good afternoon welcome to royal clarence everybody i've had i've been really busy this morning i've done a ballet class which was absolutely splendid now i supplemented today's class with a little bit of work during the week just 10 minutes twice and it's really paid off i didn't feel nearly um as exhausted my lessons are only half an hour um and i do them on zoom with my daughter normally but she forgot today and but that was okay we carried on without her needless to say um but i i thought i'd better google before i do this broadcast and tell you all about it so i googled because i'm 59 and i was wondering i'm really into my ballet so much that i'm i'm going to design a range of ballet clothes this afternoon and get those to my

supplier um slightly alternative um ballerina where i think would be the best way to describe it a little bit slightly aging rock chick maybe yeah um so i'm just absolutely thrilled at this sort of it's kind of opened a door i think i'm not particularly great at keeping fit and it's not that i don't want to be fit i hate aerobic exercise with a vengeance i i find the the pain wall just too much and as i've got a bit older my knees you know if i if i do any sort of jogging or um anything that is shocking to the bones really doesn't agree with me at all i wake up the next day with very sore joints but i've been searching for something that gives me pleasure as well as keeps me really fit for a very long time now if you follow my diaries you'll know that i do the planking

challenge i had to stop because of the pain after i got to about six minutes the next day the pain in my shoulders and my neck was too much to bear and actually bedridden so clearly the planking to that extent wasn't working even though i love doing it i really like planking um but health so you know warned me that i i couldn't do it anymore and i think finally i i've had about four or five possibly six maximum lessons of ballet with my with a wonderful teacher called trey trey frye look her up i've put her on my instagram and i'll do a little i have done a blog about her before she does all sorts of dance classes including ballet um i just feel thrilled that i've i found something that is low impact totally pleasurable to do and of course it combines

music with movement which an expressive movement needless to say and i'm just overjoyed with it so i just googled just now and i went to korra um cora is really good actually if you want to find out anything uh ask quora i think that's how you say it quora cora maybe it's cora it's q-u-o-r-a um so have a look on there um and i've i found some photographs actually of elders elder ballerinas and it's generally a really well advised uh keep fit type of exercise so i'm just thrilled thrilled to be launching at this with this new thing at my my new my new era my third age it's really exciting and also because so much of it is about balance you see and the core and your stomach as a cellist all of this um keeps in mind that central idea that you're

suspended from a string there are some differences you you draw out your neck you lower your shoulders with the cello you tend i think to raise the shoulders especially with the bowing arm um or actually the left hand if you're working higher up so but i don't think these um this will be an issue i don't think they'll be in um competing with each other you know these these are just ways to really exercise your your your physical um you know your muscles your bones but stretching the importance of stretching cellists know this all the time we're told to pre-stretch before we before we play not to play for too long without stretching so i really do think that the ballet is going to completely complement my cello playing and i'm working towards performing with the bloomsbury chamber orchestra later this year and you know the

practicing and the ballet are going hand in hand because practicing...