Dancing through matric in spite of injury

When Ayala Cohen, a top academic student at Hirsch Lyons and a dedicated ballet dancer, tore a ligament in her foot in mid-April of matric in 2023, she thought she wouldn’t be able to do her favourite thing – ballet.

Ballet is a passion for Cohen, who has been doing it for 13 years. Going into matric, she knew the way to deal with stress of the year was by dancing her way through it.

“Ballet was a priority because I enjoy it so much and exercise was a priority for me. Having done it for so long, it was never even an option that I would put it on hold for school,” Cohen told the SA Jewish Report.

Ballet lessons motivated her to study. “I studied better if I had done ballet that day. I knew I could stop studying and go to ballet and when I got back, I would work even harder,” said Cohen.

Cohen took the lessons about discipline and commitment she learnt in ballet to her academic work, and excelled in that arena as well, being named one of Hirsch Lyons’s top achievers. “You’re committed to ballet and the lessons, and you show up and do your best every time. You show that same commitment to school,” she says.

After her injury, Cohen spent much of the year working on healing her torn ligament. In spite of this, Cohen wanted to do her Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) Advanced Level Two final ballet exam with all the girls in her class. “The nice thing about ballet is that the girls you dance with are your friends for life, so even though my foot wasn’t completely healed, I still managed to cross this hurdle with them,” said Cohen.

The best part of her matric year was when her class took a trip to Hartbeespoort for a Shabbat in July. “It was really good to get away and have that independent time together to chill out before prelims and finals,” said Cohen.

Cohen plans to go on MTA with Bnei Akiva in Israel this year. She wants to continue dancing, but recognises that this will be difficult because she’ll be in Israel. Cohen will redo her RAD Advanced Level Two ballet exam as her foot has now completely healed, and will work towards doing her ballet teacher’s exam with the Royal Academy of Dance.