Colman

Discovering Rep at some stage. Maybe November, maybe early next year. Probably early next year. 

And a third and fourth here for Hannah, a really good option for what you’re looking for.

43 minutes ago, alison said:

I'm not sure *anything* in London isn't expensive these days (she says, having found out yesterday that a 3-week stay in a local 2-bed AirBnB would cost £3500!)   You should hear the tales told by Forum members travelling down to London for performances!

The joy of living in Dublin is that it makes London, Paris and New York all seem affordable. <sigh>

On 25/04/2023 at 13:40, Boys_can_dance said:

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions for hostel or cheaper hotels/B&B that might be suitable and not far away from Covent Garden’s, maybe with other participants staying? Or does someone want to share an AirBnB?  First 2weeks. Thanks 🙏 Anja

How cheap is cheap? Travellodge Farringdon? Royal Scot? Got a reasonable (for London!) price for a week in July in one of those. 

My better half is unexpectedly in London that weekend, so …

No rush, let her teachers sort her out when she’s ready and needs it. Ignore Instagram and ignore her hyper mobile  friends half of whom will likely end up plagued by injuries. 

What on Earth were they trying to achieve? Some sort of old-school stretching thing?

11 minutes ago, LinMM said:

My dancing took a bit of a hit after a triple ankle fracture back in 2019 followed on by the Covid years lol! 

Yikes, yes, that’d slow it down ok. Good to hear you’re till moving, if a little more slowly!

22 minutes ago, LinMM said:

Colman not sure I understand your post…must be the Sunday doldrums or something 🤔

Are you accusing me of “nationalist outrage” 

Are you still dancing by the way? 

 

You? Good grief no, I was more or less agreeing with you, I think.

Still dancing, just about recovering from the setbacks over Covid/lockdown and starting to think about progressing again. 🙄

Back to doing some London workshops again too.

Still mostly banned from commenting here, so I don’t say much. 

12 minutes ago, LinMM said:

keep on re-reading the initial post here to make sure I’ve fully understood it!! Still not sure I have

 That it’s a deal to support performances and outreach, followed by the sort of verbiage you always add to butter up corporations giving you money, especially one already offering scholarships to Japanese students and that two pages of nationalist outrage might be a little over the top?

I think you’d be better off practicing in dance trainers, I certainly decided I was during lockdown. It’s very hard to get enough padding to protect you onto the floor without making it too soft to move on.

One of my teachers runs classes with reasonable numbers (in Dublin)  at a centre for children with Downs Syndrome. She's trained as a special needs teacher too, which I guess helps. 

Absolutely normal practice. I think it'd be unusual not to, unless you'd already settled on a brand.

Mine would be that it's a learning process (an expensive one): get the best advice you can, get your teacher to approve the shoes before you sew them, and then see how it goes as your daughter learns about how her feet work on pointe and what she needs to make them work.

First pair probably won't last long anyway as the feet change from just doing pointe work and they grow. (Our son took a growth spurt not long after he got his first pair. <sigh>)

The school in Dublin we mostly attend did exams a few weeks ago and there was all sorts of anomalous behaviour from the kids - the older ones more than younger - so I’d guess the examiners are seeing this everywhere.
 

I don’t know how much latitude they have on marks, but I’d count just getting through the exam as a victory and wouldn’t worry too much about the actual grade. That’s certainly how we’re going to frame it to our son who apparently messed up his Grade 4 character dance completely!
 

Everyone  lost their minds in lockdown, as Janet says, and it’s going to take a while to readapt.

We also had a parents class watching  day recently and the kids were very stressed out by that too, having not danced in front of anyone for two years. 

On 20/01/2022 at 22:40, Kim12 said:

Also has anyone experience of successfully studying both RAD and ISTD at the same time or is it too confusing?

Oh, I missed this bit: it’s not really that confusing, just a bit annoying. The vocabulary doesn’t overlap much, they have different names for things but don’t use the same name for different things that I can think of. The worst bit is different use of head - ISTD stays to  centre where RAD would be changing head - and arms. It can feel quite stilted. Going ISTD to RAD would be less annoying, I think. 

They're both quite different in their approach: RAD requires learning a lot of set exercises and is more "dancey" while the ISTD barre (for instance) is mostly not set at that level, which means simpler exercises but you have to pick them up there and then. There's less ISTD exams too, so they arrange the content differently.

Having studied both recently, I'd say the difficulty level is roughly equivalent but they're difficult in different ways. Doing Grade 5 ISTD and going straight to Grade 6 RAD would mean needing to pick up the RAD way of doing things at the same time as dealing with the technical challenges, so I'd be inclined to be slightly conservative and do Grade 5 unless there's a very long run into the exam. There are style differences to deal with too: arms aren't the same (and have different terminology) and so on.

41 minutes ago, Anna C said:

would advise caution about practicing alone/unsupervised as a beginner, because you could well end up accidentally using incorrect technique and cementing that into your muscle memory, only to have to unlearn it later.

The risk of that when one has a weekly private is pretty limited unless they’re doing a lot of hours.

Two or three classes a week will make a big difference to progress - if a physical group class isn’t an option then a zoom class or two can be effective, especially since you’re getting concentrated in person corrections from a private.
 

There are lots of recommendations for beginners classes in other threads here. I’d discuss options with your teacher and see what they think. 

10 minutes ago, Angela Essex said:

Can I ask why your wife doesn’t like the cap sleeves Colman? 

She hates them in general, not just leotards. Feels they don’t suit her.

27 minutes ago, Angela Essex said:

So I’ve decided to take the plunge and order a leotard in the sales. Are there any styles or colours that are better or any I should stay away from? Do I go for camisole, tank or cap sleeves? Or does it not matter? Thanks in advance and wishing you all a Merry Christmas x

Doesn't matter: whatever makes you most comfortable and happiest: you know which style top you'll feel most confident in - I wouldn't dare buy my wife a cap sleeved one. Most seem to start with basic black (which seems to be almost universal adult uniform so it's probably worth owning one) but there's no real reason you should so if fluorescent pink makes you happy, go for it.

I don't quite know how to put this diplomatically, but it might be worth ordering a matching ballet skirt too if you're planning to do in person London classes, as I've noticed that what some ladies are comfortable wearing in all-girl classes may not be the same as in mixed classes or classes that can be seen by outsiders. 

25 minutes ago, Kate_N said:

most adult dancers have something they do well which makes them a pleasure to watch. 

Almost everyone is their own worst critic: I’m recovering from an injury so I sat out centre in the last class of term.  Watching my wife dancing I was ready to tell her that she’d danced really nicely. She came out in a stinker of a

mood because she’d done so badly in centre. 🤷🏻‍♂️

2 hours ago, LinMM said:

Just to add Colman when I said fairly new to ballet I meant those who’ve done at least a year though most have done more of course! 

I wasn't taking issue with that at all, just the idea (suggested elsewhere) that one might need to get really good before doing a workshop with famous dancers - if in doubt, ask the organiser about the level required. I know of at least one organiser who has advertised the level higher than needed to discourage non-dancing fans from signing up for a particular workshop in order to swoon but was quite happy with relatively inexperienced dancers. 

I wouldn't put an absolute beginner in almost any workshops/masterclasses because they'd just be confused, but anyone working reasonably seriously  for a year or two should be able to get something from any of the ones that are aimed at adults: they generally aim at a mixed ability level because otherwise they'd never make up the numbers enough to make it worthwhile. 

I have a theory that "grown-ups" are really bad at being beginners. We don't expect to be clueless and incompetent and we get upset and discouraged when progress is slow when we've chosen to do hard things. Ballet is really hard, that's what makes it fun, even when it's not.

I've been doing ballet now for seven years, which I figure makes me roughly equivalent to a not especially talented ten year old with added knee crack sound effects.

Zoom is hard, learning centre work on Zoom is really hard and learning anything involving turning and changing directions on Zoom is extremely hard. All we can do is our best. 

21 minutes ago, LinMM said:

I don’t know whether my hands have just got that much weaker now in the 7th decade or whether there was a knack I just didn’t get 🤔 

I have seen at least one cartoon panel or meme based around that particular struggle, so it's obviously not just you.

1 hour ago, Angela Essex said:

On the other hand I’m thinking bloody hell Angela you cannot be seriously contemplating leotard and tights at the age of 45 nobody wants to see that

Nobody is looking. We're all *far* too busy (and if anyone is looking, they're not working hard enough!).