Although others in the class take it less seriously, it’s the demands of ballet that keep people coming. Without a smidgen of personal ambition, the point of ballet, really, is lost. For me, ballet’s disciplined, exacting nature provides a release. It takes my full attention to attempt perfection beyond my reach. I started adult ballet two years ago as a means of removing myself from workaday toils; of plunging myself into an hour of striving for striving’s sake. That might sound like too much hard work, but I find it the ideal recreation. In an adult ballet class there is no pretence that any among us will be the next Tamara Rojo. By my age, 36, a dancer’s career is often over. The pleasure comes not in dreaming of the stage but in every correction of ligament and bone.