Colman

Ha, snap. Almost exactly the same thing here for the last two weeks. Very, very annoying, just as everything was getting going again. No obvious reason for it either.

Define "suitable"? If he hasn't done a lot of open work they'll be a shock to the system, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Depends on the spirit in which he's likely to take being a bit out of his depth. Some kids will take it to heart, some will laugh it off. A one off like that is an experience, not a serious learning thing. I'd happily chuck our 13 year old who's about the same level (in theory) into something like that, but he's done a lot of non-curriculum work now, and wouldn't have much excuse for being out of his depth.

It’s something that develops over time, like turnout, with work. You’re constrained by physical limitations but you won’t really know what those are until you’ve put in the work to strengthen the muscles and teach the feet ankles to move properly.

4K video is about 10GB an hour, so just make sure you make space.

Depending on the models involved, it's quite possible a recent iPhone would be a better camera to use than a slightly older camera, so I'd experiment.

I’m the definition of stumpy - though male - and I get on quite well with Repettos. Some of the stretchy ones like the Grishko Dream Stretch maybe? Has she got the shoes tied right? It’s possible to tie them on the flat and then discover they’re too tight when you go on demi-pointe.

They’re planning to restart in-studio this week, doing hybrid classes, unless there’s been a change of plan. But yes, he’s really good at zoom classes.

And, let's not forget, opportunities for all sorts of fun workshops/masterclasses taught by pros who are willing to at least pretend to take us all seriously. 🙂

Hannah is great (and I really must get back to doing those classes), but having started a lot of new physical skills as an adult I’d say it takes about six weeks to get over the “confused and overwhelmed beginner” stage to “beginner” stage. Less if you have previous experience. It takes a couple of weeks just to bring muscles you don’t use for anything else online (and there’s always some unique movement pattern that causes something to hurt, no matter how strong you are).

Definitely not too old: 29 would be pretty young for a lot of beginner adult ballet classes I've been to. I started six or seven years ago as mid-forties old man with the body of about half a dozen ballet dancers. I'm currently doing about seven hours a week. Dress how you like: in my experience dress ranges from t-shirt and leggings heavy classes of people doing an hour a week for a bit of fun and fitness - though there's normally one or two in ballet gear even in those classes - to the fancy leotards, tights and ballet skirts of the much more serious dancers (like my wife, who started a year before me and who appears to have taken up collecting ballet skirts and leotards as a side hobby). Dressing the part seems to help most people though. A lot of the ladies seem to feel that ballet skirts make them feel less exposed in class, so that might be a consideration. Strictly speaking, as I understand it, students should be wearing the shorter skirts (for the reasons NJH explains above) but I've known people wear the longer ones until they become comfortable enough for the shorter ones.

This sounds like good advice.

Worth keeping an eye on it until a copy at a sensible price turns up if it's of interest. Those hyper inflated prices are some sort of scam I don't understand.

This seems sensible. If the answer was more-or-less “change your timetable” I think I’d have a very careful think about the overall situation but hopefully it’ll be more positive than that.

I’ve always been inclined to regard this as a red flag against a teacher of martial arts, dance or anything else, especially since you’re not proposing to do ballet elsewhere. To me it speaks of both inappropriate possessiveness of the students and insecurity that they’ll come off badly in comparison to other schools. I could understand a warning that being taught different styles of ballet by different teachers could be confusing (it is!) or even a gentle steering away from another school because you didn’t agree with their teaching style or culture.

My wife started doing Hannah’s Friday class last week, enjoyed it. Ben Gartside has good classes going on Everybody Ballet, with about ten a week available. As a side note, I got into studio for about six hours or so over two weeks before Christmas and was pretty much ok, mostly stronger in fact, except that side to side movement - glissades for example - in the centre tired my knees and lower legs a lot. Online classes since March had neglected that movement pattern for obvious reasons. Didn’t try any grand jetes, suspect that might have gone badly. My balance was off too, I’d become used to focusing on nearby objects rather than much more distant studio walls.

I’m resigned to zoom classes until March, at least, and the U.K. looks to be considerably worse off than Ireland. You might reopen before is though, not sure how wisely.

Managed to get properly back in a studio last night for the first time since March (after a lobbying effort got the guidance for sports practice in our Level 3 extended to ballet) and my balance is right off. I’m going to have to learn to focus on objects more distant than the ornaments on our bookcase again.

Well, it could work for us, with all four dancing, but I realise that’s not entirely typical. (And at least one centre we dance at has already had a meltdown at the idea of two - my wife and I - of us being not socially distanced during class.)

Classes in Dublin won’t be back in the studio before March from what I can see: system is different here but it’s basically going to be a full year without proper studio classes. Possibly more, depending on how vaccine rollout goes. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’m moderately good at that but there’s something about the 2D projection on the screen that throws me off more than usual. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’m taking about a dozen hours of zoom classes a week between ballet and tai chi at the moment and over the summer, from a mix of teachers. Some are better than others at corrections, and getting the technology right is important: a teacher with a big screen looking at well lit students who are fully visible on the screen and who doesn’t have to demonstrate the exercise has a fighting chance of doing good corrections - Ben Gartside is very good at it, even when both my wife and I are sharing the room. You get some problems from camera angles making it hard to be sure about alignments though - I’ve had corrections from people who I’m sure were misinterpreting my arm position because of where the camera is. For the student things like raising your screen to roughly eye level so you’re not looking down at it and getting a big screen - we have 32” TV sitting on our sitting window ledge since March - really help. I wouldn’t want to be Zoom only for ever, but I’d happily continue to supplement studio classes with Zoom ones after normal life resumes. I had one studio class with our normal teacher a few weeks ago before Dublin went back into lockdown and apparently I’d only developed one newish bad habit over the six months, and I’m not convinced it’s a new one. One thing I do find is that I have real trouble with is directions on centre work. I can never figure out if the teacher is mirroring and/or the screen is mirroring and/or the screen displaying me is mirroring and when I have to start thinking about turns I start losing it completely, though that’s partly because I have two different conventions in my head: martial arts teachers seldom mirror, while dance teachers often do.

See Steven McRea’s recent rant about people complaining he’s built up muscle while recuperating: basically that while dancing a full schedule he couldn’t get enough calories in to build up muscle.

What are the fees like for non-EU students?

Lots of paths are unlikely to lead to financial security in the obvious jobs: studying for the bar and doing any sort of PhD spring to mind. Anything in the fine arts. Given the pace of change these days, I'd say you're as well off trying to make a go of what you want to do rather than trying to fit into a "safe" model that may or may not exist by the time you've finished qualifying. Obviously, maintain your fallback plans. You can do degrees or professional qualifications later if you need/want them.

No, as can be seen from the mess of the first sentence in the post!