Dancer Sugar Plum

I recently met a contemporary dance teacher whose job involves training teenage dancers and we had a chat about ballet and training. I told her I started late in ballet and she said she was behind in ballet when she started college (She was born and trained in the UK). So in order to try and catch up, she approached a ballet teacher and asked if she could do extra classes with her. She told her she didn't mind the level or age of students in the class, she just wanted to do more to improve her ballet and left the placing to her. The ballet teacher placed her into a class with young children, and it sounded like they were probably no older than the age of 7. The contemporary dance teacher said she felt very awkward at first, she felt like a giant amongst these children. However, the ballet teacher never treated her any differently, she was just another member of her class to her. If I could go back in time I think I would have liked to have tried this method of starting ballet. I don't know how easy or hard it would have been to find a school that would allow adults to do class with young children, and I probably would have found the idea of it very intimidating. But in hindsight it's an excellent idea to start and work from the very beginning and not jump ahead with a load of extra too-advanced classes before I was ready.

To make things more complicated, finding leotards to fit is not the end of the 'problem'. I have been able to find leotards that work for me in Bloch, Capezio and Wear Moi, but there are a lot of styles I need to write off because of the bust area. There is just not enough coverage for the bust area! As an example, empire line leotards have a line that should sit on the rib cage but I find it sits on my bust instead. If I pull it down to where it should sit, I look borderline indecent! If I wore it to class, I think I would be revealing too much when doing port de bras down to my feet!

Michelle, I agree with what Mimi66 has said in her last post. And I have a few more points I'd like to add and hope they will be food for thought. Some years back, maybe it was soon after I started ballet, I heard or read about how beneficial it was for more advanced dancers to take classes that were lower than their level. They also said that doing 'easier' classes can be a lot harder. I remember thinking this did not make sense. How can doing something 'easier' be more difficult?! However, I think it's only been the last few years I've understood this to be true. In fact, when I do lower-level classes it can be even more tiring than more advanced classes, simply because I try to do everything as technically perfect as I possibly can. Now, I would not 'look down' at a class, or decide not to attend a class, just because it was labelled 'Beginners' or 'Beginners Plus', etc. This is another example why ballet takes time, whether we like it or not. It takes time for everyone to learn to tune into their bodies, be they a young teenager hoping to get into a ballet company one day, to someone who has started as an adult. As Anjuli has said in her earlier post, "No one gets a pass or can truly operate outside those requirements." I have also heard it said that in some classes teachers are reluctant to tell students if they feel the student is not yet ready for their class. Some classes need a certain number of students to attend in order to run, so the number of students become very important. You could argue that the school/teacher just wants to make money but it's a fact of life that schools/teachers need to cover the cost of hall hire, pianist, electricity, etc and this comes from the students' fees. I am not commenting whether this is a bad thing, or an acceptable thing, just wanted to share what I have learned. I have also heard it said that some teachers do not know what to say to some students if they are in a class that's too advanced and there are too many things to correct. They may give that student some thoughts of what they should work on, but they don't know where to start because too much needs correcting and general class is not geared towards only tutoring individuals. Either the teacher needs numbers for class to run, or see new people coming along as extra income, so they wouldn't say to someone not to attend their class. Or alternatively, the teacher feels uncomfortable telling the student he/she is not yet ready for the class in case the student takes it the wrong way and sees it as an insult. I am not claiming this is what has happened with some of the class(es) you attend/attended. I just wanted to share what I have learned so far doing ballet. I think it's great you've found something you truly love, and it's probably an obvious general sweeping statement but we on this forum are all the same - we all love ballet and we want to share our experiences to help others. So I hope this, and posts by Mimi66, Balleteacher and Anjuli have given you some food for thought. As Mimi66 has said, it would be a shame if you had to stop doing ballet for preventable reasons. I hope this has been helpful.

Michelle, I would echo Mimi66's advice about resting your foot and not attempting to dance through your injuries. I can confirm that it's no fun trying to dance through injury pain, thinking that 'it'll all be fine', and that 'it will get better if I just don't do X', but in actual fact this just delays when your injury will completely heal. You mention that you have a 'eye for detail' for pointing out teachers' 'mistakes' in recent classes you attended. I would just like to point out that these were technically not 'mistakes'. For example, the arm recovering for port de bras towards the barre is just as 'correct' going through first before opening to seconde, or opening fifth to seconde. Usually when people talk about 'eye for detail' (in the ballet world) it's about being able to spot whether someone is off alignment, for example: is his/her hips not level; has he/she sank into the supporting side; has the working foot sickled; has someone turned their foot/feet in during an exercise; have they not got back to the fifth they started off with, etc. This list could apply to looking at yourself too, not just when you look in the mirror, but how you feel yourself; it takes time to get to this level of competency. I have a teacher who tells me that from someone's plies you can tell how much/little training someone has had because it's such a technically difficult movement to get correct. And that's just the first exercise in a class! This is why it takes several years to get to a competent level in ballet, even for youngsters who are considered 'talented'. You never hear of a young person being 'discovered' and whisked off into X Ballet Company without spending years in serious training. In fact, I once read in recent years that ballet is the one dance type that TV producers are unable to make into a reality-type programme, like Strictly, because it's just not possible to learn ballet from scratch in a short space of time to a competent level. I may gone off on a tangent in this post, but there was a time when I believed I was improving in ballet just because I was attending more classes, including classes that were too advanced for me at the time. I had the mindset that 'more must be better' and just getting through class was enough. But in fact, with ballet it's the quality of your technique that counts. It was a big mistake I made, and when I finally realised my mistake it took a significant amount of time and effort to correct all the bad habits that had crept up. Just wanted to share my experience and hope it helps other people not to make the same mistake I did.

Good luck to your DD Lilac. My suggestion would be to really listen to the pianist for every exercise and variations. I say this because a lot of RAD schools rely on CDs/iPods for class every week and it can get to a point where you no longer listen to the music in class. No two musicians play a piece of music the same, so it can be very different dancing to a live pianist than following a CD. You don't want assume the speed of the music and finish a few bars earlier than the pianist - I have heard of this happen to some students. But if your DD regularly gets a pianist for class(es) then she won't need this piece of advice! :-)

Yes Anjuli I agree with you. I feel it has also shown me why there is no such thing as an 'easy' ballet class and why it's helpful to take classes that are more basic in their levels. The idea of a rise being 'no longer something just my feet did' for pointe work did not come naturally to me. I had to have this explained to me. I used to think pointe work was all about the strength in my feet but in thinking of my centre being the main source of power for pointe work, it had shown me how much more effort I needed to make in all my classes. It also makes me appreciate even more what I see on stage, which is an excellent thing as well.

In various places you read/are told that pointe strengthens flat work and they both end up strengthening each other. However, I found out it's difficult to use what you learn in pointe into flat work. Maybe I had assumed pointe work would automatically improve my flat work, but I found out that I have to consciously go through the process of what I do for, say a rise in flat, in the same way that I approach a rise en pointe. So that a rise in flat work was no longer something just my feet did, but involves the body and centre going up before the heels have left the floor, as if I was going en pointe.

I think if the teacher is in danger of ruining (or even destroying) your love of dance then you should definitely change teachers. I would suggest researching a number schools/teachers before switching. As dramascientist has mentioned, finding out where the visiting teacher teaches and speaking to her about joining her classes, etc is a good place to start. I was in a similar-ish situation to yours a few years back and I regret I did not leave the school earlier than when I did. For me personally, I have a feeling I stopped being noticed by the teacher because she no longer actually saw me. I had been going to her classes for a few years and she had stopped noticing if I was improving or not. I think she didn't know what corrections to give me, or she had kind-of 'given up' on me improving. I have to admit that I found it soul-destroying. What made me finally leave was how the classes had suddenly changed in various ways so that they were no longer of any help to me at all. When/if you decide to leave I would suggest you think about how you actually leave. It might sound naive but I actually thought that if I followed the correct procedure and gave a term's notice, etc all would be fine. However, I was make to feel very awkward and guilty that I was leaving the school. It felt like the teacher believed I would change my mind and I think it was a shock to her when I did not.

Once piece of advice I have found useful for pointe is to focus on your centre doing most of the work for you. So when you start a rise, even before the heels have come off the floor, your focus is getting your hips and body away from the feet, as far from the feet as possible. Even when you've done the rise en pointe (for example), you continue the feeling of constantly trying to get your body and centre higher and higher up. The teacher who gave me this piece of advice also believes pointe work involves thinking more about what you are doing with your centre, rather than your feet. Obviously, your feet need to be strong enough for pointe work, but focusing only on strengthening feet, or just thinking about the feet while doing pointe work can make you look like you are emphasising being 'down' or 'sitting' en pointe rather than give the feeling you are constantly going and staying up.

I heard somewhere that you need to have gained Advanced 1 in order to be qualified to teach the vocational syllabus in RAD. I believe gaining Intermediate is the first rung of the ladder in order to teach the grades. However, I don't know if this is all true but maybe another forum member can confirm or correct me about this. But if it is true, it may be beneficial for your DD to to continue with the Advanced Foudation and Advanced 1 if she thinks she may want to teach ballet one day. Where I live in the UK, you 'need' to do the vocational syllabus in order to do pointe work. There are very few separate pointe work classes so in some way most dancers (not including the ones at vocational school) don't have a choice, and this includes adults too. So if your DD doesn't have this problem/restriction, that is great, but if her school only covers pointe work in syllabus classes, and it's something she would like to continue, she may not have a choice but to continue with the Advanced syllabus. I hope this is helpful.

When I started ballet (as a adult) I had fairly flat feet, so flat that I was told I probably wouldn't be able to do pointe work by one teacher. I also had problems with rolling in. However, a combination of orthotics in my street shoes and learning about correct placement and how not to roll in, etc, has sorted the problem and I've not had problems getting over the platform of my pointe shoes while keeping knees straight, so I like to think it proves my arches are adequate now! At one point I tried a flexible insole from Boots for my ballet flats. They had some shock absorbancy and they looked like they would be less noticeable in ballet shoes. I found them good for reminding me not to roll in, but they're not invisible because some of your arch is 'hidden'. However, I can't find them on the Boots website or Google to show the ones I mean so they may have stopped producing them now. I've come across arch angels, which look like they would be very helpful to dancers of all ages and levels but I've never tried them and so far I haven't heard of anyone who has tried them. If anyone has tried them I would love to hear their feedback about them!

I think I should add I don't mean I relied on the shoe to do the work for me when I was using Gaynors. It's just that because they feel so different from traditional pointe shoes it felt strange for a while when I stopped using them. With Gaynors, the shank feels like it flexes/moves with your feet as you roll up en pointe, which is where the sensation of 'helping you on to pointe' comes from. I can see that it would be easy to 'miss-out' demi-pointe as you rise/roll up with these shoes. With traditional shoes you don't get this sensation. Personally, I have not come across any teachers who were completely against Gaynors, however one of my teachers are not keen on them for one reason. She said they 'put' you in a position you can't change. So if you are slightly too far over your pointe, you can't rein yourself back in, if that makes sense. I should add that this was not my experience of them - I hadn't been using them long enough to say whether this was true for me or not. If they had suited me better I think I would probably like them more than traditional shoes. However, I think they look very different from traditional pointe shoes while standing flat - it's their shape and colour that makes them stand out.

I have used Gaynors before but I stopped using them because I found the fit wasn't as exact as they could be/should be. I had problems with my big toe joint while I was using them, so it's hard for me not to blame them. However, I found them light and quiet, which is great. They are flattering to the feet when you're up en pointe. But when I switched back to 'normal' pointe shoes it felt very strange for a while. It was then I understood what people meant when they say Gaynors 'help' too much. With Gaynors, it's easy to depend on the 'spring' they have, which you don't get with normal pointe shoes. I think this is why people say they 'do all the work for your feet'. Would your DD been open to finding a 'normal' pointe shoe and comparing the feel with Gaynors? That way she'll have a 'normal' pointe shoe to fall back on and not be reliant on Gaynors, if this is what bothers her.

I think of 'line' as some like the arabesque, which could be a tendu derierre or the leg lifted enl'air. Either way, a good line would mean for me, that viewed from the side, the heal is hidden away with the body not twisting to achieve this. I also think of line as something like a develope or grand battement. I would define a good line as the working hip not hitched up to get a higher leg. Or in something like grand battement devant, your upper back doesn't drop/sink forward as the leg goes up.

Wishing you good luck Anjuli, my thoughts and prayers are with you for a successful treatment.

Anjuli - I enjoyed reading your interview with Susan Jaffe. It sounds like the 'best' dancers who become wonderful teachers are the ones who were able to stop thinking about themsevles. I was once told that the ones who do ballet 'easily' need to do a lot more thinking about the technique of ballet if/when they want to become good teachers and I think this is true. Maybe it's why some professional dancers are able to make the transition to become wonderful teachers, while others do not. Drdance - I have a teacher who has said the exact same things as you have, that someone who has struggled with getting the correct technique could be better teachers because they have had to figure out how to get the proper line/placement in their own bodies. I like to think that someone who has struggled with the technique would be more understanding of those students who are not 'naturals' at ballet. I have not had personal experience of (or connections with) vocational school but I have heard that they are unable/unwilling to deal with students who have physical difficulties, which is why they are assessed out (or don't get in). I don't know if this is true or not, but maybe this is why we hear of stories of students who have been successful re-audtioning some years later on, and/or they end up becoming professional dancers despite being assessed out of one vocational school in the past. They were able to overcome whatever 'difficulty' they had, but the first vocational school did not want to wait to see if the 'issue' would be sorted out. I feel that whether someone is an ex-professional or who has never performed professionally does not indicate if they would be a good teacher. I think the best teachers are the ones who have a eye for detail and this trait is not resticted to someone's performing experience. However, at the same time, I do understand that a teacher who has had performing experience can offer students a different perspective as well. As an example, one of my teachers has given me advice on how to look your best/most turned out when travelling across the diagonal on stage. She danced professionally in the past and said that you must pay particular attention to the downstage leg, making sure the foot and leg is the correct shape as you run/walk because that is the leg the audience would notice. It does not matter if the other leg is almost pararel because of the angle you're travelling in. It's not that she's saying it's okay to turn one leg in, but if you don't have perfect turnout it is one way to look your best if you're on stage. She said it's something that students would realise as they got more and more stage experience.

I agree that the best dancers don't always make the best teachers, from my personal experience. I would define 'best dancers' here as the ones who had an 'easy' body to deal with (in ballet terms), so they had minimal difficulties to overcome during their training. In some ways, I feel it's no fault of their own; since they had an 'easy' body to deal with, how could they advise someone so different from themselves? For example, there is a teacher I know of who used to dance professionally in a classical company when she was younger and trained at one of the 'big four' vocational ballet schools in the UK. Although she has been teaching for at least a couple of decades now, she cannot help the ones who have some 'difficulties'. Using myself as an example, I don't have even turnout from hip to feet; I have been told I am flat turned out in the hips, which is not matched all the way down to my feet. This means it takes me a lot of thought and effort to keep turnout when I rise, releve, etc. If I don't think about it my feet will turn in. It's the same for jumps as well; if I just 'go for it' and jump as high as I can, my feet will turn in. However, when I go to this teacher, the only correction I would get is, 'jump higher' and 'get your leg higher'. She gives these same corrections to the younger/teenage students. I have seen teenage students (this is an RAD class) who sickle en pointe, 'climb up' to get en pointe for courus and bend the leg to pose, but they are never corrected. I assume she doesn't notice it and/or she is not able to advise them on how to improve. I feel it's a real shame for those students.

Thank you Anjuli. I'm very lucky to have found a teacher who was willing to take me on. In fact I credit her for coaching me to a standard where I gained my Intermediate a couple of years ago with merit. I believe it was challenging for her to get rid of my bad habits I had picked up from teaching that did not suit me, as mentioned in my last post. In fact, she said herself that it was easier to start me on pointe since it was a new thing for me so there were no bad habits to get rid of! She believes it's always easier to teach someone new to pointe rather than try to get rid of bad habits. I think in an ideal world, all those who teach ballet would be great/'real' teachers but sadly this is not always the case. However, I think coming across an awful teacher really makes you appreciate it when you come across someone wonderful who has an eye for detail, is willing to give his/her students a chance and pass on their passion for ballet at the same time. Mimi66 and LinMM - I know what you mean about finding excuses for yourself. What I find difficult sometimes is switching off from work-mode to ballet-class mode when doing class after work.

I've reading posts on this forum for a while but this is my first post. I wanted to add to the attributes people have listed above of what I think is a good teacher: Not having a 'one size fits all' approach when it comes to corrections.I didn't start ballet until I was into my 20s but I have heard the correction 'jump higher' a lot to myself/other dancers, even though it didn't help me at all. It has always impressed me when a teacher can think of other ways to correct someone if the 'usual' correction doesn't work. Not 'writing-off' a student or putting down a student in front of othersI once had a RAD teacher who got the class to gather round me one day during centre practice, raise my leg in 2nd and tell the others I was an example of someone who had no turnout - I felt so humiliated. She also said that someone people 'look wrong' doing pointe work and I was an example of them. I should have complained to the school at the time but this teacher is still teaching and I wonder how many students she continues to put down. Letting a student move on when the time is right for themThis was already mentioned above but it can be difficult if the school wants to 'keep' you. Even though I started ballet as an adult, I have experienced teachers who have become offended when you leave their school. I needed to leave a school for several reasons and followed the correct procedure, eg, giving notice, etc. but I was made to feel very awkward. It felt like the only legitimate reason to leave was if you had gained a place at vocational school (as a school-aged student).