drdance

Good luck to all those still waiting... Hope it's not too long now!

Rest is VITAL, and I am always the first person to remind people to rest - after all it's during the rest after training that the muscles get stronger, not during the activity. Rest is also important to prevent emotional burnout as a couple of people have already mentioned above.

I'm also a huge advocate of reducing the 'religion' of daily ballet class in favour of better cross training - the theory behind this is that variety is the spice of life and reduces the monotony that can lead to stress, staleness and burnout, as well as physically giving some muscles a rest, and training the body in a different way.

BUT... in answer to the debate about home practicing I stick by my the belief that a dedicated and well trained dancer should not be totally discouraged for practicing some basic barre at home (under the watchful eye of someone to make sure that the dancer isn't doing too much of course!). I'm not saying "OK go ahead and teach yourself Esmeralda off of Youtube" - I'm merely suggesting that it isn't as clear cut as saying "You can't do ANYTHING" - apart from anything, saying this to dedicated driven young dancers might cause some serious arguments!

I agree that home practice can lead to bad habits etc but I also agree that....

Even in a class of, say 20 students, Most errors one individual makes won't be spotted. The big ones will and some of the minor ones, hopefully all of them eventually but not in 1 class. I don't believe that a few small errors in home practice are dangerous or likely to create bad habits. If they are steps that the student has done before there's very little risk. Better to practice some basic exercises at home than do nothing for 6 or 7 weeks.

I would second the question about festival work - a) how does your DD get on in the classical sections? and how does the school as a whole do in classical sections? Do they go to All England regional finals or finals for classical work? Having said that, some schools will do festivals but not bother to heavily invest in All England.

My second point would be to investigate attending some additional classes - either an associate scheme or another local school doing RAD or maybe Russian.

(I am a ballet teacher with a lot of experience of the All England competition, and working with quite a few dance schools so if you want to ask anything feel free to PM me!)

I can't see a problem with students working on barre exercises that they've done before with their teachers, as long as they're going to classes too. I agree that ballet, like a lot of dance/sports, should not be self-taught because you need the eye of a teacher to guard against developing faults or injury but some home practice, working on applying technical feedback to basic barre exercises is necessary, particularly over long breaks. Besides, I would like to think that the sorts of students posting on here about practicing over the holidays etc are largely going to be at vocational level or trained at higher grades so would be diligent enough to be careful, and perhaps use a mirror to self-correct too.

I know that the Royal Ballet offers the 'chance to dance' scheme across 40 or so primary schools in london boroughs, they give the kids leotards, ballet shoes & socks & free ballet lessons - sometimes they find JA's from that, or take kids into vocational schools. BRB have a similar scheme called 'Dance Track'.

Wow - fantastic! Best of luck to your son in his career, this is just the beginning of the next step!

Keep up with the ice, etc. An assessment by a physio or osteopath before rehearsals start would be a good idea.

I'd also encourage your DD to avoid anything that causes the foot to hurt during classes and rehearsals, so perhaps not doing full plies in 1st/5th, not doing any releves/anything on demipointe or pointe and no jumping, just for this first week - and to let the EYB teachers know that she's recovering from an injury. They should be supportive but it will take a lot of inner strength for your DD to stick to that plan as she'll want to be trying to impress the teachers and the other dancers. She can still do that by using her arms, head and upper body beautifully. And she should ice her foot down after the rehearsals too.

With inflammation type injuries you need to really make sure that they've recovered before doing something that might flare it up again - if it stops hurting on day 1 and then on day 2 you dance full out, chances are by day 3 it'll be sore again. It's a case of gradually increasing the work that you're asking the foot to do, testing it out and when it gets to a point that it starts hurting again, you know thats the limit for the time being.

Hi Lemongirl, how's your DD's foot doing? Has the swelling and pain reduced any?

As for the original question (sorry only just come onto this thread...) - I no longer teach graded classes, only additional training for kids already doing weekly classes with their local teacher, but I am trained in several different methods. I think that many many teachers ONLY teach the examination syllabus exercises, thats all the ballet the students learn, and perhaps one show dance a year - and students learn the examination settings rather than learn to dance.

Despite the RAD's rigorous teacher training in teaching unset lessons based on the syllabus requirments, and training teachers to create exercises to 'build up to' the examination settings, teachers are sometimes faced with pressure from parents to 'get my child through an exam a year' (are these the same parents who rush to get their child on pointe at age 10?!), or maybe teachers just get worried about their exam results and so don't feel like they have time to teach free work in their classes, or perhaps teachers just get lazy and teach someone elses choreography because it's easier? Who knows.... but this system does NOT produced well rounded, artistic, strong dancers. Those who aspire to be professional dancers of any genre know they need to do associate classes, performance experiences (such as NYB, EYB, LCB etc) - but why do they need to do all of these? Because of teachers putting dancers through exams and not teaching them to DANCE!

Having said that, the RAD are obviously keen to address the issue of teachers teaching students to pass exams, rather than teaching them to dance, and their new work is very difficult to merely teach the settings as they are - even the inter foundation/inter which requires no input from the teacher, the exercises are too long to teach all at once so it almost forces the teaches into breaking them down (I hope!) - and the RAD are doing more and more teacher CPD on creating unset work based on their work, and publishing entire CD's of music suitable for free work at each grade. The new grades work demands some creative input from the teachers, and attempts to encourage teachers to use free work to teach movements away from the examination settings. I'm sure those inclined will choreograph/choose one way of doing it and keep it the same forever after, thus taking away all creativity from students but those teachers will be doing their students a disservice.

What I'm trying to say (not very effectively!) is that a GOOD teacher will adapt their lessons to suit the students in front of them; if they follow an examination syllabus they should not always teach the set exercises but should use the material within the syllabus and be creative with it, and should create exercises to work on technique of perhaps one key movement in an exam setting rather than all of it, encourage students' dance quality and train their ability to pick up unset work. After all dancing is not about doing the same exercises week after week like a robot!

Most Americans don't take exams, they don't follow set syllabi yet they produce some astounding dancers... on the other hand, a lot of Australians follow the RAD method (but supplement it with other things) and they also produce world-class dancers!

A training method is only as good as its teachers, exams are markers of what you can do in one hour, on one day - but do they make good dancers?!?!

I think my dd's teacher encourages it as she sometimes looks as if she's sickling. She has reduced proprioception in her most hypermobile joints (ankles and elbows) so if the teacher asks her to "wing" the foot slightly it often ends up straight - if that makes sense.

I have a lower leg bow and my teacher used to make me wing my foot just to make it not sickle!

Any shoes that are supportive and comfortable will be fine. Has she been wearing a lot of flip flops lately? As they require some 'gripping' of the toes, particularly the big toe - avoid these at the moment. Trainers would be fine. Even indoors, just to help protect it, especially if walking without shoes on is sore.

Some gentle calf stretches should help, as it might be the FHL tendon (the tendon that makes the big toe 'point') which is bothering her. This tendon attaches up in the calf and stretching the calves might take the strain off. But any pain with these, and she should stop doing them.

Inflamed tendons (tendonitis type problems) are very common in dancers - they get many of these types of injury and they're common if the dancer increases their normal workload or changes it eg moves to a different studio (floor), or uses new or different shoes.

What happens is that every time a tendon or muscle is used some microscopic damage is caused - called microtrauma. Usually, with sufficient rest in between bouts of using the muscles/tendons, this microtrauma recovers all by itself and we don't even know it's happened. It is in fact the recovery from this microtrauma in muscles that helps them get stronger, as they rebuild as a result.

In cases where this repeated microtrauma doesn't have the time to fully recover each time it can gradually build up to a point where it becomes painful. At this point it is really important to reduce the workload on this tendon and to try to help the inflammation to settle down so that it can recover. Plenty of ice and a couple of day's worth of anti inflammatory tablets can help BUT only if the workload is reduced. In these cases dancers so often ignore the little 'niggle', take anti inflammatorys and carry on dancing, which adds to the damage and doesn't give the area chance to recover.

Once the inflammation has settled down, it is important to perhaps try to work out what may have contributed to it.

As an example of how to deal with such a condition: I had a student (now at WL) with very short achilles tendons and when her workload increases she's prone to bouts of tendonitis in one leg, which is her weaker side. The first time it flared up we managed it by stopping all jumping, demi pointe and grande plies, adding a heel lift into her shoes to take the tendon off stretch, and lots of ice. Once she was pain free I showed her how to stretch out her calf muscles and worked on her technique in demi plie to make sure she wasn't rolling to increase her plie.

Brilliant news! Which centre?

With regards to weightbearing - agreed - a tendu or foot in preparatory position/B+/classical pose should not bear weight, and I also agree that it's more an 'icing on the cake' kind of concern, to be added once the fundamental technique is secure.

What I was referring to in my first post ("winged foot should not be used when weight-bearing on pointe) was just that - some professionals seem to be winging their feet when actually on pointe. *This* should be discouraged.

By the way - RAD and ISTD exams (as well as BBO and BTDA) now can be added to UCAS tariff points, so a dancer with grade 8 ballet, intermediate ballet, grade 6 modern and intermediate tap could add at least another 200 to their score! http://ucas.com/students/ucas_tariff/factsheet/dance

With the RAD it doesn't matter when the exam date is, it's the whole session. Eg the London/Middlesex session was from June 15-July 15. So you may have taken an exam on June 16th but won't get the result until around 13th August!

Edited to add: RAD session dates and target dates for results are here http://www.rad.org.uk/files/ART475_UK%20&%20ROI%20Approved%20Examination%20Centre%20Session%20dates%202012.pdf

RAD target dates depend on your region. Northern, South East set 1, NI, Scotland, Channel Islands and ROI should be in but London/Middlesex, South East set 2, Midlands/East of England, South west/Wales target dates are Aug 13th.

Thats fantastic, well done! I've just heard that a student I coached has got distinction in RAD Intermediate (her first RAD exam) so I'm pretty pleased too!

Ja Sm a winged foot is when a dancer angles their foot in the direction of the little toes. Some people call this a 'fish' or 'fished' foot although I don't seem to hear that as much these days!. If you look at the picture of Tamara Rojo that I hope is below, her back foot in arabesque is 'winged'

Perhaps in arabesque yes but I'd err on the side of caution, personally, in any other positions as yes, she is only 9, and there's a lot to think about! Most 9 year olds have to remember to point their feet all the time, let alone do anything else with them!

It does create a nice line in arabesque, for sure, and there's no harm in doing it there, but my personal opinion is that it is a little too stylistic in other positions - unless a teacher is using it to stop a child from sickling their foot... I sometimes will have a child wing their pointed foot at the back in what the RAD call 'classical pose' (like at the start of a dance or travelling sequence - back leg bent, thighs together, a bit like a curtsey position) but purely because so often the young dancer will naturally sickle here.

A winged foot is something of a mixed blessing. It can be aesthetically pleasing but it should not be used when weight-bearing on pointe because it results in compression of the structures on the outside of the ankle joint, and abnormal strain on the structures on the inside of the ankle.

As for using a winged foot when non-weightbearing, for a student it really is down to the teacher. I was always taught when training, not to wing my foot because it was too stylistic for RAD exams, but in festival work we could do it in arabesque. Some students have naturally mobile ankles and can do it more easily but it also requires a bit of training/strengthening. It also depends on the shape of the students lower leg... if they have lower legs that bow slightly then they will already be winging slightly at the ankle to avoid the appearance of sickling, so to appear winged would take much more work!

Hi - as a teacher I'd recommend IDS too, but definitely be aware that they often don't have everything in stock.

I suppose the only thing you can do is get advice from your DD's or DS's old teacher? Or another teacher who is willing to give private lessons?

Hi, my general rule with clicks is that if it doesn't hurt, don't worry too much about it. Clicks can be caused by many reasons - tendons snapping against other structures, or cavitation within a joint capsule ( the finger joints clicking is thought to be caused this way). The only time to be concerned is if a click becomes painful - then seek physio advice.

Backs have a series of joints which themselves can become slightly dislocated during day to day movement - and we often don't know about it - relocation of these joints (called facet joints) can sometimes click. Also, around these joints are all sorts of bits of soft tissue (tendons etc) and any stretch of a tendon or ligament as it moves can cause snapping against something else which sometimes causes a high pitched click or snap. Again we come back to the topic of the growth spurt here - bones tend to grow first, and the soft tissues take a while to catch up, which means that the tendons/ligaments/muscles get a bit tighter for a while which can cause this snapping to be a bit more prominent.

Finally, looser joints also click and snap more due to the 'abnormal' range that they can move through - and as dancers get older these clicks and snaps get more and more - Every time I get up off the sofa something clicks!

Hi Amber21, yes this would probably be a good idea as if there are any areas where flexibility needs a bit of work, or any other areas of concern you or your DD have then they could be discussed here too.