user_less Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Less than two weeks to DD Grade 1 exam and the ballet advice I get from her ballet teacher it to put a brick on her head. Bad timing means that the current growth spurt has just undone much of the hard work they have both put in the strengthen DD feet and legs over this term and DD is back to beginning a bit like a new born foal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna C Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Oh dear! Welcome to the forum, by the way. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Well she could wear a label in the exam saying I've just grown 1/2/3 inches in the past month and am dancing on new legs!! Seriously as its SO close to the exam not much you can do at this point. If it turns out to be not as good a result as expected I wouldn't worry too much ....just concentrate on the next exam and I'm sure she will do better when the growth spurt is over!! Best of luck to her.....is she the only one in the exam group with a spurt on just at the moment? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drdance Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Awww I can sympathise! I had exams today at my 'little' dance school in Warwick, and one of my grade 1s had just the same thing! What I did with her was to concentrate on good posture and every night I made her practice what is essentially good toes, naughty toes to keep her legs and feet feeling 'connected'. The naughty toes bit is very useful for feeling long in the backs of the legs while strengthening the quads and calves. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
user_less Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 Will try that. She has a once a month two hour none syllabus ballet lesson tomorrow with a small local youth ballet. It's a different teacher but I'll ask her to show DD some exercises as my DD loves her lessons but she does work them hard. I get to watch for the first time tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate_N Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 I'm not sure what age Grade 1 is - somewhere between 8 and 10 years old? Maybe it's also important to let her know that the exam isn't an end in itself. It's simply a marker of where her ballet development is at the moment, and she's learning and growing all the time. It's important for her to recognise her progress and learning, not focus on the exam result as an end in itself. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 I agree with Kate, and I'm sure that the examiner will be very experienced and will know and understand how a sudden growth spurt can affect young dancers's performance 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
user_less Posted June 26, 2016 Author Share Posted June 26, 2016 She is 9. Don't worry she will just like the medal at the end, to match her other two. She will not be fussed about the marks as it's not something which I push. I think she is too young for that especially as she has other interests such as Scouting. Her camping bruises should have faded by then. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pups_mum Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 That's unfortunate timing but I think it's something that everyone goes through. My DD used to suffer from significant reduction in flexibility whenever she grew significantly, and as that has never been her strongest point she would get quite disheartened. So my advice would be to reassure your DD as much as possible that this is normal, everyone goes through similar at some point and that if she keeps working at good basic technique she will be fine and her body will soon "catch up" again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 The camping bruises brought back memories! Because I was always tearing around and falling out of trees etc ....definitely a bit clumsy....I always seemed to have big bruises or recovering cuts on knees legs or arms just as about to do a ballet exam!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peanut68 Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 Ah yes - bruises! I was worried that the examiner would call in child protection after seeing the state of my sons legs during his Grade 2 Ballet exam.... It had been a particularly brutal match 3 days before for his under 10's team!!! Pleased he does both though ballet interest waining :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cara in NZ Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 I had an interesting chat yesterday with a retired male ballet dancer who travels around teaching. He did RAD growing up in the 1970s, and I was asking what you would have to do to fail, as the RAD website has a tiny failure rate of about 0.1%. He said for one vocational exam (Elementary? Old system) he was in the exam with one other boy and he caught his eye during an exercise and they both started laughing and couldn't stop. They were told they had failed, and sent out of the room. So now we know! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
user_less Posted September 6, 2016 Author Share Posted September 6, 2016 First lesson after summer and results are back. Little Bambi is very pleased with her Merit. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pups_mum Posted September 6, 2016 Share Posted September 6, 2016 Well done to her user_less. Glad everything went well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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