Window

Hello all, I just wanted to come and update as you were all so helpful. My daughter has stopped going to the 'hard' class. She is still doing the local class (x2 per week) and that seems to be going fine. One of her teachers had also gone to classes with the 'scary' teacher when she was yound and confirmed that its a very old school approach and that it was by no means the only route to dancing (not that my daughter want to be a dancer at the moment anyway!) So thanks again and good luck to all!!

Hello again, This is such an interesting conversation. I don't think my daughter was in initiation actually as she got 'put up' a year by the teacher. So she was with girls who were older than her. Next year she is going to go into 1P3 (not sure what that means...) It fascinates me how ballet teachers seem to be so focused on body type and not whether you can actually dance. Nobody's actually mentioned if she's particulary musical or not, its all about how long your legs are and whether you can turn your hips around. One of the old teacher's said its like being picked for modelling!

Afab, How do you know which ones are good and which ones are bad? I've also had various comments from various teachers along the lines of 'she's wasting her time here' and I can't push the others too hard'. However, as already established it doesn't really matter if she enjoys it...

Stitch, In France each town has a conservatoire. They provide music and dance classes. I'm not sure about theatre I think it depends on the town. Its heavily subsidized and means tested. So for example we pay 130 euros for 2 classes a week for the whole year and we are at the celing so some people will be paying a lot less. Its actually a really great system and I'm pretty sure the teachers have to have some sort of state diploma. Thank you once again everybody. We've got 2 weeks to think about whether she finishes the last few classes. I'll let you know how it works out.

Hi Stitch, She has been doing classes at the local conservatoire for the last two years but its not always been the same teacher. It was a replacement teacher last year while the original teacher was on long term sick leave that introduced her to the 'serious' teacher. There will be yet another teacher at the local classes this year. I guess we decided to try the other classes because the replacement teacher went on about how great the standard/teacher were.

Afab, Its so interesting that you mention this because one of the things that she was complaining about was that she couldn't breathe properly...

Hello again afab and thanks for the PMs. I'm not sure she even knows what POB is. She went to the Ecole de Danse show at the end of last year and seemed to enjoy it but she's never mentioned it since. I'm thinking that the local lessons are definitely a better fit. Not even sure that she should do the last three classes now...

Thank you again everybody for your help. You are of course all completely right! We know nothing about ballet and it was easy to get caught up in her old ballet teacher's enthusiasm and frankly the new teacher scares me let alone her. It is of course completely ridiculous to expect a 7 year old to know what she wants to do - thank you for that reality check. I have paid for 5 classes so she can finish the other 3 and if she still feels the same way we'll pull the plug. She can, of course, go back to her old class. What a wonderful forum - you have truely helped us out today!

Thank you so much for your replies! I completely agree with you but then part of me thinks that its only 1:30 hours a week and would be great discipline whether or not she wants to be a dancer... My husband isn't particulary bothered about her being a dancer (we are not at all au fait with the dance world) its more about not giving up. The other thing is that she can only go once a week instead of twice a week which the teacher seemed very unimpressed by and the next two weeks we are away anyway - the whole family is failing the dedication test! sigh I kind of want the teacher to say that its not for her 'cos then it can officially be a 'learning experience'. edited: I would love to hear from someone in France

Hello, This is my first time posting on a forum, but I've read through some of the threads and I'm in need of some advice from you much more experienced people! My daughter is nearly 8 and has been doing ballet for 2 years in our local 'conservatoire' (we are in France). Her teacher introduced her to another teacher in Paris and she has started classes there this year. It turns out that these classes are really full on and the teacher got 9 kids into the Paris opera dance school last year so its basically preparing for that. She's only had 2 classes, but she doesn't like it because the teacher is too strict and she can't make up her own dances (!). Also the teacher said that she needs to concentrate more and that she doesn't think that my daughter wants to be a dancer (although the first class went well and the teacher said that she could be really good). So all in all not a great success up until now... My husband thinks that we should make her go because you shouldn't give up just because its hard, and while I agree with him I feel like all the other children in the class are much more focussed on being a danser and she doesn't necessarily want that. But then she's only 7... So I don't know, I guess I'd like to know if anybody else has been in this position. Thank you for reading this!