drdance

Celb if you are concerned is there a person at your DD's school that you could speak to? Perhaps the healthcare/medical team at school aren't aware of this 'stocking up on junk food' and lack of quality energy foods eg potatoes or pasta - and if they were made aware of it they might have something to say!

I get graze boxes - you can get a free one if you use the code 4JWGCM7D

I apologise if this starts going off on a tangent, or is mis-interpreted but I would be slightly concerned if a young dancer had any anxieties or phobias about particular food-stuffs. Being choosy and not liking certain things is different - we all have tastes/textures we don't like, and most places will offer a range of choices to cater for tastes. But anxious or OCD type behaviour over food has been documented as a pattern of disordered eating, and potentially fully fledged eating disorders.

Jellybeans it's a high profile competition so this information will already be in the public domain from the moment the finalists were announced

It looks as if there's about 3 different groups of dancers featuring in this video! And at least 2 different studios!

Hi Ja Sm - when did your DD last have a fitting? If her workload has changed, like you suggest, it might be worth getting the advice of a good fitter again as they know how best all the different types of shoe suit different ages/shapes of feet/workload. Also bear in mind that your DD's feet may have changed shape as they've got stronger.

I can vouch for Angeline's knowledge and experience as we have similar interests and passions. I hope to collaborate with her in the very near future! -Emily

Hi, I think it's on youtube, exercise by exercise, from the DVD.

Strength, and flexibility, can be trained. There are some things that are harder to train. That's what panels look for, in my opinion, first and foremost. Hfbrew were you at WL last week?

Splits really isn't the be all and end all in auditions. It's one factor in an awful lot of things. Physique, dance quality, response to music all count too. Front splits can be easy for someone with loose hamstrings but the child still might have a lack of turnout. On the flip side, a child might have good turnout and very tight hamstrings so won't be able to do any of the splits.

When working in the US I insisted on the studio being air conditioned - largely as outside it was 85% humidity and around 35 degrees C or above and too warm/too humid for sweat to evaporate and for body heat to dissipate. The A/C maintains constant temperature of 17 degrees C (just below room temperature) and the correct level of humidity. While I agree that fans or cool air straight onto hot bodies isn't the best thing for muscles, Anjuli is right in that the heat is generated from within, so it's actually not that dangerous. Having said that, the best way to generate this effectively is to do continuous movement that works the cardiovascular system (eg low impact aerobic movement) for at least 10 minutes. Dancing in a studio that is too warm is much more dangerous and can lead to dehydration, fatigue and ultimately fatigue related injuries.

This has been discussed at length quite recently - have a search through the forum :-)

At Freeds, as in many manufacturers, the shoes are hand made. At Freeds, the different makers' shoes are quite different and so people prefer to stick with one maker. Each maker has a code - the symbol of the key is one particular maker. Classic Pro is the overall style. 3 is the size and XXX is the width fitting. The hand written L might be down to someone writing L and R on the shoes for left and right? One of the other letters will be the maker, but with no recent experience of Freed shoes I don't know any more.

I used to use clear floor polish on my pointe shoes to try to make them last - I used to brush it onto the insides but you have to be careful of creating lumps and bumps on the inside = blisters -ouch!

WL still do gymnastics - I don't know how far up the school this goes but year 7&8 definitely do it.

I believe that once again we need to reiterate the point that one must be careful with what is posted here, and the messages that are perhaps seen by young dancers who are maybe in a position that they have a slight injury or a niggle here and there. We must be responsible for the messages we send out. So many youngsters won't own up to pain because they don't want to have to rest (because they fear they will lose favour, miss out on training, etc) or worse still they may have a (terribly old fashioned and out of touch) teacher who will scold them for for admitting to pain, or imply some kind of emotional or physical weakness - I still vividly remember a tv documentary that I saw early in my career that enraged me: A 15 year old dancer being interviewed after her class, whilst taking off her pointe shoes, massaging swollen, misshapen and bleeding feet. The interviewer said to her "aren't you in pain?" and fighting back tears she said "of course. We are always in pain". The interviewer didn't seem to understand why she kept quiet about it and she said "It would be disrespectful to our teacher to say that we are in pain - everyone is in pain, it's part of what we do". Firstly - no-one should EVER think that dancing with an injury is acceptable! I am aware that it happens, for whatever reason or other, among professionals, but the chances are, that these days those professionals are also under the care of a physiotherapist who is monitoring them. I have made many posts on the dangers of dancing with injury on this forum so I won't go into detail again, but no young impressionable dancer reading the forum should be seeing anything that gives them any indication that it is even remotely ok. Secondly - analgesic/anti-inflammatory medication should only be taken to allow healing to take place. If taken to allow healing, then it should be logical to suggest that the dancer is also resting. Dancing or doing other physical activity is going to stop that healing, and probably aggravate the condition. Thirdly - the only people who know anything about dosages are healthcare professionals and pharmacists. As others have said, to mess with this is incredibly dangerous, and to post about it on a public forum, read by so many people, is frankly downright irresponsible. Sorry if this seems like I'm having a rant - I suppose I am - but I'm extremely passionate about the wellbeing of dancers, particularly youngsters who do read things and may be making decisions on what is right and wrong based on how others behave. I've been following this discussion for the past few days and I think that it has wavered a long way from our quest for adult ballet classes. Michelle, you have been given advice from many well-meaning folk on here. While whether you choose to follow it or not is entirely your prerogative, please consider who else might read your posts and the fact that they may follow your choices.

I think that the reason why Hambleton was enquiring about gymnastic/acro training was entirely to do with enhancing their DD & DS's ballet training.... I disagree here - firstly, a professional ballet dancer is able to move in many different ways and express many different characters and most will be incredibly versatile for example a current professional will be required execute a movement in different ways depending on the requests/direction of the choreographer or repetiteur. Therefore I'm not convinced that there is any 'one way' that a ballet dancer would do any movement. Secondly, it is much better for the health of both body and mind for anyone (but in this case for ballet dancers) not to focus on one thing 100% of the time. Ballet dancers should, for example, be discouraged from walking with turned out legs and feet, and from standing in turnout when not in the studio or on stage. It won't do ballet students or dancers any harm to think about something a bit different, and use a few different muscles, for a small portion of their time.

I have often sung the praises of gymnastics and acrobatic training and I think it has been misunderstood in the past. It gives much more core strength than ballet or modern (especially if the modern is syllabus based - there are abdominal exercises but the time spent on them does not create sufficient demand to increase strength), and gym/acro also trains explosive power and flexibility better that dance classes alone. Without wanting to go down the route of 'tricks versus artistry' that we so often venture down, I support the additional training and the increased skill set offered, not to mention the increase in fitness (strength, power and flexibility) that the rigours of dance training and performance demands. As for anyone concerned about muscle shape etc - muscle bulk won't build up too much if the training is mostly movement-based (ie not holding static positions for ages, not lifting weights). I know of a 14 year old girl who has done acrobatic training and can jump, flip and tumble wonderfully, and who has just been accepted into the Australian Ballet School (full time).

Go and get him an assessment from a good sports physiotherapist. MCLs are particularly vulnerable to chronic injury due to the stress on the ligament from turnout so it's really important it heals really well at this stage. Don't rush it. While he needs to avoid weightbearing activities there are plenty of conditioning exercises that he can do in a week or so once the initial injury starts to heal - eg floor barre, abdominals, back extensions

Personally I'd err on the side of caution with online injury advice, just for the same reason that I was told early on in my career never to give "pub diagnosis". One should avoid giving a friend a diagnosis of an injury in the pub just as a dancer/parent should avoid trying to get a diagnosis of an injury online. You can never get the whole picture unless a healthcare professional does a full and thorough assessment of the patient at the time (both subjective and objective) as well as taking into account prior medical/injury history, history of the present condition and both hands on and visual assessment. If anyone ever comes to me for injury advice or queries about injury, in 95% of cases I will advise basic anti inflammatory measures followed by a visit to a healthcare professional, unless I have the time to assess them properly.

Glad to hear that you're investigating this all and getting a great conclusion (hopefully) - a far cry from taping/bracing the ankle! ;-)

Bear in mind, as ever, that BMI is not always an appropriate measure - for example, muscle is heavier than fat, so a very healthy rugby player with hardly any body fat would be classed as overweight by BMI standards. Having said that, weighing dancers doesn't tell an accurate story, for the very same reasons! Good to hear, however, that the Russians are getting the message about resting dancers with illness and injury. Of course the next battle is always to get dance training establishments across the world to understand the causes of illness/injury and then to take steps towards addressing these causes (but I've still got a fair few years of my career to fix that bit!).

Gamba soft pointes are great but difficult to get hold of now because they are sold through Repetto but if you look on their website it lists stockists.

Wearmoi used to do a really lovely fleecy one..... so cosy!

Have you tried Capezios?