Madonna Worried She'd Never Dance Again

By Stephen M. Silverman

02/28/2006 at 08:00 AM EST

Madonna mends very nicely, thank you – saying she's "strong again" after she broke nine bones when she fell off a horse at her country home outside London on her 47th birthday last Aug. 16.

"Well, I did survive 2005," the Grammy opener tells Harper's Bazaar. "It was a very tumultuous year. I felt like I came out of my disco ball like most people get shot out of a cannon. Forget about riding a horse again – I didn't know if I was going to be able to dance again."

Madonna sustained three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand in the riding accident.

"When I shot the video (for 'Hung Up' ) none of the bones had gone together. Pharmaceuticals and my will got me through the shoot. So to come out of that, I felt so much inspiration and so much joy just to have my body back and to feel strong again," she says.

To let her shoulder heal properly, she says, Madonna put the brakes on one of her daily routines. "I used to be a freak about doing yoga," she says, "but I had to do a lot of Pilates to rehab my shoulder joint and get the use of my arm back. So I started really getting into Pilates and dancing more."

Because " Pilates instructor was a dancer," her workouts "became much more ballet-oriented, rather than the visceral, gymnastic, Ashtanga yoga thing."