in balance. It's actually kind of a similar feeling. It's definitely not the same as going straight down a mountain. But I think in terms of the body movements, it's kind of similar.
Julie: Fascinating, I suppose it makes sense that those would be very technical activities as well.
Julia: Yes.
Julie: Fascinating. As someone who never got past to lodge in the ski resort, I don't know enough to know that they’re similar.
Julia: The lodge is fun too!
Julie: The lodge is where it’s at. That chair lift is too big a barrier for me.
When do you teach the kids to the idea of precision in skiing?
Julie: So okay, so you teach all of this? How much technique do you teach at the age of three? Or is it just like getting them used to the motions at that age? When are you able to start introducing the precision?
Julia: I think in my lessons, I tend to introduce precision pretty soon because skiing all builds on itself. So you have to kind of be able to break those movements down into a three-year-old language. So you can still teach leg rotation to a three-year-old, but it might instead of being like “rotate your legs in” you say, “Okay, let's make a triangle with your feet.” And it's just kind of like changing the language. But I think you can actually teach young kids very technical skills, but the language is different.
Julie: Amazing. What can they do at that age? It seems like they can do very little in terms of other motor skills. How does it work with skiing, it's fascinating.
Julia: I think it depends on the amount of practice they have. They progress a lot slower than an older kid or an adult, it'll usually take several lessons, sometimes a whole season of skiing for them to get where an older kid or an adult can get in one day.
“[Little kids] progress a lot slower than an older kid or an adult, it’ll usually take several lessons, sometimes a whole season of skiing for them to get where an older kid or an adult can get in one day”
And it also depends how athletic or how coordinated the kid is. It depends on kid. But some of the three-year-olds are like ripping around the mountain, like skiing up on the chairlift. They're amazing, what they can do. But it does take a lot of patience and practice.
What is “coordination”?
Julie: Tell me about your definition of coordination.
Julia: I think it's people who have learned to move their bodies. With kids, you can tell when a kid is allowed to play outside or allowed to move; when they have the strength built up that they play other sports. It's kind of easy to tell in a kid if they have exercised in other areas when they come to the ski resort because skiing is a lot of exercise. So when when they don't have a background in other sorts of movement, it can be kind of a rough day for them.
Julie: Fascinating and can you teach it if they don't have it already?
Julia: Well, they can go skiing, but it usually is one of those slower to develop skills. So it takes them coming back more and more. It's something that you can develop over time. It's not something that just kind of happens in one day. I don't think it's something that you're necessarily born with. I think it's something that you get from practicing are from moving and other areas. You're not a natural skier, it's just you're strong because you also play soccer or do dance or gymnastics or something.
“[Coordination] usually is one of those slower-to-develop skills. So it takes them coming back more and more. It’s something that you can develop over time. It’s not something that just kind of happens in one day. I don’t think it’s something that you’re necessarily born with. I think it’s something that you get from practicing or from moving in other areas.”
Julie: Interesting. So it's like they you everyone's learning the coordination somewhere, everyone who hasn't learned it somewhere, it's just a matter of whether they learn it on the slopes with you, or if they've learned it before they get there somewhere else.
Julia: Right, right. And I learned to ski as an adult. In my first lesson, they asked me what sports I played growing up, and I was like, “Well, I did ballet when I was really young. And I also did soccer and swim team through college.” And they were like, “Oh, you'll be fine.” And so I did pick it up pretty quickly. But it's because I have that background in moving my body.
Julie: Yeah, fascinating.
Anxiety or fear of scary movements
Julie: With many adults, there is a massive amount of anxiety around turning or jumping or things that create a physical sensation in the body. Number one, did you have that when you started skiing? And number two? Do any kids have that too? Or is that not a thing that kids have it that only adults have?
Julia: I don't remember having that. I think I was just so excited to learn to ski that I wasn't necessarily scared. But I do see it in a fair amount of people, kids and adults, especially adults. I think they're afraid of falling. And on the snow, at least if you fall, it usually doesn't hurt because the snow is slippery, and you're wearing slippery clothes, and you just fall down on the ground and you kind of look silly for a minute, and then you can get back up.
I think with ballet, it's a little scarier because you're going to smack on the ground. And the same in mountain biking, when you crash on your mountain bike, it hurts really bad. But I think once you get over the fact … I think it takes falling a couple of times to just kind of be like, “Okay, I'm not dead. I'm fine. That hurt a little bit, but I'll be okay.” That's what I tell my kids when they fall down and they start crying and I'm like, “You're okay, you're okay. Like, was that scary?” And they're usually like, “yeah,” it's like, “Okay, it's okay to be a little scared. But we're gonna get back up and we're gonna try it again.”
“It’s ok to be a little scared, but we’re going to get back up and we’re going to try it again.”
Julie: Yeah, I think that's a great message. I love that it's okay to be a little scared. But that doesn't mean you have to stop.
Julia: Right?
Julie: It's unrelated.
Why did you get started with ballet?
Julie: So now you're in now you're kind of super excited about ballet, right? You're so into it, and really loving it. Have you always kind of wanted to do it, or was it a recent passion. How has this been budding for a while?
Julia: Well, I think the first time I thought about doing ballet again, was in college. My college had a dance production, and one of my friends choreographed this really cool ballet dance. And I hadn't done ballet, I quit ballet when I was 12. So I was in college, and I was like, “Wow, this is so cool.” And I went to the studio and watched her like with her dancers. And I was like, “This is awesome, do you think I could do ballet again?” And like everyone was kind of like, “welll, you've been out of it for kind of a while and like swimming is your main thing now.” I was on the college swim team. And it's like, “well, I don't know, people don't really start ballet again when they're in college.” And I was like, “Okay, I'll just watch and just be really excited for you.”
And then a really long time went by and then I think I was like, mildly looking for some studios a couple of years ago, and never really… I found one, and then I was kind of like, “Well, I'm already really busy with everything else that I do.” And then, like this time around the pandemic and I had a lot of time and it was online, and I was just like, “Okay, I'm just gonna do it. I’m gonna do it. It's the time it's the time. Timing is exactly right.”
Julie: And how does it feel now that you're doing it?
Julia: I love it. I love it. I feel like it's something that's been missing. I feel like it's a nice complement to all the nitty-gritty sports that I do.
“I feel like it’s something that’s been missing.”
Julie: Definitely, it's a very fun art form to learn. It's so detailed and cerebral.
Julia: Yes, Yes, for sure.
Julie: Do you have goals with ballet at this point or is doing it and coming to class and enjoying every moment a good enough goal? Where are you at with your dreams here?
Julia: I feel like doing it and coming to class is enough. But I've been learning the Swan Lake dance on my own because I can't come to the weekend classes because I’ve been teaching skiing. So I've been doing them on-demand, and I've been practicing in my living room and it's so exciting to actually learn a dance. And then I think one day, I'd really love to do pointe. I would really love to do pointe. Right before I quit ballet, I was so close to being en pointe, they were basically getting me ready to do pointe. And then I quit. So it was something that I never got to do when I was younger. And it's something that I would really like to do and work towards now.
Julie: Well, definitely people who get en pointe and do other I would call them extreme sports, usually don't have as much pirouette anxiety as people like me who were afraid of the chairlift and then get on the pointe shoes. And it's like, that's the riskiest thing I've ever done with my body. So definitely, when you have that threshold higher, then the pointe shoes are like a more natural progression in your ballet training.
Julia: Yes, yes.
On Starting Ballet as an Adult
Julie: I'm very curious to hear about your experience. It's always great to have people on the show who are rather new in the ballet world, rather new to ballet as an adult, right? You did it a little bit as a kid, but what has it been like? Has it been overwhelming? Has it made sense? Are there areas that are confusing? Is there anything where you're like, “gosh, the teacher keeps saying that, but I just don't know what the heck it means,” or how has the experience been?
Julia: I'm the type of person that will thoroughly research any topic. Before I found Broche, I was a little confused, because I was kind of like, “Oh my gosh, I forget what all of these things mean.” And I was on Google looking up all the terms, looking at all the YouTube videos. And then when I found Broche, I feel like I was able to kind of do a lot of videos in a sequence. And then I was kind of like, “Oh, okay,” and like get into a groove. And it kind of started to like, be more of a progression. And it made a lot more sense. And like, now if I miss a class, I can like pick up where I left off, which has been really good. Piecing it together with the YouTube videos was confusing.
Julie: Oh, I bet because everything is some things are labeled beginner that are actually quite advanced. And some things are labeled advanced that are more beginner. And so if you're trying to find beginner stuff, it can even be pretty complicated.
Julia: Yes. Yes. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is really hard.”
Julie: For beginners, for beginners? No, this is for beginner intermediate. This is not at all beginner-beginner.
Julia: Yeah.
Julie: I noticed you recently posted about some flexibility goals, how has flexibility been in this in this process for you?
Julia: That's been awesome. I've never been very flexible. Even when I did ballet as a kid, I was the last person in my class to get the splits. After I quit ballet, I couldn't even touch my toes, and I haven't been able to touch my toes since I quit ballet. Even when I did swimming, and I was stretching every single day, and I did a bunch of yoga, I've done yoga for a long time, I still have never been able to touch my toes or do a full downward dog without bending my knees, things like that.
And I think the way that ballet kind of combines the strengthening and the stretching worked really well for my body. And I can really feel different muscles getting stronger that I think has actually helped with the flexibility. I think I always was focusing on flexibility and not strength so much. And then just doing the ballet, and the various strengthening exercises associated with it have really helped get my body into the right alignment to actually start gaining flexibility, which has been really cool.
Julie: Yeah, that's awesome. That's actually really exciting that ballet itself was helpful with flexibility. That's great. I'm sure it helps, too, that you have so much body awareness in terms of feeling certain muscles, and being able to be aware of what's going on in your body.
Julia: Right? Definitely helpful. Whenever you talk about certain muscles, I'm kind of like, “Oh, I know. I get that.”
Julie: You're like “I know that one.”
Julia: Yeah.
On turnout in skiing and ballet
Julie: So skiing is a lot of internal rotation, right? You have a lot of time turned in?
Julia: Yeah
Julie: So that's interesting.
Julia: It's a lot of leg rotation in general. So the way you steer your skis is via leg rotation. So if you're doing what they call the pizza, you're twisting your legs in. But when you're doing a parallel turn, you kind of twisting them both in the same direction, so one kind of rotates externally, and one kind of rotates internally. And then there's also when you're trying to walk across the flat part, you have to turn them both out to kind of like, waddle up the hill. Or else you're gonna slide backward.
Julie: Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
Julia: Which conveniently I do a lot of when I'm teaching little kids on the magic carpet. So when you're talking about turnout, I'm like, “Oh, yeah, I do that all day long when I'm teaching beginners.”
Julie: That's so funny. Because when you first started coming to class, I was like, I figured you'd been dancing for a really long time, because you already have so much turnout and strength in your legs, then you tell me you haven't been dancing for that long. And I'm like, “wow, how what? How did this happen? What happened here?”
Because it's unusual to have someone who actually has… why would you have external rotation as a human other than if you're standing externally rotated for an entire day full-time.
Julia: Being on the magic carpet all day, every day.
Julie: Now I can piece it together.
On Turnout, Skiing, and Ballet - Can you Improve Turnout?
Julie: So a lot of adults come to ballet thinking they won't be able to improve their turnout. I guess in skiing, you've probably seen lots of people change their ability to turn their legs. Have you also seen people change their range of turnout, their strength of turnout, what have you seen happen in the world of skiing?
Julia: Oh, absolutely. They're not muscles that you use in everyday life. And I think a lot of people don't have a lot of awareness of them. So whenever I'm teaching beginners, I do have them do different exercises to just feel their legs twisting with their skis off. I'm like, “take your skis off, and we're just gonna twist our legs around.”
With little kids, I'll have them turn around in a circle or sit down and windshield wiper their legs or have them point their toes together, things like that because they're not muscles that you use normally. And with kids I have as repeat kids, I'll do those exercises every time I have them as a warm-up until they can do it with their skis on. And then once they can do it with their skis on, they tend to get stronger and stronger and stronger. As you get better and better at skiing, they get stronger and stronger and stronger, because they get used more.
Julie: Yeah.
Julia: So it is possible to strengthen those muscles. It's very possible.
Julie: Right? I guess you see it happen all the time on the ski slope.
Julia: Yes.
Julie: Fascinating. That’s so interesting. Do you have to work on the range and the amount that you have to turn? Or is it mostly just strengthening the fact that your legs are turning?
Julia: I think the range is important. Usually, children don't have massive flexibility issues in their hips. They’re little noodles, sometimes they end up in little positions that I'm just like, “wow, how are you not like screaming and pain.” And you like their legs are all twisted up. And you just pick them up in their legs just go [unwind motion] and twist back into normal.
Julie: Oh my gosh.
But yeah, I think working on the range, and honestly, I think the range is related to strength. When a kid first learns to turn their feet, we call it duck walk with the little kids where they're kind of turning their feet out to waddle up the hill.. when they first learn duck walk, they often can't do it enough to even get perches on the snow and they still slide backward. So you still have to keep practicing and practicing turning their feet out far enough that they can actually like, get enough perches on the snow to kind of waddle up. But I think that comes with strength. I think the range is because of the strength. So as they strengthen those rotator muscles, their range gets better.
Julie: Yeah, it’s like you're able to hold it in its max. contraction. To be able to operate in the maximum contraction of the muscle is very challenging in the beginning, but then when you can, you can maintain the amount that you have.
Julia: Right, right. And it's the same when they're doing the pizza, which is the internal rotation. So a lot of times they can't do it very far, and they'll still rocket down the hill. So like teaching them to be stronger and hold the pizza in a bigger shape with the internal rotators too is the same deal.
Julie: How do you keep knees safe and skiing with all this rotation?
Julia: Well you teach kids to stand in an athletic stance, you should always be standing in an athletic stance. So having your hips over your over your feet, you don't want like you don't want your hips to be behind your heels ever. Because when you kind of like sit down in that position and like the way your ankles are locked in, it's it can put a lot of strain on your knees. So when you're standing up over your skis, it puts less pressure on your knees.
Also it kind of gives you a better position to be rotating your legs from. Because I'll often have skiiers who lean back when they ski. And it's actually really hard to rotate your legs when you're leaning backward. So teaching them to stand up tall, have their hips over the middle of their foot, actually makes it easier to rotate their feet and their skis. It’s a lot more comfortable.
Julie: Yeah, well, it's exactly the same in ballet, a lot of people come in with their hips sticking out in the back, and then they can't find their rotation. So the first thing in ballet is the same thing. Get your pelvis neutral, well “neutral” never feels neutral to someone who's never done it before, but get your hips tucked under you so you can rotate your legs, although I don't think it's quite the same, because there's no bend really for us. But the hips have to be in the right place, or else the turnout doesn't work. If you don't have your hips there, you can't access these muscles.
Julia: Exactly. It's a lot more forward than people think they need to be. And I think in ballet, you have to stand up a little bit taller than you think you need to.
Julie: Always know more than you think. And you and you always have to operate under the assumption that your body is trying to revert back to normal, therefore, you must always work to keep it from reverting back to normal. That's often a confusing thought is that you think you set your legs turned out and they will stay there. But it's not, it's a constant action.
Julia: Right, right.
Julie: It's not just staying there. But I guess with skis. The benefit maybe as far as training This is that your skis actually we'll just start drifting, right so you can probably more easily see them if you're not doing it properly. If you're not able to hold it, then you'll just fall down the mountain and you can tell if you're holding your turnout properly.
Julia: Yeah, you have the visual of your skis. It helps a lot. It's like wearing gigantic shoes on your feet. You can see the shapes your feet are making very easily.
Julie: That's hilarious. Maybe we need to get longer ballet slippers.
Julia: Yes.
Julie: Skis with the part cut off past the heel.
Julia: Yes.
Julie: Oh, man, that's too funny.
Has ballet improved your skiing?
Julie: We talked a lot about skiing and not much about ballet in this process. But I think it's actually fascinating how similar they are in terms of your hips and the rotation of your legs and all of that. Have you noticed anything changed with your skiing since starting ballet?
Julia: I feel a lot stronger, like my balance feels a lot better. Also, being in ski boots all day, I used to have a lot of … my back would start to hurt and it hasn't hurt at all this season.
Julie: Oh, great. Maybe it's kind of a stronger back and core.
Julia: I know I just feel so much stronger. And I feel like yeah, my balance is a lot better. Sometimes I'll still get thrown into the backseat, and I'll lean back … everybody leans back on their skis, but I found that I'm doing that less now. It's actually helped a lot in my skiing. I've definitely noticed.
Julie: Wow, that's exciting.
Julia: Yeah, it's really cool.
Julie: Last question for you. I always like to finish with some kind of advice or kind of just give you the floor here and let you kind of say what you want to say. What do you want to say to the people who are maybe in a similar boat as you having kind of dreaming about ballet but didn't know they could do it? Or maybe wanted to try but didn't do and what what what do you have for the ballerinas out there who are thinking about it.
Julia: I think the timing right now couldn't be any better. The best time to start is right now if you haven't started already.
I don't think you should be afraid of not getting good or being a pro. I mean, in skiing, no one in the history of skiing has ever been like “oh, well I'm not going to be a professional skier, so I'm not going to go ski.” So like I think it's so silly when people think that about ballet because it doesn't matter if you're not gonna be a pro it's still fun and you can still get really good at it even if you start as an adult.
“I don’t think you should be afraid of not getting good or being a pro. I mean, in skiing, no one in the history of skiing has ever been like “oh, well I’m not going to be a professional skier, so I’m not going to go ski.”
So like I think it’s so silly when people think that about ballet because it doesn’t matter if you’re not gonna be a pro it’s still fun and you can still get really good at it even if you start as an adult.”
So the timing right now like do it now. Sign up right now. Go your first class, do it.
Julie: Oh, man, I'm laughing so much that's just so true. It just sounds completely absurd when you say it about skiing like I'm not going to be a pro so why bother go to the slopes today? You're so right. It would never even cross your mind.
Julia: No, there are beginners all over the mountain, people who have no idea what's going on and they still go skiing. It should be the same way with ballet. Just do it.
“There are beginner [skiiers] all over the mountain, people who have no idea what’s going on and they still go skiing. It should be the same way with ballet. Just do it.”
Julie: Oh my gosh, it's so true. It's so true. It's odd what we've accepted you can be a beginner at as an adult and what we've decided that adults aren't allowed to be beginners at.
Julia: Yes.
Julie: Oh my gosh, so funny. Well, this is It's been so much fun. I feel like I learned a ton about ballet even through your eyes from skiing. What a fun conversation. Thanks so much for your time and perspective. What a great conversation to be able to chat about all these things.
Julia: Yes. Thank you for having me.