Colman

All three of us have them to a greater or lesser extent - I'm nursing my right knee all week after accidentally loading it when locked - think I stumbled on a stairs. Our advice is to learn to keep the leg straight but not locked when loaded and let it overextend a little when it's working not supporting - which offsets the line of my giant calves somewhat!

I'd insist he see the GP.

I did try the "you can tell him they send rugby players to ballet classes" line.

I was talking to one of the mothers outside class last week who had a little boy watching and gleefully imitating the class through the glass of the door. When I suggested he'd be ready for the toddlers class next year (always recruiting for our side!) she ruefully said that Daddy would need a lot of persuading - his two daughters already did ballet and he wanted his son doing football.

Absolutely: it's one out of 20 or so, in a class that had never had a guy and there are other issues with the lady … Most of the ladies seem delighted to have a guy in the class. I was thinking of the beginning stages - I don't think most adults have been trained very well to be beginners, especially at things that are often taught to kids. I'd hope to be able to hold my own against eight year olds within only a couple of years! And by 60 year olds.

You may end up with awkwardness just joining an hithero all-female class. I rather suspect there's at least one lady in our classes less than overjoyed at my appearance in class. I (and the teacher) regard that as her problem, not mine.

Welcome aboard, from an adult male beginner twenty years older than you. I'm afraid I'm in Dublin so I can't help with class recommendations. I can dump some unsolicited old guy advice in the thread though: you're probably going to have to put up with awkwardness. If you're going to be serious and unless you're dancing regularly in one of the major urban centres - and whether you can do that or not depends on your commitments and transport options - you're probably going to end up needing a supportive teacher and pieceing together a class schedule from adult classes and kids classes. I'm planning to do grade I ISTD before the summer (I'm 8 years old, obviously!) and I have a dodgy ankle: my dance schedule this week was a demi-pointe/strengthening/very pre-pointe type class on Tuesday evening with a class of 8-12 year olds, a few of the adult ladies, and including my 7 year old son, an adult curriculum class the same evening after I dropped my son home from that class, a Wednesday Grade 2 RAD class with a handful of 8-12 year olds (including my son and wife), a bit of the adult Intermediate Foundation class after I dropped son home again and an adult beginners class that evening. The teacher is local, very supportive and of the "everyone can and should dance" mindset but she only has two adult classes of a level suitable for me. The kids get used to it quickly enough. I got used to being outclassed by eight year olds when I was learning to ride horses fifteen years ago but it's not something we're trained to do as adults. At least you only have to worry about being outclassed by 14 year olds. :-)

Well, that was delightful - Rhapsody was lots of fun, though I though Osipova felt a little tentative or unsure of herself. McRae was great, and our seven year old boy dancer was suitably flabbergasted. Pigeons was lovely, though I could feel both my son's and my attention wavering during some of the gypsy dances. Even the romantic scenes held his attention and he can sometimes get antsy during those - maybe it was the pigeons! I suspect the lighting being too dim or not probably depended on the competence of the cinema - it certainly could have been better on a few occasions where we saw it.

Think of it as a paen to the bonding abilities of sex! :-) To be fair, the taming effect seemed to extend to both of them.

In fact, the only time I'd read it's actual physical violence being shown is the end of Act I where she slapped him. Otherwise it's wall to wall psychos.

Yeah. To be charitable - and as a frame for the seven year old - I was trying to read the violence as a dance expression of arguments, but it's hard work. I guess portraying repartee in ballet isn't easy - I should really see the play though, it's decades since I read it and that's never the same.

A bit short, I'm a bit confused about some of the characters but I found the camera work was unobtrusive enough except for one fumbled follow shot and an annoying close-up or two. I never felt I couldn't see dancers against the background. Fun show.

And after a conversation today I discover he hasn't told his friends in school about the INYB because they'll laugh at him. <sigh> Though more in a "It isn't worth the bother" sort of a way rather than anything else.

We have a seven year old boy who's been dancing since five - he followed his mother in after she started beginners classes. Now, his teacher actually has five boys (two of them ours), so it's not as bad, and she has one adult beginner too (me!) which means there's an adult role model banging (more-or-less literally!) about. He doesn't take any nonsense from his friends about ballet being just for girls - he'll cheerfully take them to task. Things that I think helped: * The teacher put him in a class he possibly wasn't strictly quite old enough for because it meant there was another boy in the class. Not a problem as he's physically precocious anyway. * Seeing men dancing, even on DVDs, TV, cinema showings. C (our son) can name a couple of the RBs male dancers and was a big fan of Acosta (who he saw live dancing Manon a two years ago). Follow a couple on social media, show him pictures they post - Steven McCrae is quite active and posts some good stuff for these purposes. Try and watch some of the more manly ballets with him too. * Meeting male dancers - our teacher does some teaching with a more established school and makes sure to introduce some of the older dancers to the kids when she can. One of the older guys has gone onto professional training in London now, used to dance with the Irish National Youth Ballet etc. One of the other boys he's met has gone on to Royal Ballet School. * Doing a weeks summer camp last summer with Ballet Ireland - this had a couple of boys involved and, importantly, male teachers. Even being able to observe a boys associate class some time might be good for your son if there was one handy that would allow it. * Obviously, some vigilance on contradicting any ideas that other kids - or adults - are putting in his head. We had resistance from grandmothers originally ("It'll make him gay!" Seriously.), though that's gone away now. Partly because I'm dancing, I think. He's been invited into a pilot associates programme that the Irish National Youth Ballet are doing now (that's he's not strictly quite old enough for!), and that's got him totally hooked - asking to do extra classes etc. The biggest problem at the moment is getting him out of the INYB track suit top.

"Not sure what the ballet equivalent of semi contact sparring is though!" Partnering? Poses in a studio thats a bit too crowded?

There are lots of weapon forms. And that's before you start looking at related arts like ba gua zhang and hsing-I.

There are lots: I keep meaning to find the time and money to get someone to teach me one.

Jane, Iaido. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iaido

My tai chi and ballet teachers sound like each other quite often on the basics. Extension, moving from the centre.

It should start relaxed. When you start getting it it can become much more taxing, but by then you'd be strong enough to bear it. Very hard to injure yourself doing tai chi.

It's like anything else: if you find a good teacher it's great, if not it's not much use. I like tai chi and have been doing it for about ten years now. I feel that even if you're not really doing it as a martial art - and most people aren't - the teacher needs to understand the martial applications to teach it properly. It's really good for core strength and vote flexibility, getting into feeling your body and improving balance. I use it as a base practice for ballet, karate, swordsmanship and horse riding.

I guess the political problems of staging a ballet can be reduced by staging it outside the context of the events. A review of Les Bouquets. It doesn't sound like a classical story ballet.

And you've checked with a doctor that her iron levels etc are all ok?

I tend to throw a banana and milk when I'm using one as a late night snack after a clas that gets me home at 11pm for a 6:30am start. I'm perfectly happy to use the chain health food shop pure whey protein ones. Theoretically about 450 cals with lots of protein.

I loved Ivan the Terrible! Possibly in a slightly ironic its-so-soviet-and-so-very-manly way, but I enjoyed it greatly. As just sorry I didn't bring the seven year old to see it. He'd have enjoyed it.