I saw Misty Copeland’s story on 60 minutes last year and I was very impressed. She has overcome a LOT to become the first Black Principal Dancer of the American Ballet Theater.  This was always a goal of hers and she accomplished it.

Not only did she have to overcome an uncertain living situation but she also overcame injury.  An interview in the New Yorker details what happened after

Only a few months after she became a member of A.B.T.’s corps de ballet, at the age of eighteen, she found out that she had a lower-vertebral fracture. She had to wear a brace twenty-three hours of the day, and for a year she was unable to dance at all. A doctor, learning that she had not yet menstruated, told her that this was likely contributing to weakness in her bones. He recommended that Copeland begin taking birth-control pills to induce puberty. Within ten days, she began menstruating, and in a short time her figure changed from ballet-tiny to Marilyn Monroe. Her body, which at the start of her career had been considered perfect for ballet—she was said to have the “Balanchine body”—was suddenly no longer the ideal. “I was scheduled to do Clara, in ‘The Nutcracker,’ before that injury,” Copeland said. More than a decade passed before she was offered the role again.

Copeland also has spoken out about her struggles with food and body image since she doesn’t look like the typical ballerina.  From that same article in the New Yorker she speaks about how her behind the scenes struggles.

“I didn’t want to be seen ordering huge amounts of food, but the local Krispy Kreme would do deliveries if the order was large enough,” Copeland said. “After practice, I would order two dozen doughnuts and then, alone in my apartment, eat most of them.” She felt that her ballet career was getting away from her, that she was far from family, that she was alone. “I was barely over a hundred pounds, but I felt so fat, and even a stranger at a club, when I told him I was a ballerina, said, ‘No way,’ ” Copeland recalled. “It took me about five years to figure out how my body worked, and to understand how to make my muscles more lean.”

Even though Copeland now has a more elongated—more classical—physique, and no longer has a double-D chest, she remains more buxom than most ballet dancers, and also more visibly athletic.

I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED her Under Armour Commercial, I will what I want because it showed a dancer as an athlete.  Even though dancers are beautiful and graceful, they push themselves as hard as any athlete.

On this blog we celebrate women who: set goals, push past the barriers, overcome obstacles, and are walking in FIERCENESS.  Misty Copeland personifies all of that for me AND she got to dance with Prince!

 

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