We're warming up
We're taking a short pause while Ballet With Isabella steps into something new. Same world-class training. A bigger mission behind it. This next chapter is about more than ballet. It's about how you train, and how you show up – in and out of the studio.
We'll be back soon. In the meantime... keep it moving
- 32 calf rises each leg! – keep it slow and controlled
- 30 glute bridges – lengthen through the floor
- 1 minute plank - embrace the shakes!
- 4 x 30 second balances in retiré each side – if you fall, we start from the top!
- Practice your pirouettes from 5th and 4th each side. Try each turn until you feel 1 percent progress
- An arabesque each side – master it, and make it clean
- 1 minute butterfly stretch – breathe, don’t force, keep your back long and actively push the knees out
Isabella McGuire Mayes
At fifteen, Isabella moved to St. Petersburg to train at the Vaganova Academy. Today, shaped by top level performance, she teaches with the belief that ambition thrives on discipline, real support and above all belief.
Ballet | Conditioning | Mindset
Overview
Isabella trained at The Royal Ballet School before becoming the first British girl to join the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg at just fifteen. Alone in a new country and without the language, she immersed herself in one of the most demanding systems in the world. The Vaganova method shaped her eye for detail and her belief that excellence is built through consistency, precision and resilience.
After graduating, she danced professionally in Russia, joining the Mikhailovsky Ballet as a soloist and later Eifman Ballet. Performing under pressure refined her artistry and strengthened her understanding of what it truly takes to sustain a career at the highest level. Injury later forced her to rethink her approach to training, shifting her focus from force to connection and from pushing harder to training smarter.
Her teaching combines rigorous classical standards with a modern understanding of the dancer as a whole person. She trains for strength, clarity and confidence, helping dancers build technique they can trust and a mindset that carries them beyond the studio.
Ballet will test you. That’s part of it. But you shouldn’t have to navigate it alone. My role is to give dancers the structure, belief and standards that allow them to rise.
Isabella
Expertise
- Vaganova-based classical technique
- Elite pre-professional coaching
- Audition and competition preparation
- Mindset and performance psychology
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