Mary Helen Bowers - Ballet Beautiful: Transform Your Body and Gain the Strength, Grace, and Focus of a Ballet Dancer

Ballet Beautiful is built on a foundation of incredible support and love. My thanks go to the many wonderful people in my life who helped me create this program and to everyone who helped me write and publish my first book!

First, my family: Thank you to my parents for their lovefor letting me move to New York at 15 to pursue my crazy dream of being a ballerina and for cheering me on every step of the way! My love goes to Paul, my husband, for supporting me and Ballet Beautiful every day and for teaching me how to swim the crawl and buying me dark chocolate!

And my colleagues: To Billie Fitzpatrick, my wonderful collaborator, thanks for your guidance at every turn and for your terrific patience in my pursuit of perfection! I am grateful to Matthew Elblonk, my meticulous agent at De Fiore, and to Renee, the worlds kindest and most engaging editor, and her fabulous team at Da Capo Press for bringing this book to life! And to the incredible Yelena Yemchuck: my deepest appreciation for conveying Ballet Beautiful through your beautiful images! Costanza Theodoli-Braschi, thank you for the beautiful illustrations of the basic ballet positions. And of course, I treasure my amazing team at Ballet Beautiful! Julie helps me make it happen every day, and Ashley brings my vision to life on the screen.

And friends: A huge thank-you to Natalie for the beautiful foreword to this book and a thousand hours of her hard work, incredible kindness, and all-around awesomeness. Thanks to my first Ballet Beauties: Sarah, Romy, Rain, Karen, Zooey, Chelsea, Kate, Liv, Leith, Kirsten, Eliza, Evgenia, Kristina, Rachel, Cora, Tracee, and Lynn, and to Gina, Rose, Katie, Val, Filipa, Helena, and all of the BB girls... I am so inspired by you all!!

I would like to give a special hug to everyone who was there at the beginning of this exciting ride! Carlos and Andrea, Linda, Dave, Tom, John and Alicia, Heather, Jeff, Laura and Patrickthank you all.

And a final expression of thanks to you and the thousands of others who have taken a small leap to try Ballet Beautiful. I am humbled that you invite me into your daily lives to share my exercise and wellness program and hope you find in it reward and happiness for many years to come.

Mary Helen Bowers is a professional ballerina and the founder and CEO of Ballet Beautiful. Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, Mary Helen moved to New York City at age 15 to attend the School of American Ballet and pursue her dream of dancing as a professional ballerina. She was invited to join New York City Ballet the following year and went on to dance 10 years with the company at Lincoln Center and on stages across the world.

After retiring from New York City Ballet, Mary Helen went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Columbia University. Upon graduating in 2008 she launched Ballet Beautiful, a ballet-inspired fitness and wellness company that shares the artistry, athleticism, and inherent grace of ballet with other women around the world.

As a tech-savvy entrepreneur, Mary Helen has grown Ballet Beautiful to reach a now-international membership, and has been acclaimed by many, including: Elle, Vogue, Womens Health, Harpers Bazaar, CNN, ABC, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Mary Helen lives with her husband in New York City.

For more information, and to check out online classes and Ballet Beautiful videos and DVDs, please visit www.balletbeautiful.com

A s a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to become a ballerina. I danced everywhere I went, read every book on ballet I could find, and spent hours imagining what dancing as a ballerina in New York City might be like. My love for ballet has been a part of my life for just about as long as I can remember, and that remains true today. At the heart of the Ballet Beautiful program is the story of how my own experiences as a professional ballerina with the New York City Ballet led me to understand how to truly take care of myselfboth my body and my mindin how I live every day.

I began developing the fundamentals of the Ballet Beautiful method while recovering from an injury to my left foot early in my professional dance career. Because ballet is so physically demanding, I was used to dealing with pain in my body on a daily basis. I never really stopped to think about it. I adored dancing, and my focus was always on my performance; pain in my body was a minor and accepted irritation that I always found ways to work around. Blisters, strained muscles, and the terrible sensation of feeling the floor with your toes in a dying pair of pointe shoes are all de rigueur for a professional ballerinanot to mention incredible stress from the constant fear that an injury will prevent you from taking the stage that night. In the world of ballet, managing these physical demands while remaining strong and healthy onstage is just part of the job.

During an early season with the New York City Ballet that was particularly busy and rewarding for me, I was dancing three ballets a night, six days a week, on top of ballet class every morning and a full day of rehearsals. These were long, hard, but also very happy days. I was dancing all of my favorite Balanchine ballets, including Donizetti Variations, Mozartiana, Serenade, and stark, neoclassical leotard ballets that have no story lines, fluffy tutus, or sets and whose focus is on the dancing and music only, like Episodes, The Four Temperaments, and Le Tombeau de Couperin. Performing this repertoire was artistic heaven. Almost nightly I danced a selection of the greatest ballets ever created, onstage at Lincoln Center. Life was almost perfect for me. As an artist, my soul was full! But over the course of the season, the grueling schedule began to take its toll on my body.

I was in constant pain. I wrapped my foot during rehearsals and for the shows, but no amount of tending helped me healI was often barely able to walk in the hours before the curtain went up or the next morning when I awoke.

As my injury progressed, it took more and more effort to rehearse and perform through the pain. I had to will myself to ignore the strong signals my body was sending me to take time off; sheer will and adrenaline carried me through every performance. In this way ballet can be like an addictive drugI found it very hard to take time off even when I knew that continuing to dance was hurting me. The pain didnt take away my urge to dance and perform. If anything, it magnified that desire and made it stronger as I considered what my life would be like without ballet.

Night after night the curtain fell, and I limped offstage and upstairs to the dressing room to cut off the ribbons on my pointe shoes and dunk my feet in ice. Finally, after weeks of pushing myself beyond my limits, I had to admit that my injury had become a serious problem. No dancer wants to leave the stage, however, and surrender her roles to another. Ballet is a very competitive worldthere is always someone waiting in the wings to step in. I wasnt happy about the idea that my physical weakness might alter or threaten my career and that other girls might get the chance to dance my hard-won parts.

Trying not to panic, I gave in to the reality of my injury when I realized that no amount of ice, ibuprofen, or warming up before a show would allow me to perform. I had been living on my own in New York City since I was 15 years old, and I worried about how to get the right care for my foot and how to manage the stress of being replaced by another dancer while I was recovering. After I went to the doctor and was fitted for a giant boot, I stopped performing, taking class, and rehearsing every day. I began to focus on healing instead.