Lots of men in class

[trog]

Tuesday this week there were four men in a class of 16. Yesterday's class (pretty much the same people), three men in a class of 13. I hope this is a sign of things to come!

 

Many, many years ago, I was in a class where we men outnumbered the women - I can't see that happening ever again.

[Colman]

Our teacher had two or three men sign up for class this year - some or all paid deposits. None actually turned up. Much the same in tap class - three men started a course, only I turned up for more than one class. <shrug> 

 

Come to think of it, I still haven't physically met any recreational adult male ballet dancers. I think there's been two different guys turn up for class once.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Colman

[Nicola H]

Interesting observations. 

 

Yes prolonged attendance does seem to be limited... certainly while presenting male  'he' was the only regular male face in class at the local beginners / improvers class i take. A few tappers or college performing arts people take class sometimes even despite the option of a combo of barre with ballet class and then on to the adult jazz/ modern  that some of the regular beginner / improver attendees do due to class times overlapping...

 

Recently in that there London,  4 or 5 male presenting people of 30 ish at DPKs thursday 'beginners'  at Central.

 

8 iirc male presenting people of 40 + at August  TBR. ( plus one 'honorary boy'  i.e. female dancer doing the male rep ) And a good proportion of them were from DPKs various classes at Central...

[Colman]

For some reason I expected tap to be a bit more balanced since it wouldn't have quite the stigma of ballet. I don't know why. Apparently a lot of ostensibly heterosexual men are uncomfortable being alone with rooms of women. (That roomfuls of sweaty men are entirely suitable mystifies me even more.)

 

The nasty side of my personality wonders, given recent headlines, whether they're afraid they'll be treated the way a roomful of men would treat a lone woman. 

[trog]

I did a term of beginners tap classes a couple of years ago, and the the balance was about 50/50. The improvers class, which followed definitely had more women than men, much like the ballet classes I do.

 

I have never been ill-treated in ballet class, even when I was the only man in a class of 30, which was pretty much the case for the first decade of classes. The closest that I came was when I was doing an RAD 6 class with a group of 13 or 14 year old girls. They were naturally wary at first, but they quickly realised that I was only there to do class. They also learned that I knew the syllabus very well and liked me to stand at the back during barre, so they have somebody to copy when we turned around. They also liked to follow me across the floor for the same reason.

 

When I'm not dancing in ballet class, I'm pumping the iron in the gym. I use a body builders gym (not that I'm a body builder) and the few women who go, are accepted and just get on with it, in the same way as the men. I've gone to many gyms over the years, and I've always found the seemingly imposing body builders to be much more friendly that the people that go to a normal gym. In normal gyms, there is too many who sit on a piece of equipment, fiddling with their phones (which make me wonder why they bother to pay their membership fee).

 

Anyway, I hope these chaps carry on at DX - I'm sure they will.

[Kate_N]

6 hours ago, trog said:

Tuesday this week there were four men in a class of 16. Yesterday's class (pretty much the same people), three men in a class of 13.

 

That must have been fun in grand allegro!

 

 I remember when doing Jonathan Payn's advanced class (does he still teach at DanceXchange?) would often have a couple of lovely male (well older teen boys really) students. And sometimes men from the BRB, who were coming back after injury & doing low level classes, excellently taught.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Kate_N

[TYR]

We had five in 18 on Thursday! Enough to send all the blokes across as a group for jumps.

 

Otoh I was the only boy out of 25 on Tuesday last week. It's very interesting how the class population changes through the week.

[Nicola H]

On 04/11/2017 at 09:39, TYR said:

 

Otoh I was the only boy out of 25 on Tuesday last week. It's very interesting how the class population changes through the week.

Modern life is rubbish . Fewer and fewer people work 9-5 or traditional alternating shifts.  Best we can achieve with current working patterns at my workplace is 4 out of 6 off  on a very lates heavy rota (5 out of 6 weeks are lates due to the nature of the work and the rise of 'order by 10 pm get it tomorrow '). Potentially that's better on paper than traditional rotational shifts... (but requires senior manager to let you move weekdays off to the preferred day and sometimes start+ finish early on mids / days.

 

 

Other parts of the site do 4 on 4 off which if your class only appears on the timetable once a week means month there - month not  (if the same level appears twice with a couple of days between you'll make more classes but still be month there month not.

 

 

[Guest]

I need to join this class then! Im the only man in mine!