Viv

I also have disappearing heels and I use the gaynor minden heel grips. They work a treat! I wear them with Energetiks/R Class/Russian Pointes, not GMs. I used to have constant issues in every pair of shoes and these have eliminated them. They can be a bit fiddly because I don't actually stick them in the shoe, I move them from shoe to shoe (no way I'm spending money on a new set of grips for each pair of shoes, I have two pairs and rotate them). Once I got the trick of holding them in place while putting the shoe on, it was fine though. I'm sorry you can't seem to track them down but if you ever do, they are a long term affordable solution they has saved me a world of headaches.

Ahaha, if you'd asked me that at the end of last year I would have said a firm and unequivocal NO! But I'm backing away from that stance a bit now 😅 I've been a bit nervous to commit to the exam because Adv 1 almost killed me and I couldn't face putting all of that pressure on myself again. My Adv 1 journey wasn't the most positive, I spent half the time injured and feeling defeated. Then it finished on a really high note with a great result and I went "excellent, never have to go through that again" 😂 With most RAD exams, I have set the exam as my goal because I felt like it really pushed me. For Adv 2 I'm sort of taking the opposite approach. I have decided to just keep working and enjoying the classes and the progress, and then to reassess in the middle of next year. If I am happy with my work to the point where I go you know what, I'm feeling really confident with the set work, I really want to show this to someone and cap off my RAD journey - then I will do the exam. If, on the other hand, I get there and go, I've learned a lot and I'm happy with where I am but there's still more to keep working on - then I think I'll let that be enough for me. If you do decide to give it a go Berry I will be seriously impressed! It should not be underestimated just how bloody hard this exam is!!! You are inspirational 🤩

I have the same issue. After some nasty ankle injuries, including one following a fall from a double pirouette en pointe, I have no faith that my left ankle is going to be able to support me in the centre. I'm honestly so scared that I can't even force myself to try single leg releves in the centre on that side. It's become a real issue now I'm working on Advanced 2 pointe, where I have to do renverse, hops, even fouette turns on that side. This year we've started to realise more and more that the ankle isn't the problem, it's actually my weight placement that is off and makes it feel so insecure. I have been so scared of going too far over on the left foot that I don't bring my pelvis far enough over to centre my balance over that foot, and instead compensate by leaning my torso and shoulders over more. And I've actually somehow taught myself to balance and turn in that position! It's been a real journey identifying the right placement and building up strength in that position, now I just need to retrain my brain to find that position first time, every time. Easier said than done!

I think this is a really good point @Anna C and it reminds me of some of the comments by Maggie Nichols parents in the documentary Athlete A. I remember her father saying that looking back, they can see all the red flags along the way, and they can see how naive they were to trust these institutions. But this wasn't Jimmy's Podunk School of Gymnastics. This was the Olympics. This was USA Gymnastics. Institutions that have spent decades, and millions of dollars, engendering trust and faith in their programs. Specifically marketing "the dream". Pointing to other countries and saying wow isn't it terrible what they do, but you can trust us, we're home grown, we would never. Institutions that rely on their excellent policies and shiny external face to reinforce that trust and the perception that Things Like That don't happen here. To now blame people for trusting those institutions, often with the result that their children have been harmed and abused, seems nothing short of cruel... I think it's important to remember that it's only in the last few years that these kinds of allegations against major British institutions have actually been made publicly. There might have been whispers about so and so teacher, or problems with eating disorders in ballet and companies generally, but the schools have been kept relatively insulated from that scrutiny. Instead, the schools have put out beautifully crafted media announcements about all the great things they are doing for mental health and healthy eating habits. Any allegations of the "dark side" have been dismissed as sour grapes, bad apples, or simple anomalies (attitudes I am very concerned to see continuing to be perpetuated throughout this thread). It's only really been in the past few years that the veil has been pulled back. Even on this forum, having been popping in and out of here for years now, the general tone and willingness of people to discuss their negative experiences has changed massively. To suggest that extent of these issues, at these particular schools, was well known and publicly acknowledged outside of the small ballet community, and that parents at large ought to have been aware, is quite simply delusional. And if that is the argument someone wishes to make - the better question is why has this been allowed to be a publicly acknowledged issue for years and nothing has been done about it? As for any argument that parents who send their children to what is now understood to be an abusive environment are somehow more culpable than the schools, who could, I don't know, NOT BE ABUSIVE? Well, I'm afraid any response I try to make to that would infringe the Acceptable Use Policy.

I agree with the other comments. In terms of "is this common", I think it's basically universal. There would surely always be a difference between "passive" mobility when you're sitting in a position using force or gravity to push into the range, and what you can use during actual dance movements. I don't think there's a single person in the world who can get as much range in, for example, a grand jete as they can get in a gravity assisted split stretch. I have pretty severe hypermobility and can fit an entire upright soft drink can under my heel while keeping my knee flat on the ground (done once to make my physio cringe and then promptly forbidden!) but I sure don't have 10 or more cm of hyperextension in my knee doing a tendu to second (which is surely a good thing because that would look horrific). I think ignore the hyperextension thing and just focus on doing exercises to strengthen and straighten the knee. There's a world of safe resources out there for people who struggle with straightening their knee in ballet and those are where I'd look, rather than focusing on increasing hyperextension (particularly passively, which, as set out above, is very dangerous). In terms of the VMO, one of the exercises I was given to help me connect to the feeling of a "straight knee", rather than a bent or hyperextended knee, was to keep my heels flat on the ground, "pull up" my VMOs and try to get the back of my knee to touch the ground without the heels lifting up. Now that's challenging! I also found that working on my turnout helped both with safely tracking my kneecaps over my toes, and making the leg look better/straighter in some positions. If you can see a dance physio who can help with an exercise program, that might be helpful?

I find I appreciate floor barre and PBT exercises being incorporated into my regular ballet classes. Sometimes when I am struggling with a particular movement, my teacher will introduce an exercise that places that movement in a different context that allows me to sort of figure out the coordination or which muscles to engage. Then I can take those learnings and reintroduce them back into the ballet context. This has helped specifically with feeling imbalances in my turnout on each side (using a small soft ball), and a fouette releve exercise using a large exercise ball. I have only done one actual "PBT class", which was with Marie Walton-Mahon, the creator of PBT. I found that personally the exercises set to music moved too quickly for me to get the most benefit. However, I found some of the exercises really beneficial when slowed down a bit and have since incorporated them into my normal exercise routine, with the approval of my physio. I think there is definitely a benefit to these kinds of exercises, as part of a balanced and tested program. The couple of hours a week I am able to make it to class just isn't enough to strengthen what needs to be strengthened sometimes. As for backalast, I have worn one of the jackets (borrowed from a friend) and I did find that it helped with my awareness of my posture after I took it off. I have a lot of hypermobility and have suffered frequent shoulder dislocations, and this helped me with some of the brain/muscle connections. I only wore it for about 5-10 minutes for plies and a few barre exercises a couple of times, but found it helpful. It's much like similar taping or theraband techniques, but I am allergic to tape and find the therabands cumbersome and slippery. The jacket helped me with my proprioception and to make sense of some of the corrections my teacher had given for a while, but I hadn't really been able to feel. I never bought the jacket myself, but I think for people who get the benefit from tape and therabands and want a tidier option (and can afford the cost), it might be worthwhile. I'm not a scientist or physio or even ballet teacher so I can't comment on the evidentiary basis, just one woman's perspective

Just remember that for Intermediate Foundation, the three allegros are all assessed together as part of "technique 4". This means that if you do a good enough job on allegro 1 and 3, allegro 2 might not bring you down as much as you fear. Even if if you don't get all of your beats, if you manage a 6 for both the other allegros and only a 3 for allegro 2, you will probably still average a 5 for technique 4. One way you can think of it is that allegro 2 as an exercise on its own is worth about 3% of the overall exam. There's no point getting stressed about 3% (something I conveniently ignore every time I have to learn a new allegro 2 - they are always beastly!) I got one of those evaporative cooling towels that you can buy from sports stores (https://www.amazon.com/Ergodyne-Chill-Its-6602-Evaporative-Cooling/dp/B001B5I57I?th=1). I wet one half of the towel and used that to cool my face and chest in between exercises. I didn't wet the entire towel so that I would have one more absorbent side if things got to the very drippy stage (the joys of dancing in Australian summer).

Oh @Workhard_Dreambig how absolutely devastating. Adv 1 is such a big, physically demanding exam and by the time you get to the variation, you're just about dead. I remember feeling like I'd been put in an industrial sized dryer, just absolutely pummelled in every part of my body. And in Variation 2, that part where you have to kneel on the floor and stand back up? How are you meant to do that gracefully??? I'm glad you can see that 1 mark does not define you or your ability, and hopefully you're also able to appreciate how much the work you put into preparing for this exam improved your dancing. You absolutely deserve to still be in advanced level classes and hopefully you enjoy working towards Adv 2 with the same group of ladies. I did find it a massive increase in the stress of taking the exam that one mark in one section can be the difference between passing and failing. I know one girl who failed her Adv 1 twice, both times she would have scored a distinction but she got a 3 for pointe on both occasions. It's just so soul shattering and seems so arbitrary! Especially when the variation is only about 2 minutes out of the overall exam, which took over an hour for me to complete. How bitter to fail the whole hour because of just 2 minutes. Hopefully something comes from your teacher querying the mark. Even if it doesn't, I'm glad you can look at the video and know that you deserved to do better, that this one mark does not reflect you as a person or a dancer. Best of luck with IDTA.

My teacher who is an examiner says they rarely won't award marks because of a mistake. The examiners are human and they want you to do well! They know nerves can play a part and even the best students can occasionally flub an exercise. They are looking at how you do the step and how you perform overall in the exam. If you are continually making mistakes or seem to not adequately know the exam material, that would be different, but if you made a mistake and then corrected yourself, I doubt it would lead to you not being awarded a large number of marks. I also remember doing my intermediate exam (I think) and for one exercise I got almost to the end before realising that somewhere along the way I'd gotten confused and started doing a completely different exercise... 😂 But I still got a good mark for that section and a distinction overall so I don't think they took that into account too harshly. Fingers crossed for you!

I have to wonder how Australia Ballet School are feeling about the fact that their chosen one didn't make it into the finals this year. He was obviously a lovely dancer who was a credit to himself and his training, and their candidate did very well last year, but I have to wonder whether they will send someone in 2024. For everyone wondering if RBS and like schools not sending a student is because they are worried that they won't hit the mark, take note...

I have recently received my certificate and can't believe it, I got a 9 for barre! I personally think the examiner maybe hadn't put her glasses on yet Equally thrilled with a 6 for pointe, the same score as advanced foundation - my goal was to maintain that score if not better it, and given the partially dislocated knee I am pretty darn happy to not have dropped. Good luck to everyone sitting exams this year!

This is venturing off topic, but I have to wonder how many Australian dancers might pass up an opportunity at ABS to preserve the kinds of opportunities offered through comps like PdL. I know a number of dancers who have had opportunities to move to Melbourne to train with the school, and have chosen to stay training in private studios. From those I've spoken to this seems to be because, if you're one of the 15 odd graduates per year who don't get into TAB - where do you go? Are you actually competitive for other companies against the Australian graduates who have continued to train privately? Though there would be clear financial benefits to training at ABS versus the ruinous costs of private training! I actually don't know what the graduate destinations are like for people finishing up with ABS who don't get into TAB. It's a shame that those who are not what TAB are looking for aren't supported to compete. For students who know they won't get into the company and are looking for that chance to be seen, something like PdL would be an amazing opportunity. Though hopefully the school assists with auditioning in other ways.

I can officially say that I didn't just pass my Advanced 1 - I got a distinction!!! A full 10 marks higher than Advanced Foundation. In my wildest dreams going into this exam, I didn't imagine this was possible. Add in all the injuries this year and the partially dislocated knee in the exam itself - I was genuinely convinced I had failed! I maybe cried a little (okay maybe a lot) when I found out... I am happy to be able to draw my exam journey to an end on such a high note. I feel no desire whatsoever to torture myself with Advanced 2 😂

I have to say, the fact that she was in the class for 14 months but didn't know the variation or some of the other exercises for at least 10 of them does give me some concerns... 1 hour for IF is a really limited amount of time! Both to learn everything, and for your DD to have the necessary strength and stamina to make it through. It's a long exam compared to something like grade 3. Your DD should be proud of what she achieved. Is there any possibility of adding another 1 hour class of Intermediate?

You said she started last September. Is that September 2021 or 2022? In understanding whether that is a 'good' result for someone her age, we would probably need a bit more information. How long has she been dancing? Is there a reason she made such a large jump from grade 3 in April to IF in December? How many hours a week does she do the syllabus for? How many hours of non-syllabus ballet? What are her aspirations for her dancing? To achieve an overall mark of 58, I'm assuming your daughter achieved mostly 6s and some 5s in the individual sections of the exam. The RAD says that a 5 is awarded when a candidate shows a "fair" ability to achieve the elements assessed. A 6 is awarded to a candidate who shows a "fairly good" ability. 7 is a "good" ability, 8 is a "very good" ability and 9 is an "excellent" ability to achieve the elements. If your daughter achieved some 7s for some elements, but then maybe some 4s for things like pointe work or free enchainment that she has done for less time, then that would show your daughter has some solid technique but also areas to work on. I will note that in the higher vocational levels like Advanced 1 and 2, a candidate must get a minimum of a 4 in all areas of the exam or they fail the whole thing (so even if the other areas are at a very high standard, if they get a 3 for pointe they will fail). That might give an indication of the kind of 'minimum standard' a dancer doing a vocational exam should be looking at. A 4 is said to show an "adequate" ability. It's hard to say whether it is a 'good' mark for your daughter without knowing more about her training to date, and what she wants out of her ballet. I would say most of the girls at my studio who are at that level are training IF specifically for 2-3 hours a week, along with 1-2 hours of grade ballet classes. They are aiming to get marks of 70 and above and would consider that a 'good' mark. All of them have many years of ballet training and are hard workers, and are doing a good number of hours a week, so I think it is highly likely they will achieve that goal. If your daughter has any aspirations at making this a career, and keeping in mind she is still very young, I would say that a higher mark would probably be her goal for Intermediate. Although exam marks have no bearing on a professional career or place at vocational school, I would say most students looking at the vocational route would be trying to achieve 'very good' or 'excellent' marks against the RAD markscheme. If your daughter just enjoys her dancing with no desire to take it further, then her mark is a 'good' one as long as she is happy with it And by the time she does her Intermediate exam, I doubt she'll even remember what score she got for IF! I know I don't!!!

Results in a week and a half??? That's amazing! My teachers have only just had results uploaded on the online portal 7 weeks after the exam. Must be an Australia thing. I have been told my mark in a text but it seems too good to be true, so I am waiting to see it written on the certificate before I believe it... But can definitely say I have passed, in spite of the partial knee dislocation midway through allegro 😊

My understanding is that after the finals, there is a special class/workshop for the dancers who didn't make the finals. There they get to dance again and speak to the various ADs who have come from around the world. A lot of places seem to come out of that final workshop, some full fee paying and some with bursaries. I know at least one dancer who elected to do PDL over an audition "tour" through Europe, as they could get financial aid to attend the competition, as opposed to self funding flights and accomodation in 4 or 5 different countries to audition for places in person. This student ended up with a number of offers following PDL so it worked out for them, though of course nothing is ever certain in ballet! This was a junior student looking for a place at an upper school, not a place in a company, just to be clear

I did about 18 months of open adult classes before transferring to an exam studio with children. Was told by my open class teacher to go for grade 6 but ended up with grade 5 because the timetable worked better. I am so glad I started with grade 5 as it's a better preparation for vocational syllabus than the higher grades I feel. I actually think starting at grade 4 might have been a better choice, looking backwards, but I still managed to complete grade 5 to a high enough standard so maybe that's just my perfectionism. @Angela Essex I really have no idea how you're starting with intermediate foundation as a complete beginner and keeping up, colour me very impressed! Perhaps if I'd started straight away with exams I would have gone to grade 3 first, but I learned a lot of the equivalent content in my open adult ballet classes so I never really felt the need to go back that far. I do find that I still struggle with some advanced steps because I never learned to do the early building block step properly, and that has been an ongoing difficulty learning from teachers who mostly teach children and go "just do what feels natural". Okay, it feels natural to you because you've been doing it since you were 2 - it doesn't feel very natural to me at all!

None yet, though the wait is starting to drive me a bit crazy. I thought the new iPad system was meant to speed things up? Normally we get results between 1-15 December (in non-covid years) so I am hoping for the earlier side of that and trying not to get a bit frantic while we're still in November...

The physio believes I may have partially dislocated my knee in the exam, so you have to hope they will be understanding that I wasn't at my best after that!

It's so disappointing when you have put so much work and time into something and then circumstances outside of your control prevent you from being able to show that. I said my goal going into this wasn't necessarily a mark, it was to feel like I had shown the examiner what I'm capable of. I just feel like I didn't get to do that Your exam also sounds like a bit of nightmare @Berry, I'm not sure I'd even begin to know how to handle melting pointe shoes! You should be really proud of yourself for making it through and getting a merit, this exam is a bloody marathon. I'm not sure I even want to attempt advanced 2 after this...

So I sat my Advanced 1 exam earlier this week. It started off really well, I felt like things were coming off as well as I expected them too. While I had done certain elements better on their own in class, in the context of the whole exercise I felt like I still managed to present well where I am at this point in time. And that's really all you can hope for in the exam right? Unfortunately, I landed one the first fouette sautes in allegro 4 badly somehow and injured my knee. I have had impingement and inflammation in the fatpad of that knee for about 6 weeks, but it was under control and wasn't giving me any pain until then. Suddenly I landed the jump and the knee started swelling basically immediately. I pushed through allegro 5 but didn't do my fouette turns as well as I was hoping for as the knee I was releveing on was the hurt one. By the time I put my pointe shoes on, my entire left leg was basically in revolt. My knee wouldn't bend or stretch fully, and I had pain lancing up into my hip and down into my foot. I could barely get over my box on that side. I did all the exercises and think I even managed to cover how bad it was for the first four pointe exercises. But by pointe enchainment 3, which is always my worst exercise, I just had no power at all left in that leg. I couldn't use it to plie and push me onto the right leg, and I definitely couldn't make it sustain my whole weight. There is one part of the exercise where you do three sissone releves en pointe in a row, en avant, de cote and en arriere, and my left leg completely crumbled underneath me. I didn't manage a single one on the left side. For the en arriere I didn't even attempt it because I was worried I would land even more badly and injure myself more. I basically had tears in my eyes a this point and looked over at the examiner with a plea for mercy... Then the variation happened, and I tried to finish strong, but I just couldn't. I lost control of my turnout, I came off my pointe shoe, and then I forgot part of the variation because I was so focused on everything else. Oh and then the heel came off my right shoe to make it even worse. I am so disappointed because I love that variation and wasn't able to showcase how hard I'd worked on it. My teacher wants me to apply for special consideration, so I am seeing my physio for a letter in support. I don't think it'll make much of a difference, the whole point of the exam is they mark what you show on the day and sometimes what you show isn't your best. But I'm hoping it at least explains to the examiner why it was such a significant drop in ability from the first half to the second half of the exam. Other than that, it's now out of my hands...

R-Class, Russian Pointe and Energetiks are all identical shoes, they're made in the same factory, they just put a different sole on them with a different brand name when they sell them in different countries. It can be irritating when you're trying to find the right shoe because they're all called something different, but now I know I'm a Russian Pointe Sapfir, an Energetiks Stella and an R-Class JW-S. Which are all the same thing. Though I may start solely referring to the Energetiks branding now, just to avoid the R word... Whatever they're called, I'm glad your DD found a shoe that works for her

Adv Foundation and Grade 7 are tied as my two favourites of the RAD exams 😂 Grade 7 focuses on the romantic era ballets, a lot of the music is straight from La Sylphide which I really enjoyed. It's a performers exam I think. Adv Foundation on the other hand is very tough and technical, introduces far more complicated jumps with beats and is a huge step up pointe wise from intermediate. I've found pointe in Adv 1 is about the same level as Adv Foundation to be honest, so I don't think Adv Foundation really straddles the gap between Intermediate and Adv 1 pointe as well as it possibly should. But Adv Foundation also has the nicest music and the choreography is very mature, which was a strong positive. I am entered for Adv 1 in 6 weeks! I am in a weird mental space, I'm not feeling as ready in this part of the year as I usually do before an exam. I can do all the exercises just fine without music, but the second the music comes on I get flustered and don't do what I know how to do... It doesn't help that I am injured AGAIN, this time my knees, so in the final stages where I should be pushing for stamina and consistency every time, my body is falling apart. I am trying to focus on the things that are working to keep myself positive about the things that aren't, and then whatever comes out on the day is what it is. I am hoping to improve my mark from Adv Foundation, but if that doesn't happen, I can blame the ankle impingement, broken rib, dislocated shoulder, knee impingement and covid for that 😅

If you have any luck finding russian pointe shoes in the UK that can then be shipped to Aus let me know, finding a pair of energetiks in the right size is like hen's teeth here at the moment!