TYR

Coniger: yes.

Also, dramascientist, I used to get weird pains in the outside of the hip. I don't remember having them since I've been taking class regularly...oh.

"Taxi, I have some important news about your daughter. It seems from the X-rays that she may be an alien. On the other hand, have you signed her up for ballet?"

"I had no idea we had so many deep sea divers in class!" Nina Thilas-Mohs thinks we should keep breathing, it seems.

"Not sure they work on it too much in class. Just feel like they are just always being shouted at to turnout but no sure DD really has a clue what she should be doing!! She goes to YDA associates & they do lots of exercises, which when we practise at home I can see her leg turning out" If you don't have any skeletal restriction, it's a combination of strength and skill and therefore you can improve it. If you've not been specifically training it, the good news is you can look forward to progress now you're doing it. Mine has improved hugely in a year with a bit of effort (although I spent a couple of decades wearing out shoes on the inside of the heel before I discovered it could be either useful or enjoyable, so...)

Which explains a lot, as I first heard it from Nicola Simpson and later at Central.

I only know it because I got told to watch it in no uncertain terms...

Keeping your knees aligned with your toes as you plié in 2nd would be an example of tracking.

They screwed up the student finance stuff (for all their students presumably) and they can't send you a list that they already have? Are they possibly...not that great?

"In ballet, gravity is a choice" - RP again. Not so much a correction as a cryptic koan from the guru but then that's RP...

"he was super nervous having not had a dress rehearsal or ever been on stage with the snowflakes until the performance!" So it's not just me this happens to? Anyway, congratulations!

No wonder they're difficult - putting an egg into an eggcup while you pass an orange from one hand into the other?

"It's not a feeling; it's more of a sensation"

Actually mph, I could well imagine Nicola Simpson on the parade ground. "In that position you can turn out until BONE CRUSHES BONE! We are dancers! We do MORE!"

BTW, I'm really sorry I couldn't offer more useful comment.

And there you have it - the difference between a noble art and a mere circus trick. Money! Now perhaps I'll go and try to fix that leak in the studio ceiling...

Renato on Sunday: Also: (If you forget that he thinks men have them, it actually makes sense - keep your hips level and your weight forward)

So many boys! I make that about 40 per cent going by the postings on here...

I started at 35 and I love it!

From the BBC 'Cracker doc, a great one for the museum of unhelpful corrections: "Just push the button!" Equivalent to Cunningham's "The only way to do it, Marianne, is to do it!" and not much more practical use either than to wave your authority about.

All I wanted was a pair of warm-ups, but could Dancia, Sansha, or Bloch World help? So I went to JD Sports - like a man. Adidas trackies, indestructible and you can wear them in the pub without anyone looking at you funny too.

Well, thank you for your service as they say.

So, ABers, this is getting on my nerves. This was the second class showing this year, and the second time we've had no rehearsal to speak of in the hall or with other dancers we've performed with. Also, this time round we had a stage management disaster. The first time out back in June we didn't get to rehearse in the hall at all. We got a brief spacing recce, but that was it. Also, we were told very late on that we'd be doing one of our variations with another class and we didn't get to rehearse with them. Upshot: not great, especially not the bit with the other class. This time out we were promised more rehearsal but it didn't happen - apparently another user of the hall failed to get their stuff out of there - and up to the night, it was still open if we'd be doing the first variation once, or again with a second group (who we hadn't rehearsed with). We did get to do it once in the hall on the night. So, when the music starts, are we doing it once or twice? We do it, file off, and walk around to the other side of the stage to line up, thinking we're joining up. Apparently the boss grabbed the last of three of us to say "stop!" but not where I could see. The music gets going...so I get to my original spacing, and off we go. This goes way better than the first time across, until close to the finish when it turns out OF COURSE we're not meant to go because the other group have some new choreography we don't. So I roll and push out of the floor onto one knee, prep for a turn from 4th as I spring up....and see a girl backward-roll by in front of me. Er what? There's nothing to do but push on with the plan, because I have no idea what the end of the other lot's variation might be. So that's a whole night thoroughly wrecked. And for the second time, it's because we've just not made the effort with admin more than anything else. Really? We didn't decide until the music played who was going across? Even though someone dropped a new variation on the other gang that basically decided that? We still didn't get any real rehearsal time? I get the impression we need Michelle as stage manager. Or maybe I should bin this class and take modern somewhere else.

Too late to be of use, but second time around was good. I liked your floorwork.

I would agree with BL - give it full value. More bite.