Teen Ballerina's Daily Routine 1 Week Before a Show | Teen Vogue

It's very cold in my house, so I'm wearing the ankle boots I wear for dancing. I have a long day of school and dance, so let's do it. Hi, I'm Kayla Mack and I'm a 16-year-old ballet dancer. I dance six days a

week

, five hours a day, and I'm a high school junior, from breaking into Jews to balancing schoolwork. This is a

week

in my life every day. I have to balance dancing at school. This is what my day really looks like. I try to wake up at 6:30 a.m. I usually set four alarms good morning I eat cereal for breakfast I pack a pair of tights and a black leotard I run to catch the bus at 7:15. the hardest class I'm doing right now is Ap cycling beautiful Ap cycle, but I actually got a 92.

Throughout the day, if my muscles are sore, I usually do some tiger pump or do some splits on the hallway after school, I usually have a snack before getting on the train. That's cool guys, this is my dog ​​Tucker. I take a train for an hour to Harlem. I usually try to get as much homework done as I can and take the subway to my dance studio right there before class. I stretch with my friends and I. Stretch my muscles with my rolling balls. The dance class usually lasts about five hours after class. I usually stay another hour just to work on my piece.

Let's start around 9.30. I start heading to Grand Central and I'm so excited if I don't finish my work before I try to do it later. I usually get home around 11 and by then I'm starving, so I eat dinner really quickly and then go up to my room and do the rest. my homework I usually go to sleep around 12:30 and I love it when I get into my bed it's the best feeling in the world good night and then I wake up and do it all again the next morning good morning as a dancer you break many shoes and it is a very rigorous process.

I'm a little scared of newborn juice. I basically have to sew on the elastic and ribbons and then try to hit the concrete floor to get the sound out of them. I step on them, I try to make them as soft as possible for my feet, put all your body weight there, hitting the sound of your pointe shoes allows the dancer to have a softer landing when jumping because sometimes loud pointe shoes can distract the audience a little, so when you First put your foot in a pointe shoe, it is very difficult, it is made of cloth and wood.

At first, your foot feels pretty tight there, but after a while, when you break the shoe in, your foot should feel normal, usually going up in a toe. You're basically like you're on your toes, it's quite painful at first but in the end it feels good, I mean it feels less painful, it's the first period and my Achilles tendon is already sore this week, my Achilles tendon has been bothering, I think it's just for In all the extra rehearsals, I usually try to put on a tiger pump if I'm feeling really tense or try to stretch my muscles using my rolling ball.

Tiger bomb is my best friend, it's basically like a hot or iced bengay, it just helps soothe the muscles. I guess it's stress or tension and it smells really good. Some people don't like the smell. Why does it smell strange? I think it smells good. cinnamon yes, it's my signature scent after a long day of rehearsal, my Achilles tendon has been bothering me a little, I just feel really tense, I think it's time to have some Tiger Ball today, I won't rehearse just so my body could take a break and I could take a nice long bath for my really long day tomorrow.

I decided not to rehearse my piece just because I was having some problems with my Achilles tendon, so I can't wait to go home. Good morning, right now it's 6:15. It's Wednesday. My legs feel like jelly for a dancer and injuries are not great, I mean they are not good in any situation but especially as a dancer because your body is your instrument. I'm always very careful about listening to my body and for me stretching is the I feel the best so I usually take a block that I have, it's like a yoga block and I do some splits just to stretch the hamstrings and then I try to stretch some muscles that are knotted.

Rolling knotted muscles is actually quite a painful experience. a torture machine I'm kidding I mean no yeah but after your muscles are super relaxed and it feels a lot better so at home to reset my body I usually use some heating pads that helps me I usually use them on my lower back to help my muscles release tension. I'm elevating my feet. I was lying on my back and I put my feet up so all the blood can come out of my feet because they were super swollen, but yeah, just from all the rigor. dancing and on top of all the dancing I have to walk to and from the subway and my dance studio, which takes a lot out of my body.

I'm running to my trains all the time because I'll be home at 11 if I make my train hopefully I'll make it wish me luck on Thursday I was getting a little worried because my Achilles tendon was still bothering me so I took good care of it on Thursday night my Achilles tendon I hope it won't be so aggravated tomorrow but see you Guys, tomorrow and good night, having schoolwork is quite difficult and I have to try to find as much time as I can in my day to do it. I just got home from the dance, it's 12 a.m. right now.

I'm going to try to eat dinner as quickly as I can and then study a little more for my psychological passing exam and try to start an essay in English. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but we have this. I'm trying to find a Day where I never had no homework, but um, yeah, almost every day is a homework night for me. I'm going to work on my essay which is due in 25 minutes, it's 11:35 right now and it's due at midnight. I should be live When my friends find out my schedule, they usually say: I don't know how you do it, how you have time to work, how you have time to sleep, I just have to get on with it. you just have to do it, it's like Nike, just do it, so I just finished with my essay and I just hit the deadline.

Thank God, let's go a day or two before the big performance. I usually have to color my pointe shoes, sometimes dancers. They have to color their pointe shoes to match their skin tone, people use foundation or makeup products to color their pointe shoes or sometimes pointe shoes come pre-dyed, I use foundation and a toothbrush and now I'm going to put them near my vent so then they'll dry I think tomorrow will be a big day so I'll see you in the morning good night before the big presentations I'm starting to get a little nervous I'm also super excited like everything is difficult so the choreography for My performance was made for television and for television it has to be sharper, I guess, because you're portraying it in front of a non-live audience, your movements have to be really big and super energetic, so this piece was super difficult, the hardest part of my

routine

is the lame duck a lame duck is like a pk, where you are doing a turn with one leg straight but then you replace the supporting leg with the other leg and it is difficult every time I just pray to achieve it. um, but I usually try to stick to the basics and keep my foundation so I can do a good job the morning of a big performance.

I wake up and instantly think about it. I think, oh god, today is the big day and usually I start to get super nervous which makes me not eat too much, but I force myself to eat because it's important to have a good breakfast before dancing. I can't wait to act. I'll see you guys, meeting the fans is the best. An amazing and humbling experience just knowing that you have inspired people or just knowing that they have seen you dance before is really cool, so the ideal floor for punctual Jews is Marley, it is like a floor texture that is soft but not slippery because it has friction for pointe shoes so you don't slip in cases where the floor is not marley I have to use rosin or in this case I didn't have rosin with me we are going to have to improvise and I am going to have to use a little glue to the fullest The buckle is a clear, sticky substance that you usually put under your leotard to make sure it doesn't ride up and

show

something.

I basically just had to rub it on my shoes and make sure. that it was in bad taste and making sure I didn't slip on that slippery stage when I went out on stage. I try to keep my breathing controlled but usually my heart rate gets super high, I start to get real, I start breathing really heavily when I get into my starting pose, I just take two deep breaths and try to calm down. After I take my two deep breaths, I start performing my piece, so usually in my brain I get pretty scared by the difficult parts of the piece, but then after those.

When I'm done I feel super relieved, it's the most liberating feeling and it just gives me this environment that allows me to be myself and express my emotions through my art form. At the end of the piece, I get into my final pose and it's super nice. I feel super proud of myself and even if I didn't do that well, I feel super happy to be able to perform. The hardest thing about dancing is that you can never ever be perfect even though dancers are such perfectionists, sometimes it's hard to realize. the fact that no one is perfect and you have to keep working harder and harder.

I feel like the performance went pretty well considering the floor was a little slippery, so I was a little scared on stage, but I think I was pretty proud of myself. I actually danced on that floor in the buckwheat toe shoes so now I'm going to do some homework and try to go to sleep early because the next day is Monday and it all starts again so yeah thank you so much for watching , love. you