Wendy Whelan: On Aging Gracefully

Wendy Whelan is an American ballet dancer. She was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet and performed with the company for 30 years.

In this interview, she has some lovely thoughts on aging gracefully, as a ballet dancer:

• “Aging gracefully means being flexible; being open; allowing change; enjoying change; and loving yourself.”
  
  
• “My body started to change.  I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll just be young and happy and feeling great forever,’ and then all of a sudden it was like, ‘this is your new life.’… It’s hard to feel that change in your body... to feel that ability to jump so high, and to run, and to fly, it’s hard to let that go and to remember that you’re human."
  
  
• "It’s just a constant strive for excellence; it’s a constant strive to be better.  And whatever that means, you just want to be better.  And then comes a time when being better isn’t always with your body, it’s with other things – that’s the exchange.”
  
  
• “The thing I love most is continuing to learn; it keeps me motivated.”
  
  
• “I learned so much about who I am through my dancing and through the experiences I’ve had.”

Wendy also stars in a wonderful documentary called Restless Creature, which chronicles her transition from the world of New York City Ballet to the next phase of her career.  You can buy or rent it through a few different venues.  While the movie is a little sad, it is also quite inspirational.