Move Over, Sugar Plum Fairy

Learning to dance on pointe at 70 because I’m not done reaching for the impossible.

Four months before I turned 70, I did something my younger self would’ve sworn was delusional: I bought a pair of pointe shoes. Yes, those girly, satin stilettos of ballet royalty. I wanted to rise, literally, above the earth, even if gravity and common sense rolled their eyes.

At this age, some people buy sports cars. Others opt for a facelift. I bought shoes designed to balance my entire body weight on a square inch of cardboard and glue. Maybe it was a love letter to a childhood dream I’d shelved decades earlier. But buying pointe shoes at nearly 70 felt like giving my younger self a fierce, long-overdue high-five: Look, we’re finally doing this.

How a Beginner Became a Believer

As a child, I was obsessed with dancing. I convinced my mother to enroll me in a class at age six. The teacher’s focus with bending and straightening my knees (pliés) baffled me. That wasn’t dancing. I wanted to twirl and jump and fly through the air. I quit, and channeled my energy into swimming, tennis, running, cycling, even a stint on my university’s crew team.

Today, most kids begin pointe between 10 and 12 years old, after at least four years of training on soft slippers. “Executing a correct plié is fundamental for strengthening the feet, ankles, and legs to control the torso,” said Noriko Hara, a former soloist with the Matsuyama Ballet Company in Tokyo who has been teaching children’s and adult pointe in New York for over 10 years. “That suddenly makes sense when progressing to pointe work.”

That was the case for me. At 30, I moved to New York to pursue a career in children’s book publishing. Newly single after the end of a 10-year relationship, I needed something to anchor me. My former outdoor sports felt mismatched in my new megalopolis setting. Ballet, I thought, might feed my desire for movement and help me feel less adrift.

Those first months were torturous. Rotating my hips for turnout, pushing my shoulders down to lengthen my neck and elongate my arms required firing up muscles I didn’t realize I possessed. I persisted because I hoped to one day look like some of my classmates who made the exercises look effortless and graceful.

Friends noticed the transformation before I did. “Your back is rod-straight.” “Look how defined your collarbone is!” “How did your arms get so toned?” I was stunned—and delighted—that this “casual” hobby was sculpting me so noticeably.

The real hook, though, was no matter how wrung-out my workday left me, the moment the pianist played the first notes and I sank into that initial plié, whose purpose I was beginning to understand, everything else disappeared. Ninety minutes of pure focus. I always walked out lighter, taller, more alive. I also found genuine friendships in class. After-work happy hour invitations lost their appeal. Dance fulfilled me in ways cocktails and small talk never had. “I’ll know I’m in a serious relationship,” I joked, “when a guy can pry me away from ballet class.”

“Dance is a beautiful marriage, not only of the physical and mental, but also the emotional,” Dr. Elizabeth Barchi, Chief of Sports Medicine at ChristianaCare and Clinical Assistant Professor at Thomas Jefferson University told me. “You’re connecting to music, story, character, and you’re also relating to other human beings sharing the space with you.”

Rebuilding Stability From the Inside Out

After more than 10 years into my practice, I moved to Sardinia to work for a tech startup. Yes, I found a ballet school there. When a colleague confessed, “I haven’t done anything for a decade,” it struck me—I had. Jobs and boyfriends had come and gone, but ballet had become my long-term commitment.

Back in New York, life swallowed me again: temp work, a home renovation, grad school, then a job I loved until the company went bankrupt. Ballet remained my anchor. And then my lower back rebelled. Sharp, debilitating pain stabbed me every time I lifted my leg in passé. Six months of physical therapy, massage, acupuncture—nothing relieved it. A surgeon reviewed my X-rays and noted he routinely performed spinal fusions on patients with arthritis like mine, but he didn’t think that was my path. He sent me to a dance-savvy physical therapist instead.

“You’re not engaging your core,” she observed. She prescribed 10 sets of kegels with mindful breathing morning and night, eventually incorporating them throughout the day and in class. Within two weeks, 85 percent of the pain vanished. A month later, I was cured.

“Poor lumbar sacral control, which covers the lower back through the lower abdomen and pelvis area, is one of the top risk factors dancers face,” Barchi explained. A former principal dancer with Brandywine Ballet, she takes a holistic approach for her patient population, which includes weekend warriors, professional athletes, dancers, and seniors with an osteoporosis diagnosis.

She encourages Pilates for posture and balance and Barre Fitness to strengthen the deep gluteal and piriformis muscles that drive turnout and stabilize the standing leg. “That’s really important for strong pointe work,” she noted.

For her older patients, she recommends a fitness regime that suits their movement journey, such as chair yoga, Zumba class, Dr. Fishman’s 12 Yoga Poses for Bone Health and Osteoporosis, strength and resistance training, and a healthy diet. “I have a couple of patients in my practice who have been able to increase their bone density over the course of a couple of years with exercise and good nutrition alone,” she added.

Getting Back to the Pointe

I’ve endured painful blisters, throbbing bunions, and sore ankles. But nothing a hot soak, massage, and diligent foot exercises can’t relieve. Daily ankle circles, toe pulls, and relevés not only help pointe work but can also prevent everyday civilian falls.

Two years in, I’m claiming small victories: échappés with an upright torso, single pirouettes without clinging to the barre, a series of respectable chaînés. Even children require years to build pointe strength, which comforts me.

Carol Sumner, former soloist with New York City Ballet (1958–78), recalls going on pointe at seven—unheard of today. “I’ll tell you the secret of pointe work,” she confided. “It’s the demi-plié. You bend your knees in first position—strong, deep, then push up. Without a deep plié you’ll never get strong on pointe.”

Ballet is a lifetime pursuit. It constantly teaches. Day-to-day, the rewards are tiny, but over time, they’re enormous. It has gifted me with balance, strength, sharpened attention, and the feeling of inhabiting my body with authority and grace.

These days I say, “I’ll know I’m in a serious relationship when the guy encourages me to continue ballet.” If I can dance on pointe in my 70s, I can do anything.