Dancer Sugar Plum

Just my personal opinion, I think if you want to study syllabus just because you want to do more steps, I'm not sure syllabus would be the best route. In my experience, most syllabus classes just focus on the exercise settings. There is no free work, even though there is a free work section in allegro. You wouldn't know whether a school gives any free work in their syllabus classes unless you joined the class. If you would like to learn more steps, I would suggest it would be better to do more classes. It's quite hard to say whether you should be doing intermediate foundation because it's hard to judge someone's level not knowing someone and how they dance, etc. I am not a teacher but I think most teachers would say something similar. I made the mistake in the past of thinking I only needed to learn the intermediate syllabus in order to pass it, but in reality it was a lot more complicated. Things like pointe work and getting rid of bad habits took a lot of time and effort. For intermediate foundation you would need to do pointe work, and your teacher would need to tell you when she/he thinks you are ready (if you haven't been doing pointe work). I hope this is helpful.

I'm sorry to hear of the way you were treated and I agree with what other people have said - that is not a typical ballet class and the teacher you had was not a real teacher. You deserved better. I have seen classes start out as proper beginners' classes, but have become a bit more advanced over time as the same people have stayed on, and so the teacher moves the class on. This may have happened in the class you went to, and a real teacher would have explained this. But this definitely doesn't excuse that teacher's attitude. I am very shocked at the way you were treated. I really hope you are able to find a better class.

I like all the advice given so far, even if you are looking for a class for yourself rather than for a DS or DD. Watching a class first and bringing someone else along are great ideas. Whether or not the teacher is a member of an organisation, it's worth asking about where she/he has taught ballet and what where the age ranges of the classes they taught. If they are a 'real' teacher they should be comfortable giving you this information. You can then do more research on those schools if you wish.

I know these shoes are accepted on RAD vocational exams.

Opps, I got my brands mixed up. I have seen girls use soft pointes called 'Shoos', which looked very flattering, but I have not come across them so I'm not sure how widely available they are. The shoes I was thinking of are Meme: http://www.me-medance.co.uk/pointe-shoes/ Hope this is helpful.

LittleNutcracker - There is a brand of soft pointes called Shoos, which are the softest soft pointes I have come across so far. They have an elastic drawstring so they stay on your feet better. I have heard it said they break in very quickly. But if the shoes your DD has just now are okay to work with, maybe it's worth trying to soften the sharp and uncomfortable bits with surgical spirit? You can dab it on with cotton wool and your DD could walk around the house with the shoes on so they mould to your DD's feet as they dry. Depending on how soon the exam is, and how long it takes for your DD to soften soft pointe shoes, your DD may find it's a bit of a rush to go round finding and trying different shoes, sew on ribbons and get them soft enough in time for the actual exam.

I would suggest being a RAD teacher does not guarantee good teaching. I used to have a RAD teacher who told me that, 'Some people's feet just look wrong in pointe shoes and I was an example of them', but she would happily allow older teenage students, who had just started back in ballet, buy pointe shoes and do pointe work. The teacher also got the class to gather round me, where she raised my leg in seconde and told the class I was an example of someone with almost turnout. It was awful. I was also confused because other teachers have commented that I am flat turned out in the hips! Same teacher said, of the RAD vocational exams, that the examiner just looks at your top half and your face, and doesn't bother looking at your feet! Another RAD teacher I came across told the class what exercise to do at the barre, turned on the music, and then would look at her phone for the duration of the exercise. There was one girl in the class, who said she hated barre work, and would always say, at the same time for each class that she needed to go to the toilet. It was her way of missing a good chunk of barre work. But the teacher just let her get away with it. This was an intermediate class, so the students weren't once-a-week students. But a lot them seemed to like the teacher because she let them get away with things. In my opinion, if parents don't know anything about ballet, I'm not sure if they could really judge if a teacher's teaching was any good or not. As an example, I used to take piano lessons. In a conversation with my teacher one day, she told me about a 10 or 11-year-old boy, who came to her with his mother for piano lessons recently. The boy had already taken several years of piano lessons so he wasn't a beginner. In his first lesson, my teacher realised that the boy's former teacher had taught him to play by memorising where to place his fingers. He just had to copy where the teacher placed her fingers, only playing tunes with 2/3 fingers. The boy learnt nothing about reading music. And the mother had thought she was paying for proper piano lessons for her son for years! How very sad for both of them. I think it's technically possible for the same kind of thing to happen in ballet. Also, I have seen parents and dancers assume that a teacher must be a good teacher or a better teacher than all others because he/she had been to vocational school and had a career in a classical company. One of my teachers, who used to dance professionally herself, said that a lot of professional dancers are unable to teach because they themselves have the correct physique and can't describe to someone else how to do something. I saw this for myself one day when I attended a drop-in class taken by a former dancer from a well-known (non-UK) classical company. Some of the adults in the class were not very experienced dancers. After the tendu exercise, the teacher tried to explain how to do a proper tendu; she had noticed that some of the adults were sickling their feet. However, she struggle to find the words to describe how she kept turnout doing tendus herself. It's not that she was deliberately teaching badly, it's just that she herself had the ideal physique, feet and facility to do ballet. How could she explain how she did 'things' that came naturally to her?

Anjuli - I really like the sound of how your school/classes were set up. I can see that whether the students want to do ballet as a career or not, they would have been trained how to pick up free work. I also like the idea of the school day finishing earlier in the day than UK schools, which would give more time for classes (in theory). I am curious to know how ballet classes in different levels are named in America and whether students are placed in different (flat work) classes if they were doing pointe work? So is there some sort of separation between serious dancers/those doing pointe work and those just doing one class a week? Also, since ballet exams are not common in America, how do students know that they are at the right level to apply for a particular summer school? In the UK, the RAD vocational exams attatined are used to judge whether a student is at the right level for a summer school. I wonder how this would be done in America if not many students do exams? It sounds like you have a good deal at your DD's school, 2Dancersmum. There are schools where you need to pay as much as your school for costumes and you/your DC need to return the costumes after the show. If you/your DC have costume changes, the cost goes up per costume. Most of the students in higher grades or vocational grades get more than one costume change for the shows. I can see that, if the students got to keep the costumes though, the cost would really go up significantly. So I am amazed that your school does not need to do fundraising for their shows, yet the students get to keep their costumes, that's very impressive indeed, in my opinion. I don't want to sound like I am complaining about having to pay for costumes for performing. Obviously there has to be an extra cost and this is unavoidable. But just to clarify, my complaint - if we call it complaining - is more about how some schools organise their fundraising for these events, which if you happen to be a bit tight on money at the time, it can feel like an extra unnecessary money pressure. 2Dancersmum has shown though, that schools don't have to fund for their shows this way. I know there is the option of explaining the situation to the teacher, but I think a lot of people in similar situations probably would not be comfortable talking about something so personal to someone you may not know that well.

2dancersmum - It sounds like your DD goes to a wonderful school, she is very lucky. Just my personal opinion, I feel that some teachers choose to do exercises one side of the barre only just to make more time for centre work. If you run vocational RAD classes at 1 hour or 45 minutes for each class, then as a teacher it looks like you will have to shorten barre work in order to cover more centre work. I have also seen instances where the teacher decides to miss barre work completely for one class or several classes, and you are asked to jump straight into centre work. Personally, classes like these do not suit me because I don't feel centred enough to jump straight into centre work at the start of class. However, I am not disagreeing that there are advantages to doing syllabus work, as mentioned by other posters. I agree that it's great to work towards an exam as an incentive to do better. Since the thread touched upon the subject of syllabus work in UK ballet training, I've listed what I think are the disadvantages of relying heavily on syllabus classes. I also think it's a downside of part-time schools having yearly shows, where normal classes are completely taken over by show work. I agree with the point made that this cannot be helped due to constraints, such as not having extra time outside class to learn show work. However, it's a real shame that there are no normal classes in the run up to a show, and this could be almost the whole term. One of my teachers, who was a professional dancer, said that it is so important to attend class the morning after a performance in order to re-centre yourself. And she is speaking about being a professional dancer, who obviously is no longer in training. So it would make sense that those still in training should not need to go without normal classes, just because they are performing in shows. Another downside of doing shows is the cost and fundraising. I know that different schools probably approach this differently, but if the school insists on the dancers and parents helping with fundraising, it can get awkward. One school set up a fundraising scheme for new costumes where you would have to fork out your own money if you were not able to raise it elsewhere. This was on top of paying for costume hire. It would get awkward if you had money contraints and/or you work in an environment where their fundraising scheme did not suit. It would be awkward having to admit you can't contribute more money because of your personal situation. If you did not know the teacher well, how could you be confortable saying, "Sorry I have money contraints at the moment, so I don't see how I could give you more money for your fundraising?" Therefore you end up forking out more money for their fundraising, on top of costume hire fees. Then you may find that the money they've gathered from fundraising has been spent on brand-new constumes that you or your DC don't get to wear. You could feel it's unfair you had to give more money to the school when it was of no benefit to you or your DC, and you really didn't have the cash to spare in the first place... I should repeat I am only pointing out the downsides of schools doing shows. I agree there are many positive aspects. However, I am still curious about how other countries, who are not so heavily reliant on syllabus work, train their students before they enter vocational school. Surely it should not matter whether the student will audition for vocational school or not. They still need to be taught how to dance, how to pick up free work, whether they want to do it as a career later on, or continue doing it recreationally.

Aileen, I agree that it's very enjoyable to take part in a show/performance. I wouldn't want young dancers to miss out on this experience, even if they have no aspirations to do ballet as a career. I only mentioned it as a 'problem' because learning show routines/dances in a school replaces normal class (from personal experience). However, there may be dancers who don't see this as a 'problem'. I also agree that part-time schools have limitations so this affects what they can do and the classes they can offer.

Yes Invisiblecircus, I am British and based in the UK. I agree that school shows can be another 'problem'. Since ballet is a performing art, it's great for students to have experience being on stage. It lets students find out if performing is something they would enjoy doing. However, the problem arises when it seems to be accepted that when schools start preparing for their show, and this could be a yearly show, the rehearsals take up 'normal' ballet class time for most of the term before the show takes place. It means there is no barre work, no 'proper' centre work, but just jumping straight into learning sequences for the show in every class. So if it's a piece with a lot of allegro, you are starting off class with an allegro sequence! Or, I have seen the teacher ask for the adage or port de bras exercise for centre practice to be done first thing in class as the warm up. They then launch straight into show work for the rest of class, which has allegro, pirouettes and grand allegro. No plies or tendus are done. This will carry on for each class until the show is over. This is a problem because you never feel properly warmed-up to tackle the show work. I can't imagine full-time vocational schools making their yearly show take over all their classes. Even professional dancers get a normal class every morning before rehearsals. It's thoughts like these, which make me feel that our young dancers are being short-changed. You are right Invisiblecircus, I have seen syllabus classes ask for exercises at the barre to be done one side only. I believe this is to allow more time to do centre work.

Drdance, I agree with your comments. Even in academic schools, the first questions people will ask about it is, 'Is it a good school? What are the exam results like?' But to be fair, if we are not using exam results, how would we judge a school, if you have no experience connection with that school? Then with (not full-time) ballet schools, it's the same problem. Especially for parents who have had not any experience with ballet, how could they judge for themselves which school is better for their DC other than use exam results and the number who got distinctions? We all know that just because you get a distinction in X exam does not guarantee you will get into a vocational school anyway. I too have heard it said that the RAD have stated their syllabus is an examination syllabus. But if you are a part-time school (ie not full-time) there is no time to do free work, or teach the syllabus steps within a real free work setting, before teaching the exam content. There is no time because teachers need to get students ready for exams as soon as they can. Then the students miss out on doing real free work and learning how to dance, as you say. It becomes a vicious circle. I saw this problem in the old RAD syllabi (the syllabi just stopped/stopping). And I've heard that the new syllabi is more choreographed so everything is more dancey. So I can't imagine schools used to focusing on syllabus work changing their focus to more free work when it's now even harder for students to learn the vocational syllabi.

This is my opinion based on what I have seen in UK (not full-time vocational) ballet schools. I agree that the focus on them is too great. There is a very big focus on syllabus work and getting ready for the next exam. In fact, it is rare to see real syllabus-free classes for young people at these schools. If there is a syllabus-free class, the teacher just asks for syllabus work but set to different music. So if you didn't know the syllabus work, you would be stuck because the teacher would say, "Do allegro 1", etc, with no marking of the steps/enchainment. One school would publish their exam bands and marks of their students on their newsletter and website. If you got distiction the mark would be published so everyone would also know if you didn't get distinction. It appears this had been going on for years, so I assume the RAD must not mind this practice? But it just gives more pressure to students, that they must be 'rubblish' if they don't distinction. However, I don't know how widespread this practice is in the UK. Also at the same school, the students would do the higher grade RAD exams in a year. I heard one girl say that she, 'must be rubbish' (these were her exact words) because she still hadn't done grade 7 after a year in the class. I also know of schools using students to teach lower-level children classes. I once overheard one student, not yet qualified to teach, say to another student-teacher she was teaching the 'baby classes' the next morning. "Baby classes" was referring to RAD Primary level, the old syllabus. The other girl replied that, "You just play about in baby classes." I had a look at the old Primary syllabus, and I felt you needed a good amount of understanding of technique to do it properly. It's worrying that teaching lower-level grades is thought to be 'playing about'. Also, it seems to me it's adult classes that are 'real' free classes, if we take Pineapple classes as an example. But I feel a lot of young people are missing out on a lot of ballet vocabulary and loosing the chance to learn how to pick up free work by this big focus on syllabus work. I feel that the schools use exam results to prove they are a good school, so most schools in the UK focus on syllabus exams. I saw this problem appear in class one day. After I had done my intermediate exam, I told the teacher during class what I got for the free-work section. One girl, who was about 14/15 years-old said, "How do you know what all those steps are called?" It was a genuine question. She had done ballet nearly all her life, working her way through RAD exams. But if she were to audition for vocational school, surely she would be at a great disadvantage from never having learnt how to pick up free work? How could she compete with other dancers outside the UK, whose training did not focus on syllabus work?

For RAD grade 7 I believe the double turn is optional, if you do a single turn you'll be marked for the single turn and if you do a double you are marked for the double turn. However, this was for the female syllabus, so I don't know whether it's different for boys? If not, maybe your DS could do a single turn if the floor was very sticky? I am not that keen on sticky floors either. I once asked a male dancer at vocational school how he did multiple turns on a sticky floor - the school he was at before had floors like the ones in school halls. So when he got to vocational school it was quite a change to go from slippery floors to sticky floors. He said he found it hard to do multiple turns at first on a sticky floor but it was just something he got used to after a while. One of my teachers said that turning on a sticky floor requires you to be more up for the turn, rather than add more energy in hurling yourself round. Although I understand the concept, I still find this difficult to do whenever I need to turn on a sticky floor. I hope this is of some help. I would be interested to see if people have other suggestions. Good luck to your DS for his exam.

I like the advice suggested about shoe hardener and how to use it etc, but I still think it's a good idea to ask at the ballet shop your DD gets her shoes from for advice as well. Since your DD likes Grishkos, I believe it's definitely worth asking about the harder shank. I don't like the idea of trying to dance en pointe in a pair of soft blocks, so I am not comfortable with the idea of dancing in pointe shoes that have become like soft blocks. It sounds like the shoes wouldn't be giving enough support. I've tried going en pointe facing the barre in a pair of new/fairly new soft blocks to try and soften them and get the shank bit to bend a bit more, etc, and it's not a nice feeling. I don't feel secure so I wouldn't like to actually do pointe work in shoes like that.

I know of a girl who went through a pair of Grishkos every month. She was about 14 years-old and had very high arches but she was only doing pointe at RAD classes. She/her mum managed to get special order harder shoes and I believe those have worked well for her. I have heard of dancers using pointe shoe hardener to make their shoes last a bit longer, but I've never tried this so far so I don't know how much more you could get out of the shoes. One of my teachers, who is a former professional dancer, says pointe shoes in the past used to have a layer of steel at the shank for dancers with very bendy feet! I don't suppose they need to make shoes harder like that anymore, but I've wondered whether they would have been heavier and noisier to dance in!

Would you be able to find out if you could get a special order of extra-hard shoes for your DD at the shop where she gets her shoes? It might also be worth explaining the problem to the shop and asking them if they could suggest another model in the Grishko range that might last a bit longer for your DD as well. If your DD really likes Grishkos and they work well for her, I would suggest trying this out first before telling your DD she 'can't' have Grishko shoes any longer. I would also suggest that if your DD were to find new shoes, it might be a good idea to wait until after the show, rather than find new shoes in time for the show.

This is very helpful Balleteacher. I like the description of not going 'off piste' and not 'crawling onto pointe'. It has been pointed out to me that since I am balancing on a very small area during pointe, any slight shift in placement is enough to ruin my placement. So if I've collapsed or become off-centred in between each turn, even just very slightly, it's enough to ruin the next turn. I find these easier to do slowly and there's time to think of everything I need to do for the preparation and turn. Once the music is faster, I find it's easy to go 'off piste'. I guess that means I am not ready to do these faster yet.

I thought a lot (or almost all) the vocational schools in the UK had decided to stop doing the RAD exams when the new syllabi came out. So it looks like the RAD will definitely be seeing a big drop in numbers. It seems odd that a syllabus/syllabi called 'vocational' won't be done by actual vocational students.

Hi Swanprincess, I have this habit as well (if we can call it a habit) and it's something I am currently working on as well. I have swaybacked legs too. My teacher advises me that it is all about weight placement. She tells me that on every pose, I should be thinking of the supporting/fondu leg giving the push/momentum to transfer weight onto the new supporting leg. She says that if I think of the toe or pointe shoe platform touching the floor first before transferring weight onto it, then I would bend my knee on the pose. She says that if I focus on the supporting leg doing all the work, providing the power to transfer weight onto the pose leg, then this will solve the problem. She also says that, for me, it's a body placement issue as well. If on the fondu action, coming down from a pose, I change my weight placement right over on to the fondu leg, this will slow me down and make it more difficult to do the next pose/pique turn because I would need more time to rearrange my body position in order to do the next pose turn. It would take more time because I wouldn't be able to go straight into the next pose/pique turn smoothly. So if I was turning to the right down the diagonal, and came down in fondu on my left leg, the problem would appear if my body placement went over onto the left side as well. I would be in the wrong 'place' to immediately go into the next pose/pique turn. Being far too over the fondu leg could also take your weight back for the actual turn, which would slow you down (according to my teacher). I hope this is helpful. Because I have swaybacked legs, I find it hard to know sometimes when my leg is actually 'properly' straight or a bit bent since I try not to push back on them. I think it's harder on pointe (like everything else!).

It sounds like your DD is in safe hands t_rose. I have wide feet and out of all the brands I've tried so far Grishkos seem to be the most accommodating for wide feet, both for flat shoes and pointe shoes.

In case it's useful, I would check if the shop would be happy to order other styles if their stock is not suitable. As an example, if they only have Grishko 2007s, but your DD might suit another model, would the shop order them for you? The worst case is if the shop insists on making something in their stock fit your DD, even if they were not the best fit, presumably so they get a sale from you. I once had a fitter who placed insoles in my pointe shoes to make them fit better because nothing in their shop suited my feet. Whenever I've mentioned this experience to other fitters/teachers, they've always been shocked that there are fitters who advise on placing extra stuff in new pointe shoes to make unsuitable shoes fit better. On the other hand, I have also had excellent fitters, who were honest with me when my feet did not suit the shoes they had and did not try and make me buy from their shop. By the way, this thread makes me remember my first pointe shoes but I must have been more than 10 years older than your DDs! I was lucky to have a patient fitter but I managed to fill half the shop floor with unsuitable shoes I tried on, turning the tidy shop into a right tip!

This is very true for all dancers, whether they are adults or children. It's nice to get a confidence boost since ballet dancers have a habit of comparing ourselves negatively with other dancers.

I read somewhere that the RBS don't count their Upper School students as graduated until they get a contract in a company. Therefore, if there were students who don't have a contract yet when the school year finishes, would the school not count them as graduates? Therefore it will always be '100% graduate employment rate' because they're only counted if/when they get a contract? I may have got my facts wrong (and would be happy to be corrected if so), but if not, it seems a bit dishonest to me. If it was a university we were talking about, the students would be counted as graduates whether they were already set up with a job or not at the end of their course...

Yes, it was just that teacher's opinion, but it has been the only time I have been picked out as having what is thought to be a ballerina-ish trait! I have heard other teachers say that having swaybacked knees give a nice line. I have also heard it said that good archy feet, which are obviously desirable/necessary for female dancers, usually come with swaybacked knees. Maybe that's why it's said by some people that it's preferable to have swaybacked knees as female dancer?