It is somewhat ironic that the beauty of ballet hides a painful secret that most observers are unaware of. You won´t realise it by looking at the athletic, graceful and fluid movements of the dancer. The secret hides deep within the performer’s shoes. What most of us don´t realise whilst watching ballet, is the pain that professional fulltime ballet dancers experience whilst performing.

Not sure what I mean? Type “ballet dancer’s feet” into Google images and you´ll immediately understand. Warning! Some images may disturb viewers. So unless you don´t mind throwing up your egg mayo sandwich, I strongly suggest you only look at these pictures on an empty stomach. The feet you will see, are not the result of walking across the Sahara desert in flip-flops, no, rather they are from years and years of dancing ballet.

Think about all those movements a ballet dancer performs and it’s not too hard to imagine the results this has on their feet. Corns, blisters, bruises, bunions, broken nails, broken bones and stress fractures are common injuries for the ballet dancer. And whilst I would take a month off work for a scratched toenail and expect my family to bring me dinner in bed as I watch the entire five seasons of Game of Thrones, a ballet dancer continues to perform through all these injuries.

Hmmmmm…….. I guess that going to see Swan Lake will never be the same again.

I was surprised to learn that the Star Wars ballet made for French television during the glorious 1970’s, is not even in the top ten! Nor is the bear riding around in miniature pink car, on the list. Believe it or not, most people actually rate Swan Lake as the best ballet of all time!

But why?

Let’s not forget that the original staging of Swan Lake in 1877 was universally panned. Critics felt that Tchaikovsky’s music was “too noisy” and the choreography as “unimaginative and unmemorable”. Yet despite these blunt and unsympathetic reviews, the show lasted six years with a total of 41 performances. Could there really have been so many deaf and blind patrons back then?

If the story ended there, Swan Lake probably would have disappeared into the abyss of forgotten mediocrity. But in 1895 there was a Petipa-Ivanov-Drigo revival which changed the choreography and revised Tchaikovsky’s score. The ballet premiered on Friday the 27th of January and unlike the original version, critics weren’t competing to see who could write the nastiest review. The revised version of Swan Lake received unanimous warm praise.

And now?

The next time you feel like an adrenaline shot of culture and decide to go watch Swan Lake, the version you’ll be seeing will most likely be the Petipa-Ivanov-Drigo staging. Today, it’s the most popular version used by ballet companies across the world.

However, the most important event in the entire rich, century and a half history of Swan Lake is how this has all culminated into the film Black Swan. Yes. That’s right. This is the true ultimate version of Tchaikovsky’s ballet.

P.S. Is sarcasm lost in writing?

1. Eggs
2. Chicken
3. Rice
4. The head of a bat (Ozzie Osbourne style)
5. Sausages
6. Vegetarian Sausages
7. Processed Bacon Biscuits
8. Soya Latte 125ml
9. Soya Latte 1L
10. Uncle Joe’s homemade, freshly baked, all natural, organic snails in spicy tomato sauce.

Choosing the right food is a dilemma anyone looking to achieve peak fitness, needs to face. Fortunately, there is a plethora of information about healthy diets on the internet and some of it is actually factual. What most people suggest is a balanced diet with a mix of something like the following:

• 30% Fruit and Veg
• 30% Carbohydrates
• 20% Protein
• 15% Milk and dairy products
• 5% Fats and sugar

Does this sound reasonable to you?

Anyway, if you aren’t particularly keen on what one diet plan offers, you can always switch to another. For example, I couldn’t handle the World Health Organization announcing that bacon is as carcinogenic as smoking, so I’ve decided to bury my head in the sand and adopt the Atkins diet! Now I’m happily content consuming lashings of fried bacon as part of my fitness regime.