Madeleine Beckman is an Open Squash member and ex-professionally trained ballet dancer. In her Boast About It interview, Beckman started by explaining to James Green that she stopped dancing because she had too many injuries, the final one being an injured achilles tendon. “I think that's why most people stop dancing. Because they have to.” Beckman laughed.
“I was trained as a classical ballet dancer and I was accepted to study at the school of Royal Ballet in London, and I went, and then I said I didn’t want to stay there, so I came back to the States, and I found my way to New York.”
Despite ballet being her favorite form of dance, she was well versed in all forms including tango, salsa, modern, and she has recently taken up Afro-Haitian dance classes for fun. Beckman also used to enjoy running, and at her fastest was running a 6 minute mile. She laughed that she always seems to be the shortest competitor in the sports she chooses.
Beckman is now a writer, having originally switched from dancing to writing about dance. After a journalist advised her to specialize, she began to write about health and fitness. All of this eventually led her to squash when she visited the courts at NYU, “back then I must’ve had a bamboo squash racket or something, you know one of those old fashioned ones that I got off Ebay.” She joked.
After a hiatus, she found Open Squash during the pandemic from an online search, and came to play, and has stuck with it since. Beckman says she can’t exactly put her finger on why she has stuck with squash, but she sees many similarities between squash and her love of ballet.
“Because ballet is so disciplined, and there is a skill, and there are things that are right or wrong, and you know when you’re doing it right or wrong, so you’ve got to correct yourself when you do it right or wrong, I find it elegant, and I find squash elegant.”
Beckman expressed how squash brings her joy and she loves being a part of the Open Squash community. “It makes me happy. Coming here makes me happy!”
As for her current squash goals, Beckman is learning to perfect the boast, where you hit the ball into the side wall before it hits the front wall. She feels that she under-utilizes the boast in her game.
Beckman’s favorite things about squash? “To have fun and to move around and to meet other people and to expand your horizons, and you don’t have to compete.”