Published: November 28, 2025
By Julie Leung, from Broche Ballet & Adult International Ballet Festival (IABF)
The Myth of Confidence
Most people think confidence comes after mastery, but in reality, it’s built during the process of learning. Learning as an adult often feels uncomfortable, frustrating, and exposing. Confidence isn’t the starting point, but instead it’s the result of showing up, being seen, and staying in the messy middle long enough to discover who you’re becoming.
Learning as an Adult Dancer
Adults walk into the studio carrying both an incredible advantage and a heavy challenge. The advantage is self-awareness. You can feel what your body is doing, you understand patterns, and you notice small changes.
The challenge is self-judgment. There’s a constant inner commentary: “You should already know this.” “You should be better by now.” “Everyone else has this figured out.”
Real growth begins when you grant yourself permission to be a beginner, even if you’re highly accomplished somewhere else in your life.
You belong in the studio exactly as you are, not as a future, more perfect version of yourself.
The Role of the Teacher and the Studio Environment
Confidence grows in spaces where mistakes are safe, feedback is kind, and curiosity is rewarded. A good teacher-student relationship doesn’t remove challenge, but it makes challenge feel doable.
The teacher and community prioritizes growth over perfection, curiosity over comparison, and progress over speed.
In ballet, outcomes often take years to see and feel. That’s why we celebrate the smaller wins: the first time your balance holds, the day a correction finally clicks, the moment you try a step you’ve avoided. Those tiny victories are where confidence takes root.
On that note, if you’re entering a new classroom or school: give the class a true chance. New teacher, new faces, and a new rhythm to the combinations are inherently jarring. Expect your vigilance and judgment to be high at first. That’s normal. Commit to four to five months of regular attendance before you decide whether it’s a fit. Slow down. Notice the little things. You’ll be surprised how quickly you start to feel immersed and the friends you make along the way.
Confidence as a Practice, Not a Feeling
Confidence is something you practice, like pliés or port de bras. It’s the byproduct of repeated courage.
Adults often wait to feel ready before they take risks, but readiness is built in motion. The awkward first steps you want to avoid are the exact bridge to grace. Take them anyway. While you’re learning, you have just as much right to take up space in the studio and your teacher’s time as anyone else.
“Learning with confidence” doesn’t mean you always feel confident; it means you keep participating through uncertainty.
Some days will be tough. That’s inevitable, so expect the tough days to come: The day your balance disappears. The class where your brain and feet aren’t speaking to each other. The rehearsal that proves you’re human.
Confidence is not pretending these days don’t exist; it’s trusting you’ll be able to handle them with patience, humor, and support. Everyone has tough moments, it’s how you navigate them that counts.
Keep showing up, keep asking questions, keep trying. Confidence accumulates in the messy middle.
Vivian’s Perspective: Pressure vs. Joy
Vivian and I were discussing this topic and she shared something that resonated deeply with me and likely with many of you. That is that many of us were taught, often through school, that learning happens best under extreme pressure and relentless internal drive.
But pressure alone sabotages learning. Motivation is not what keeps you coming back on the hard days. Even when you’re doing what you love, there will be days when you’re exhausted, when things don’t go as expected, when patience (not just pushing) is the skill you need most.
Learning ballet is no different. You might arrive with the internal drive of a bull charging a red cape, but if you never exhale and if you never take the time to enjoy what you’re doing, build community, or allow yourself to rest, you’ll build an internal pressure cooker that leaves you unhappy and stuck.
The body tells the truth: sustained tension clams up muscles, narrows breath, and locks your dancing, not to mention can leave us burned out.
When we work with the body and among others in a group class, self-regulation becomes part of the training. Progress is slow on purpose. The goal isn’t to fly through combinations; it’s to feel what you’re doing, to be curious, to relax enough that when repertoire arrives you can dive into character and let emotion move through your body.
This is one of the beautiful differences between ballet and many sports. Ballet is an art form. It’s a language that predates microphones and play scripts, a way of telling human stories through the body. Every step has an aim beyond technique. To reach that aim, especially early on, we have to cultivate patience and rekindle a sense of play. Hard work can be fun and even exhilarating.
Vivian was telling me that one of her coaches used to say: “don’t drag yourself like a dead cat. If you’re going to commit, look for the joy in it.”
The hardest work you’ll ever do in ballet isn’t just technical; it’s learning to dispel fear so it doesn’t block your effort, and choosing to be kind to yourself again and again . That choice not only changes your dancing; it changes your life.
What Progress Really Looks Like
If you give yourself time, keep showing up and doing the work, you will start to see progress. It will often be slow, but it will happen.
Affirm it out loud:
- “Look how far I’ve come since learning first position.”
- “I can identify my hands and feet positions now.”
- “I even learned some French words!”
After the early stage of pure faith comes something steadier: a knowing. A knowing that you can set your mind to something and learn. A knowing that you are capable of what many around you never try. That knowing builds a quiet strength that spills over into every area of your life. The only things you need are the courage to start and the courage to keep showing up.
Five Ways to Practice Confidence This Week
- Choose one tiny risk in class. Step into the center for a combination you usually sit out. Try the turn. Take the balance one second longer than you want to.
- Name one win per class. Say it out loud to yourself or a classmate. Train your attention to notice progress.
- Regulate in challenging moments. Before class, take three low, slow breaths. During class, unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, and breathe between combinations. Relaxed effort travels farther than braced effort.
- Ask one curiosity question. “Where should I feel this?” “What should my standing foot be doing?” Curiosity beats comparison every time!
- Build community on purpose. Introduce yourself to one person you don’t know, share a win, give a compliment, or thank someone for a helpful tip. Feeling like you belong helps to keep you consistent in class.
In Conclusion
Confidence isn’t about believing nothing will go wrong. It’s about trusting you’ll handle what does—and letting your teacher and classmates support you when things wobble and celebrate you when they land.
Celebrate this community: the people beside you at the barre, the teachers who see your efforts, the programs that welcome you back again and again.
Confidence isn’t about being fearless. It’s about choosing faith in yourself over your fears, one combination at a time.
And when you do, you won’t just become a stronger dancer, you’ll become a steadier, kinder version of yourself, the kind who keeps showing up for the work and for the joy.
Explore online ballet training at Broche Ballet and in-studio adult ballet classes at The Russian Ballet School.
