Ballerinaturnedbeast

MAY’s training calendar is OUT & here is what’s on the menu for the month ahead 📋🎧💭

5 amazing, brand new sessions from me and Sasha with the focus on FLOW (mobility + 3D movement control):
— zoom in on the core 2.0 killer flow + baby mess (unfiltered) 🤣
— rotational pathways (obliques + twists flow)
— ankles, leg, pelvis (from fee to flow)
👆🏻from me

— build the base (a sweaty flow focused on leg strength + active flexibility)
— an upper body flow working towards elbow planks + chaturanga strength
👆🏻 from my guest instructor, Sasha

12 workouts total — 3/week

choreo class of the month — HRS & HRS by Muni Long 🌶️

I created a well thought out structure for you that covers everything your body needs for dance AND daily performance. You just need to show up, be consistent 3 times/week, finish all 12 sessions, maybe repeat the ones you love, and feel SO much stronger by the end of the month.

So excited for all of you joining!!

You’ll also get access to our BTB community chat where you can send your videos, ask questions, get feedback from me, and share anything movement related 🤍

Let’s go, MAY 💭🤍

my second time in London 🇬🇧 & I love a lot of little things about this city:

• hearing the sexyyyy accent at every corner 🥲
• how tall people are
• seeing people in parks, laying on the grass lost in books (I’ve heard there will come a time when people will stop reading, I REFUSE to believe that, the smell of a new book and the experience of emerging into a story using your imagination, ah, nothing compares)
• parks everywhere that you can stroll through on your way to wherever you’re going
• how gorgeous the architecture is, especially the mix of old and new
• the red buses of course, I loved them as a kid on postcards
• getting to cover so many KM per day, my feet are so happily exhausted, I love it so much
• watching people socialize in the middle of small roads with drinks in hand
• getting on the wrong train because they arrive to the same station LOL
• seeing Royal Ballet ads in the stations

I don’t believe the grass is greener where we are not, but I’m so grateful to be seeing and exploring the world with my babes🤍 Theia’s third international trip & as long as she gets to eat bread & protein, she’s one happy traveler 🧳 🐣

last reflection based on my own 8 years of dedicated pole training: what A LOT of students don’t realize at the beginning is that MOST pole transitions (especially when it comes to flow style choreos) are meant to be supported by upper body strength (AKA our arms/shoulders/core/back!!!!) and coordinated load sharing. We are not supposed to be dumping the entire weight of our body into unstable ankles while balancing on the tip of a huge sandal. 🙂

Here is where you get the real issue: we’re asking joints to absorb force in ranges we’ve never ever trained.
That’s where injuries happen.

I include specific lower leg drills into many of my workouts at , you don’t need 50 min feet sessions, you just need consistency & and an intelligent approach. Jump on board when you feel ready 🤍

📢 SOUND ON*

last thing I want to add: I know a lot of you are scared to try new things because you may be thinking you’re “not flexible or strong enough” to do it, but it’s sooooo important to gradually expand your training system because MOST injuries don’t happen because you twisted in a ballerina or went into a split…
they actually happen because you NEVER twist or work on bigger ranges on the mat and so your body wasn’t prepared for those positions.

So it’s not about replacing what you’re already doing, it’s about slowly & gradually expanding it.

wearing a beautiful neck top

APRIL’s training calendar is being released TOMORROW & here is what’s on the menu for the month ahead 📋🎧🤍

5 brand new sessions from me and Sasha with the focus on HAMSTRINGS:
— one mobility flow
— one weights workout (this one is my absolute fav, the best way to bulletproof your lower body)
— one active + passive flexibility session
👆🏻from me

— hamstring activation session working towards single leg forward folds (balance + strength)
— stretch & flow (signature style)
👆🏻 from my guest instructor, Sasha

12 workouts total — 3/week

choreo class of the month — WHEN WE by 🌶️

I created a well thought out structure for you that covers everything your body needs for dance AND daily performance. You just need to show up, be consistent 3 times/week, finish all 12 sessions, maybe repeat the ones you love, and feel SO much stronger by the end of the month.

So excited for all of you joining!!

You’ll also get access to our BTB community chat where you can send your videos, ask questions, get feedback from me, and share anything movement related 🤍

Let’s go, APRIL 🌶️❤️

babies go to bed, mamas start the day 😅

almost deleted all videos because…crotch sweat 🫠🙄
then i remembered that i’m human, i train like a beast, sweat is part of the job

and not everything needs to look unrealistically perfect 💭
so here is me with my endless sweat 😅 fun fact: i absolutely cannot wear white short sleeve t shirts to public events because I get gigantic sweat marks 🙄

8 months pp — some brutally honest reflections from this chapter of life 📎🫶🏻

I don’t know about you, but these days it takes me about 30 seconds to go on someone’s page and feel whether what they post is authentic or just carefully curated BS. And when I sense that fake energy I’m instantly uninspired, even if the person is talented.

All people are talented at something.
But social media has trained us to relentlessly chase unrealistic standards, ONLY post our best moments (that are so often staged and refilmed one million times) and to expect results immediately. So when the training/building/starting over process is messy, hard, confusing and often very slow (which it usually is!!!) people start feeling soooo anxious. We assume something must be wrong with us because everyone else seems to be doing much better at all times.

But in my eyes, a pro athlete is simply someone who is religiously dedicated to the process, committed to self-education and self-growth and accepts the truth behind results. And the truth is that there are huge blessings hidden in hard work, struggle, and being weak at something (especially at the beginning). That’s the part that actually builds your character, and that character shows up in everything you do -in and beyond the studio.

The thing is I KNOW I’m strong at what I do. But I also know that my entire life I was never the strongest in the room. 💁🏻‍♀️ I faced rejection, judgment and loss of hope countless times during my professional training/ballet years. And yet I still built myself to a very high level of physicality. Now I’m in the process of rebuilding again postpartum.

And the reason I eventually get where I want to be is simple: I don’t believe in bu****it. I believe in effort, dedication and consistently training my ego to be ok with discomfort.

I also know how to snap myself out of the spiral when my mind goes into “omg everyone is doing better than me in business/dance/life.

Nope. They’re just showing what they want to show (which is absolutely their right 💁🏻‍♀️)

But personally, I’m so over social media pages where the human factor is missing. Where it’s all success, shine, and “look how good I am at this and that”.

Let’s continue to embrace the mess!!! 🥂🥂🥂🥂

As I’m slowly easing back into backbending training postpartum and working on new classes and guides for BTB , I’m naturally (re)reflecting on all the things that help create a SAFE foundation for beautiful spinal extensions and a long term approach to training aka training the back through a health first approach. 🙂‍↕️

For me this is important because I’m long past the days when any price was a good price to pay for results in the moment. 🥂

I used to bend in half in my professional ballet days. Now I don’t anymore and not because I can’t, but because my values have shifted. I want health + fluid motion over gymnastics abilities and imo (!!) this is what 95% of adults in amateur training actually need.

For the remaining students there are qualified contortion teachers 🙏🏻 And I’m sure the ones that really know their craft would also mention that contortion training is only safe when done correctly AND with serious dedication.

Anyway back to my post.

Here are some things I prioritize with back(bending) training. Through years of biomechanics studies and exploring things with my own body, I can confidently say they work and can help heal back pain. That’s how I healed my own back -by stepping back and re-evaluating my own path of movement.

I believe in training through analysis, commitment, and intelligence.

And trust me this comes from someone who used to be an overly competitive athlete who was willing to do it all to be at the top of the game!!! 🫣🙈

Learn from my mistakes 😊

For structured guidance on all things back related, you can use my Operation Healthy Back(bends) Guide OR this month’s Shoulder Focused calendar (available on the platform till end of March) OR start with the basics of the basics via 11 days of movement ✨🕊️ — www.ballerinaturnedbeast.com

It’s still important to work on your big prime movers & to implement flexibility training for those shiny, exciting goals, but I often find that it’s the “small drills” that adults ignore because who’s got time for it 😅

And we often chase looks over performance, but unfortunately longevity in shoulder performance is practically impossible without training that’s also focused on scapular control, rotator cuff resilience, reflexive stability w trunk movement(so so so common w pole!!), boring mobility, isometrics etc.

I’ve long stopped bashing one way of training because the more I learn, the more I see value in everything (when we do things well). So just take a peek at these drills and my notes, and if something is missing from your training, consider adding it in and see how your body responds

Wishing healthy, mobile & happy shoulders to all of us! 😊
training calendar this month is focused on shoulders & my popular “Operation Healthy (Back)bends” is always on the platform if you need detailed guidance and structure ✨

This was my second time going through pregnancy and when I tell you things get really weak, you have no idea how challenging it actually is. 😅 It all makes sense from the science perspective, ligaments + joints loosen in preparation for labour which creates joint instability & places a HUGE load on muscles surrounding the pelvis.

Considering that I strength trained the entire pregnancy (minus some hiccups in the first trimester because of crazy nausea), I can’t even imagine how I’d feel dancing right now if I hadn’t trained at all.

But that’s not even the point of this post.

The point is: this experience confirmed something I’ve known for a long time-when strength goes, the big ranges go. 👋🏻✌🏻And if you haven’t been pregnant but can’t seem to improve your active flexibility, it’s most likely a strength issue, not a passive stretching issue. The nervous system doesn’t trust us when we’re not strong enough in the movement.

You’d think losing my 180 would push me to stretch more. But here’s the thing, my body knows how to go that deep. It just doesn’t want to right now because I don’t have the strength to match it without running into an injury. The body is SO SO SO intelligent, it protects you by creating discomfort when you try to access ranges you’re not ready to control yet. ‼️‼️‼️

So I’ve been strength training with more dedication than ever. I don’t always have hours to train, but let me be proof that you don’t need hours, you need consistency.

Seven months ago what I’m doing now felt so weird and hard but the progress has been great and I’m so excited to see where I’ll be in a year, two years, three years….

Rediscovering what my body is capable of has been such a cool experience.

Need structured guidance? My Oh, My Glutes + Middle Splits program is a hybrid of weightlifting, dance specific mobility & conditioning. It’s an amazing program, one of my fav on , give it a go. 9 weeks of creative, fun movement 🔥✨