Colman

Both Labour and the Tories have repudiated the offer, for reasons I can’t begin to describe (nor would I be allowed to here) never mind understand. On the other hand, my Irish son’s colleagues going the professional route via U.K. colleges this year will have the best of both worlds, putting U.K. competitors at a disadvantage. Isn’t that nice?

Congratulations!

Discovering Rep 2 class unit coming up soon, which is fun because I've been injured for a while and now have a couple of weeks to get my stupid feet pointed under me again in petit allegro and that many times damned allegro 3.

And you’re happy for the rest of the world to reciprocate?

I’m kept in a little box by the mods and only let out in “Doing Dance”, excluded from likes or liking (so don’t take offence when I fail to star posts), less I disrupt less robust forums when they discuss politics. (The box is reasonably well padded, thankfully, and I can see out the slot in the lid.)

Those mixed open recreational adult classes are a problem for teachers: they’re a mix of keep fitters or ballet romantics who don’t want corrections and will take it personally if they get any and students who want to improve and will get frustrated if they don’t get corrections, it’s very hard to cater to both, and they need both to make the class profitable for them. I think some teachers also have difficulty understanding that adult students exist. 🤷🏻‍♂️ I find it’s best to tell teachers you’d like corrections and that you are doing curriculum classes or whatever as well. If they don’t take that hint, find another class (or use the class to work on what you need to work on - two of my classes are a bit like that, with little correction: the general level one I use to push fitness and the beginner/improver I modify exercises as I need - doing stuff on demi-pointe for instance. (If the teacher won’t correct and complains about you pushing yourself within the exercises definitely find another class!))

Look after yourselves: ballet will still be there when you’re ready to go back to it.

Oh dear.

I do faintly wonder why a ballet-only organisation feel the need to run non-ballet classes as a part of that. (Which would put off both of our boys.)

RAD prerequisites here - https://www.royalacademyofdance.org/exams/prerequisites-age-requirements/ - note the accepted equivalents. I've heard a recommendation of doing a level below when transferring, just to get used to the differences in requirements, but basically not a problem.

7 is a bit young for events. Keep an eye on RAD Project B stuff, but their event in April is for 8+. I don't know how hard that age limit is, of course. I thought LBBS had evaporated, but I'm told their Facebook is still active, so maybe contact them: our two did online classes with them over lockdown and they were pretty good. I think they're running online classes again, which might be an option for a few classes in a "look, other boys" sort of way - we were lucky, we had another family with two boys in classes when our two started, so we had a little suburban ballet school with *five* boys dancing (including me). I would expect most of the RAD workshops to have a few boys - maybe contact organisers and get a feel for which would be most appropriate?

First part of Discovering Rep in May apparently. Anyone done those exams? How did your teacher break them down? Separate sessions for each?

It's also one of those breakpoint ages when kids just dump pursuits. I can't remember where it is in the changing of schools in UK terms. So some of them may not want to be there, but may just be marking time until they're allowed stop.

How old are they? Why are they there?

I can imagine both people delaying leaving until after they’d got things back onto an even keel and being burned out after the mayhem.

Or moves being delayed by lockdown and the aftermath. Companies and schools have had time to get back to normal, so now people can move in good conscience?

My account is limited by admins in an effort to stop me reacting badly to reactionary posters and upsetting them*. I have my own special group "Just4DoingDance". I'm only allowed post or comment in Doing Dance and the ticket forum as far as I know, and I can't like posts or be liked. (* The admins might phrase this differently. It's the least tendentious way I can think to put it. 🤷‍♂️)

I’ve always been suspicious of teachers - of martial arts or dance - who discourage their students from training more widely. Specific concerns about programmes or teachers are one thing, but a blanket discouragement - or outright forbidding it - suggests both insecurity in their own teaching and an inappropriate possessiveness. It’s good manners to inform them and (perhaps) ask their advice, but all the good teachers I know have encouraged training elsewhere (except maybe when training a new style of martial art or dance when you aren’t reasonably secure in the current one, which can lead to confusing crossover and learning neither well.)

You’d need to say something like “formalised European dance”. For example ballet wouldn’t have much influence on old style sean-nós Irish dancing, I think, but certainly would have on the version formalised by members of the late 19th C British middle class.

Got a second one. Lots of activity on the site tonight.

I’m now in the market for one ticket!

It does seem to be at odds with modern best practice, but a lot of these problems seem to be more perpetuation of past cycles of abusive practice than based in professionally reasoned positions. "Never did me any harm. <twitch>" I can see a certain logic to it: I'm pretty sure that our 15 year old - not in vocational school - has been passed over for things because he's a bit too chubby for some people's preferences, but the idea that he could actually build enough strength to dance at 10% body fat or whatever they think is desirable is just contrary to all the science. He can cut when he's an adult if he needs to. If he'd been a girl, missing those opportunities would probably have been lethal to his hopes, but given the demand for boys here - especially post-lockdown, where (in Ireland at least) we seem to have lost a generation of teenage boys from ballet - it's not such a problem. So if you expect powerful people with an unhealthy relationship to both food and body fat to be making the decisions about who's good enough, you'll try to fit into their preferences.

I find myself unexpectedly in London that weekend with the 15 year old boy as we have some PDD workshops to do. Though SMBallet has precedence here:

But they don't have to code switch - helps to have dance wear to get into the right mindset for class when dance isn't your job.

Leggings or proper dance tights/dance shorts. Not the black ballet tights like ladies' tights you see sold as mens tights in shops, which are far too see through, but something properly opaque. Something like: https://dvrs.shop/prodotto/plain-ankle-tights/ or https://wearmoi.com/en/tights/268-2642-orion.html#/27-size-s/101-color-black or https://www.capezio.uk/studio-collection-legging-mens. Running leggings will do too if you're not near good dance shops or don't want to ship but the dance ones tend to have much higher waists so if your top rides up you won't be excessively exposed. I prefer not to wear footed tights if I don't need to for a performance or something, but preferences vary. I'm mostly in Diverso stuff at the moment, since they'll make it in bigger sizes at no extra cost. You didn't ask about dance belts, but following on from the above: get a dance belt. Then, if you don't like that one, get a different one and repeat until you're happy. *I'd* avoid the common quilted Capezio ones which seem to be easiest to get and go for something padded like the Wear Moi models - they're more modest and the Capezio thong ones are much less comfortable. (in my experience, and the choice of dance belt is very much personal (I don't like full-seat dance belts at all!))