Dancer In The City – Woman Loses Half Of Her Weight And Starts To Dance Ballet.

Let me introduce you to one of my friends, Sindra. She is from Latvia, currently living and working in London. She was heavily overweight, scaling 140 kg (308.6 lbs). Now she has lost 69kg (152.1 lbs) and still continues to exercise. She started her weight loss program in early 2016, but struggled to maintain her schedule. Until she found a hobby – dancing – and joined ballet classes in 2016 autumn, aged 38.

Here’s what she tells: “Previously I tried so many different diets and workouts, but nothing really worked for me. Lack of motivation and food cravings were always winning the battle. Till I joined @BlommaertBalletAndToning and found myself in dance. Now it’s different. Not only my splits are getting better, it’s like a new mindset, new life in a different quality.”

Sindra’s week consists of 3 ballet classes, 2 pointe classes, 1 stretching class, 2 full body workout classes, and she also hits the gym 5 times a week. It took her a year to lose all weight and to be able to stand on pointes – the pinnacle for every ballet beginner. She is not a professional ballet dancer who started her lessons at an early age and does that for the rest of her life. Next to them, Sindra would look too massive and still not close to her first show on stage. But compared to what she has been, her journey is quite a remarkable one. She is an ordinary woman, being overweight, but it still didn’t slow down her dreams and courage to try something different.

You can see more of Sindra’s pictures and follow her story on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_sindra/

While Sindra was visiting our home country in summer, we decided to make some photo shoot – our own improvisation of “Dancer in the City”.

This was a great challenge for me, too, because I am not a people photographer. Usually, I find it hard to take posed photos and mostly I stick with reportage. There have been only a few occasions before when I took pictures of dancers, so I had to learn from beginning all the poses and steps. Usually, I photograph nature – from travel to wildlife. If you want to see more of that work, you can follow my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/romija21/

Still, I tried to use my skills as a nature photographer, to see the best angle, to use the surroundings as a background, and Sindra did a great job to use every stair, bar, and pole to do some stretching and posing.

To take pictures we chose two new buildings near the center or Riga, capital of Latvia, our home country. One is the National Library of Latvia, and the other is a skyscraper called “Saules Akmens” (“Rock of the Sun”) – the main office of a bank. Both buildings are near the river that crosses the city, they have nice and quiet surroundings without too many people we could distract. I chose these buildings also because they have a very specific features – pure, straight lines, clean curves, glass, metal and rock planes. They make up beautiful backgrounds for human figure. They have this futuristic, city-like appearance, and also such a beautiful graphic pattern. The weather was mostly sunny and very hot, so we used buildings not only as a background, but also as giant shades.

This was a great chance for both of us to practice our skills. We chose some photos to show you that it is possible to step out of your comfort zone in any case – either it is some physical limitations or some insufficient skills – to make something inspiring. It is still possible to start something new, even if you are close to forties, or even if you are as far from your dream as possible. All you need is to be brave to start, to be courageous to continue even if it is physically demanding, and to be disciplined to go on.

To support Sindra’s dancing dream, follow her on Instagram. This is not an end to the journey, it is just the beginning.

More info: Instagram