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drdance

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Everything posted by drdance

  1. I would hazard a guess at 'functional analysis of the body during dance' - ie anatomy and physiology of the dancer?
  2. Just a note to say that flexibility and strength are not necessarily related in this way. Don't be confused with joint mobility versus muscular flexibility and muscular strength. Dancers with high natural levels of joint mobility may find it harder to control - so appear less strong, but often, individual muscles or muscle groups are strong. Conversely, weak muscles can feel tight too, so strengthening muscles often causes them to feel more flexible.
  3. With childrens' 1st postition I usually go up a size and a half when fitting my pupils.
  4. 2 tickets for BRB Black Sabbath tomorrow at 1pm Seats Q37-38 in the circle. Cost £119 for both. Happy to take offers
  5. No I wouldn't personally do that for high merit at Grade 3. I'd simply chalk it up to one set of results and move on. But the system is there and I'm not sure people know about it, and if the OP or her DD wants more information then they can do so.
  6. My students have dropped marks over recent sessions and I'm now finding out that other local schools have had similar experiences. It seems as though even with childrens exams that 9's and 10's really are for perfection (impossible in my opinion) and Good to excellent children are lucky to get 8's for anything. And that's for live exams. Add into the mix the video element and marks seem to drop even more. I'm really disheartened by it at the moment. I still prefer the RAD syllabus to teach (over other exam boards) but the others seem to be much more generous in their marks which is very hard as a teacher, when parents naturally compare school to school either on social media or at the school gates etc. Many schools near me do BBO or IDTA and frequently announce marks above 90 on social media! Please reassure your DD that it is happening everywhere, and try and see it as a challenge to work towards improving for next time. You could always pay for a full detailed report from RAD, I did this once and it was very informative.
  7. I'm always wary of these 'special programmes' run by ordinary dance schools. Essentially they are a way to 'poach' the best children from other dance schools because what happens is, like you've already considered, 'would it not be better to move her to the school where this strengthened ballet programme is?!'. I think that at age 9, two ballet lessons a week with a good teacher is plenty. I'd only add to this if the teacher or programme was something like Royal Ballet School or Elmhurst, where the curriculum and classes are age appropriate and work with your DD's current teacher. My pupils do back to back classes without any problems although this is on Saturdays and the classes are of different dance styles.
  8. Eeeeek! Is my first thought! Hyperextension in the knees is not really something you should be prioritising. Pushing into it in an oversplit position and pushing down is especially risky as you can overstretch the ligaments in your knee, put pressure on the kneecap and cause instability in the joint putting it at risk of injury in the future. It sounds like you need to prioritise strengthening your knees and in particular, the VMO muscle. (vastus medialis). There are lots of things online that help with this.
  9. The university dance scene has really exploded in the last few years - lots of unis now have dance societies and it can be very competitive. Something to consider in the hunt for that 'middle ground'!
  10. The warm up I describe is the recommended warm up to prevent injury and to fully prepare the joints and muscles to be loaded and stretched for dance-specific movements. Lying down or non-weightbearing might feel lovely, but physiologically it does very little other than feeling like ballet. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but it shouldn't be the only thing done. It should only be 5-10 minutes and it should be done AFTER the body is properly warmed up.
  11. 20+ hours a week sounds like an awful lot in my opinion. Is this all ballet? How old is your DC? (Feel free to PM me if needed). Stretching isn’t the only way to improve flexibility and joint mobility. Within the realm of “stretching” there are lots of different approaches; passive vs active, dynamic vs static, end-range focus, ballistic, PNF, dance-specific, etc etc. As others have suggested, it’s better to get an individualised programme. During the adolescent growth spurt flexibility decreases anyway so that’s a consideration, plus there’s the whole stress and tension element too - psychological or physiological stress can cause neural tension leading to what looks like poor flexibility. Once the person relaxes or the source of tension is removed, the movement becomes freer and flexibility appears improved. Lisa Howell has written / produced a fair bit of content on neural tension.
  12. Several point(e)s here! The goal of a warm up (if done properly) is to get all major joints lubricated, to increase heart rate, breathing rate and to start progressively loading the joints. I don't think that PBT (which is often slow, controlled and with all or part of the body supported by the floor or a ball) actually achieves this. I would actually argue that most sports require refined co-ordination as much as strength. Ask a footballer / tennis player / high jumper / golfer / badminton player etc etc about accuracy, skill/technical drills and they'll tell you the same thing. The physiological demands (intensity, aerobic/anaerobic demands, accuracy and speed of skill etc) of a ballet performance are very similar to that of a football (soccer) match. The only difference is that dancers have to make it look artistic too. Happy to discuss this in more length - I wrote much of the original research on the topic...
  13. Hi, great discussion! I know some ballet teachers who are massive fans of PBT and if it's used for the right purpose then it' great. PBT stands for Progressing Ballet Technique and it is exactly that. It is essentially another 'pilates' type form of exercise, working on strengthening and training the muscles required to do ballet correctly. It is completely dance specific. It is very good for developing ballet technique and helping students/dancers to work the muscles required for ballet technique (ie the 'right muscles'). What it ISN'T is cross-training. It will not prevent imbalances (some might argue it could lead to them if its the only form of additional training), it does not help develop aerobic capacity nor does it help strengthen against impact forces (landings etc) which are known to be predictors of injury. As with any form of training, I think it's always important to ask what the outcome goal is first, and then to choose a training method to meet that goal. No-one should be 'doing conditioning' to 'do conditioning'. While it's wonderful that people see the need for supplementary training, I still see a lot of people (mostly on social media though) doing various forms of 'conditioning' without really knowing or having thought about the ultimate goal. Something else to bear in mind when choosing conditioning - and it kind of ties in with the last paragraph - a dancers timetable is usually pretty busy. Therefore choosing what to spend time on is really important. It's no use just adding in more and more classes/exercise forms because the dancers body needs rest and nutrition in order to build the strength in response to the training. So is it really worth adding in another ballet specific class such as pilates or PBT when a dancer is already doing 5 ballet classes a week? If ballet technique needs focus then maybe substitute (shock horror!) one of those classes for PBT so that the overall training load isn't increased. If you look at sports teams or individual athletes and how they train, only a part of their time is given to sport-specific drills, or working on technique or playing the actual game. The rest is spent on overall strength and fitness development. So why do dancers spend so much more of their time (proportionally) on technique?
  14. Thank you! That's really helpful. Yes I hate all the misery - it's a lot harder for older students especially to portray funny / happy / quirky characters but when done well its excellent to see.
  15. Hi everyone! After many many years out, some of my pupils (or parents!) have expressed an interest in festivals and I'm stuck for ideas for little ones in terms of duets and trios. Give me a solo and I'm good, but I'm drawing a blank when it comes to what to do for duets/trios. What's considered old fashioned? What are over-popular choices? What is appropriate? Many thanks!
  16. Yes they do. I don't think the OP wants to teach online only. The request was for teaching courses with an online / distance learning element. Interestingly, I don't know of any courses which specifically train teachers for online teaching/delivery!
  17. Hi! Most of the intitial dance teacher qualifications are now blended, so they have some online/distance learning elements and some in person. The RAD certificate of ballet teaching studies (RAD CBTS) is an example of this. The distance learning elements require you to have a mentor who supports you through the course. Upon qualification you are able to enter pupils for RAD examinations and awards. The ISTD minimum qual is the DDE and this needs to be done via a teacher training college but some offer blended courses. Contact the various colleges (also known as Approved Dance Centres) for the course info as they all structure their courses slightly differently. The IDTA is a bit different but in my opinion, not as rigorous, because you can be 'qualified' to enter pupils for IDTA exams in any style with a basic teaching qualification in one style (please correct me if I'm wrong). The IDTA allowed me to be a teaching member due to my qualifications with RAD and ISTD though. The BBO offers various teaching qualifications too, and they are pretty actively advertising on social media so a quick look at their Facebook page would give you a headstart. Important note that if you want to teach/enter pupils for RAD ballet, you need an RAD qualification. Same for ISTD.
  18. Anorexia Nervosa is a clinical condition that can result in RED-S. In laymans terms, anorexia means not eating enough. RED-S is a physical condition that can be caused by anorexia nervosa, but can also be caused by unintentional lack of nutrition (so not consciously restricting), too much activity or inadequate rest.
  19. Definitely wait if you are unsure. Most of the major vocational schools don't begin pointe until midway through year 7, and that is after daily ballet classes including pre-pointe strengthening work. If you are unclear about the associate teachers comments then perhaps speak to them to clarify what was said - it might be that it was a blanket statement to a whole group of girls grouped by a school year and as others have said, there's a lot of difference between a September birthday and a July birthday! (not to mention number of hours training, individual strength levels, maturity etc).
  20. I've read this thread with interest! I'd like to bring it back to the initial questions that came up, if I may, which seems to be "is it better to have intense training [hot housed] before age 14 or not?" My thoughts around this lead me to another question, one that I have asked before. That is "what does success look like?" Is success a place at an upper school? Is success a job in a ballet company? Is success a long career dancing? Is success a life-long love of dance? I think we have to look at the answer to this question, before we can answer the initial question. Having read / studied / researched a lot, it is my educated opinion that children who are currently dancing at an advanced or professional level before the end of adolescence are unlikely to have long dance careers. There may be the odd anomaly here or there, but I don't believe it is possible for the human body and mind to cope with that intensive amount of wear and tear without consequence. But it might be what is required in order to compete for places at upper schools or get employment. It is a dilemma for some parents, while other parents will not be so concerned with something that feels a long way into the future. The debate will rage on, but I think that what is important to remember, is your ultimate goal or wishes for your child.
  21. I agree. I don't necessarily like this route but I don't know what the alternative is to be honest. I can't afford the RBS system and the majority of the parents of children in my dance school are fairly exam focused. They ask for children to do exams (sometimes way before the kids are ready!). It would be lovely if there was a system that was around the same cost to the teacher as the RAD/ISTD/IDTA etc that wasn't so prescriptive.
  22. I agree - in my RAD teacher training it was always stressed to us that the examination syllabus was just that, and in order to teach well-rounded dancers, much more was expected. We were trained to create lesson plans of free work building up to the exam work, which is what I still do. Perhaps not all exam boards train their teachers that way? Or perhaps teachers have forgotten this? or don't have time for this? Or have gotten lazy? I don't know and I wouldn't wish to judge.
  23. @Blue Box BalletI'm fully supportive of forward-thinking teaching, and training of children and I'm happy that it's getting that message out there, believe me! But I am purely thinking of the 'average' dance school where children do one class a week, maybe two (if you're lucky and have dedicated parents and students). Logistically it's tricky. I don't think that it's appropriate for most children under 10-11 to do a class that is an hour long, especially after a long day at school. Furthermore - it may well be that RBS are "following the research in child development, dangers of early specialisation" but this doesn't seem to fully align with what happens at the actual school, especially upper school, where students are taken in aged 15 or younger who have clearly specialised at a young age. I'm still in two minds about the programme, to be honest. I'd be interested to hear what other teachers are thinking!
  24. I've just seen that the recommmended learning hours is 100 per level! My school operates 38 weeks per year so assuming pupils have 1 x 45 minute lesson a week it'll take them 3.5 years to get to 100!
  25. It does sound interesting - I too was at the launch but to me it was full of buzz words, and the zoom launch didnt tell me anything new that the press releases, interviews and prospectus doesn't already say. I feel like it will be a lot of money to have some (albeit very good) CPD for teachers who are experienced at teaching ballet but who don't know much about current pedagogical methods. They haven't said what the recommended hours per week are for students, and I personally wonder how you can fit in teaching technique, choreography and explore repertoire all in one 45 minute lesson a week. I still feel like it will mostly be a 'kudos' thing and teachers who have the money, can pay their thousands of pounds to access the material, do the training and use the 'affiliate teacher' title, but will teachers see that money back in earnings?
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