I had to learn that slower is faster. If you practice every day with patience and correctness, you will get there. It's like preparing for a jump. You can't rush. You must summon the appropriate energy with split-second timing and have an understanding of purpose to get up in the air. It requires training, confidence and mental effort. You can't have a vocabulary without the alphabet. Balanchine used to say, "Do you want to be a poet of gesture or do you want to be a physical entity?"

What's so wonderful about ballet is that it's mind-driven physicality. It's almost a Greek ideal of body, mind, and form.

I had to learn that slower is faster If you practice every day with patience and correctness, you will get there. It's like preparing for a jump. You can't rush. You must summon the appropriate energy.

I had to learn that slower is faster. If you practice every day with patience and correctness, you will get there. It's like preparing for a jump. You can't rush. You must summon the appropriate energy with split-second timing and have an understanding of purpose to get up in the air. It requires training, confidence and mental effort. You can't have a vocabulary without the alphabet. Balanchine used to say, "Do you want to be a poet of gesture or do you want to be a physical entity?"