Working through stress with dance and movement
Collection by

Elizabeth Leachman

Working through stress with dance and movement

Ballet and yoga teacher

November 2020

While most ballerinas get their start at the age of three, I was 11 when I began taking formal lessons at Southold Dance Theater. Dance hasn’t left my life since. There have been summer intensives and a 200-hour yoga certification program. I’ve spent countless hours teaching at the top ballet school in New York and at YMCA recreational classes. Now, several years into a professional nonprofit career (where I still teach ballet and yoga on the side), I hold on to the life lessons that dance has taught me: dedication, hard work, time management. I see dance in everything: how someone walks down the street or interacts with someone they hardly know. How a person moves when they are anxious or how the body reacts when it gently cradles a baby. It is never too late to start moving and dancing. You’re not too old. You’re not the wrong size, shape or color. You’re not too out-of-shape. You are beautiful and ready to dance just as you are.