Ballet as Inspiration?

Ballet inspires me to be more creative, athletic, and graceful. It also inspires me to be more "beautiful". To be completly honest, when I go to class and watch myself in the mirror I can't help but notice a few areas (mainly thighs and hips) that I'd like to see reduced in size a bit. Ballet works wonders for your core and legs. The results are noticeable and I'm only a few weeks in.
One of my ballet teachers always stresses that confidence is attractive. He says, "If you make a mistake, do it with confidence! It looks better." I'm not saying I'm insecure with my body, I love that I have curves but I wouldn't mind having toned curves, if you know what I mean. Being more comfotable in my skin would definitely give me a little confidence boost.
Ballet works your muscles in a different way than a typical workout would. For me it feels like I have to work my stabilizer muscles more than I would for other forms of exercise.

Since I've already seen a notable change in my body from taking ballet twice a week, I wanted to do a workout that would work the same muscles in the same way. I have already tried a couple of ballet workouts so I won't go into the better known ones today. I wanted to try something new and in my search I came across Ballet Beautiful. It is a workout routine (not a ballet class) developed by Mary Helen Bowers. She's the beautiful ballet dancer who trained Natalie Portman for the movie Black Swan. There was a sale on amazon so I went ahead and purchased the dvd set which includes a  60 min workout, and a four 15 min blast workouts.
So I tried the workout, the key word here......tried. Talk about burn! I guess my muscles are not used to doing these types of movements and they simply just gave up on me. This workout is very similar to a pilates workout. I haven't tried pilates since I was a teenager, so for people who do pilates it may be a bit easier. I definitely could not keep up, which is good I guess since this workout will keep me challenged for some time.
I had to move recently, and that took my mind off of ballet and working out for some time, but I'm back and ready to hit it full force. One reason being that my sister has done this workout for about two weeks and the changes in her legs are pretty dramatic. I'm interested in seeing whether or not these workouts will help my ballet technique. I may even post some before and after photos ;)
For now enjoy the beautiful Mary Helen Bowers, my inspiration.