What we do to ourselves

I thought it would be interesting to show some of you guys who aren't as knowledgable about the dance world what we do to ourselves to achieve the abnormal. So, here we go!

We put a lot of strain on our hips to achieve the perfect 180 degree turnout

We will shove our feet under anything heavy or bolted to the wall to improve our pointe,
in this case it's a heater

We will bend ourselves over anything to make it look like we have no spine

We will use anything to put our leg on to achieve over-splits

We use any flat wall or the floor to achieve the perfect center splits

And yes, guys do all this too. Ballet is thought to be a 'chick thing',
but you ask any guy that does ballet and
he'll tell you it's far from easy and far from just a 'chick thing'

We twist ourselves into acting like a pretzel 

And all of this is to look graceful and pretty, wear pretty shoes and twirl on stage for a show that will last around 2 hours. Once you've gotten the sickness of ballet you can't get rid of it, there's no other rush as great as that moment when you just did something on stage you've been working all your life to do.
Dancers are addicted to the stage like people can be addicted to alcohol...dance is a drug, and it's one of the best drugs to be addicted to  

We work so hard to make something look effortless,
Our muscles cramp and tear trying to reach the abnormal,
Our body complains at the positions we put it in,
Our toes bleed and we sweat out of control,
We ignore common sense and throw ourselves into the air and hope we land on our feet.
If you're a dancer you can relate, if you're not...yeah we sound crazy