Nicola H

the other problem is those who cannot separate why responsible teachers are waiting until children are age 11-12 with how long you need to have been taking class ... the lower age limits for pointe are physical developmental limits not technique ones .

he needs to be able to dance while lifting ad average sized adult female

and only the true balletomanes would complain if someone described choreography using the 'wrong' school / style / awarding body 's language

Hi Katie Interesting situation you are in ... i'd be inclined to suggest ( and this kind of assumes you are in the UK and not in a big city ) finding a studio that offers adult ballet as well as offerign the vocational awards - esp if it;s the same teachers teaching both as hopefully they should be decent teachers with good technique - if you were in a big city i'd be saying try the 'community' classes held at a company / vocational school location, quite a lot of the London based beginners swear by and swear at in equal measure David Kierce's beginner/ improver / intermediate adult classes at Central . I've not taken those classes but i've taken class led by David on The Ballet Retreat and found it enjoyable and useful even though it was a massive class (40 plus people including @sophie_rebecca and some other forumites) compared to my usual class at home. as to the level of the class you take that will depend on the class, the teacher's view and your own comfort... there are beginners and there are beginners ... and different people progress differently also different teachers and class size ... if you are in a class which is 6-12 people on a regular basis it'll be a different experience to a 30 + person class in terms of just how much correction you get ... ( you are also much more likely to get a bonus bargain semi-private or private if your usual class is smaller as it needs fewer people not to turn in that week) barre is drills - if you were a martial artist i'd relate barre and some parts of centre work in class to the 'Katas' ... you probably have a really good idea of balance and how your body moves in relation to centre of gravity from not only your early ballet experience but also from doing Gym quite seriously - all sorts of different sports and activities can do that though. to your advantage you are young ( in relative and absolute terms unless you are aiming for a classical ballet career ) you are physically fit sounds like you have good flexibility and hopefully control BTW if you think Barre is easy you aren't being worked hard enough ! hope that helps !

plasters / microfoam / hydrocolloid dressing all much of a muchness just the latter are a bit more high tech ... i'm a big fan of hydrocolloid stuff esp once skin is raw / broken as it promotes a better 'micro climate' for the wound ....

lovely to hear that positive outcome chookas to your DD

depends where rubbing / pinching, also ouch pouches etc will add to both length and width of the foot ... getting the shoes on a shoe tree more likely to help or perhaps pre-emptive microfoam / hydrocolloid taping of the sore spot ? although to be honest i'm not sure of street shoes benefiting from point pads ( vs wearing ouch-pouches in soft shoes to protect delicate toes if you are doing lots of jumping in a none pointe piece , or the use of pointe shoe padding techniques in 'specialist' / 'cosplay' footwear which has you in equinus / demi / pointe )

thank you Jan , unfortunately transphobia is a reality for anyone who is Out. given some of the muck chucked at the RAD and at Lynne R-C as well as at Sophie with regard to her IF , it also seems to have no bounds or limits of class or apparent education .

Thank you all for you kinds words and public support. and so far no nasty comments by PM either ...

as those who you who have become used to reading some of my more politicised posts will be aware , i have had issues with gender identity for a number of years. Recently these have come to a head and i have decided that the only way forward to deal with these is to transition. same old challenging ideas, different (true) wrapper Nicola xx

used to be standard practice with uniforms in the uniformed youth organisations as well ... pay once and throughout your membership trade in as stuff was outgrown/ worn out

You only need see this in the some of the discussion and criticism of the pathways that adult recerational dancers take , where people so ingrainedin the graded syllabuses are shocked that adult classes teach 'out of order' or that there are adult dancers starting pre-pointe work in their first year of dancing and taking vocationals after 2 or 3 years of class ... ( although some of the more recent vocal comments of this nature directed to the RAD, and a particualr teacher and particular Dancers do have a strong whiff of Greerite TERFery ) however there is the risk that if you aren;t careful you do expose young people to unnecessary risk if you progess to certain things too quickly , this is where the underpinning knowledge of A+P, psychology and child development is so important in the teacher,

they would have to be studying something and the logical answer would be thesame kind of courses as an uipper school student would be taking ... perhaps those with more experience of company life and upper school life could make a comparison . When wone looks at the the time tables for upper schools, for the conservatoire type degrees and the 'life in a company' type stuff it's all pretty much the same kind of thing . there is also the application of child protection stuff - look at the hoops the military now has to jump through with it;s FE student personnel ( the apprentice colleges and Welbeck) as well as the 17 year old of boy / girl soliders in 'adult entry' phase 1 )

one thing to remember with RAD is becasue it;s RAD the Ballet awards are the only awards they offer, compare that with ISTD/IDTA/BATD where ballet is one of a several main offerings or some of the other CDET awarding bodies where ballet is just one of a whole panopoly of styles ...

Jan has pointed out the thread that discusses the August Leeds TBR , the London ones are the same core team i.e. Hannah, David, and probably Gavin ( as i don;t know whether they will drag Andrew or other Northern Ballet people who contribute to the faculty in leeds down to London or whether they use London based accompanists and other dancer as teachers) There are people who attend TBR at all levels from those who have only been taking 1 or 2 hours a week of classes for less than a year to people who are dancing at advanced levels and taking class everyday ... if you look at the class descriptions of David's classes at Central you'll see he is just an interested in beignners as he is in work with the higest levels of professionals https://www.centralschoolofballet.co.uk/classdescriptions.php I'd count the 'company class' as a good all round class thatsoemone who is used to an 'improvers' type class would cope with perfectly adequately , although there is a no standardisation in what constitutes what for adult class descriptions and different peopel and different teachers progress classes differently ( and that can be a functio nof class size as a class of 8 -12 students is different to a class of 20 -30 to teach and correct , and that bigger class is unlikely to throw up the odd 'bargain semi -private / private class' when hardly anyone shows up ... do you need to be flexible ? not necessarily it's about working with what you have - yes there are peopel on TBR who have beautful line, near pro levels of extension etc ... but there is no competition . do you need to be in shape ? well in enough shape to manage class , it;s not a competition , yes everyone is there becasue they want to challenge themselves but it;s personal challenge and it's all about having fun quick at picking up steps ? if you can cope when you have a cover teacher in your usual class or when your usual teacher has a bit of a rewrite of class you'll cope at TBR. the answer is : Do It and join the crazy TBR 'family' ... unfortunately i won;t be able to attend the London TBR in November, but I think some other contributors to balletcoforum who have commented on the other threads might be and they'll be the crowd of regular's from David;s Classes at Central who are a great bunch of guys and girls ... i'm down for Leeds in January ...

the aussies of course having a very well developed distance learning system for schooling thanks to the materials from the School of the Air https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Air

the 'easier' is the numbers game , the 'quality line' is the same , it;s just it's more girls aobve the quality line in absolute numbers ...

feet size isn't that much of an issue at size 8 ... as 8 / 9 is considered by retailers to be the largest 'normal' size for ladies footwear. It seems most of the mainstream pointe brands are stocked to 8 / 8 1/2 / 9 routinely by many sellers unlike those blessed/cursed with larger feet who pointe wise are 'stuck' with custom make from Freed or off the shelf from Sansha (as their unique to them sizing system goes up to their '16' which is a UK 11 iirc as an 8 you'd probably be a 13 in sansha whether flats , soft blocks or pointe ( or importing GMs from the states / custom ordering from UK stockists as they are available in larger sizes apparently women of african descent tend to have larger fett than white women ). i'm still relatively new to this all but i'd agree that core stength is important and Kate makes a good point that what keeps you up whether flat demi or on pointe is alignment and core strength, it sounds that psychologically and practically you feel you'd be starting from scratch with pointe ... ( but you'll never know if the muscle memory stuff will kick in unless and until you get fitted )

even at MU rates it's not that much , for them to bring their own equipment and all full size keyboard instruments are MU Band D Individual arrangement porterage fees for any solo player ... an 'electric piano ' is niether light or especially portable with a full sized keyboard ...

Is that what they are being paid for ? While i fully understand the stance MU has with regard to gigs or commercial work, their rate card puts live accompanists in class out of reach for the majority of dancers, meaning it's a special treat , for exams or for intensives ( where the MU weekly rate is paid to the accompanist)

to get the wholesale price from DitS / Starlite you have to be doing a certain amount of trade with them , not sure how strict they are with their 'teacher' pricing though which is in between wholesale and their own bricks and clicks consumer price (as DitS does have a quite nice Showroom with iirc pointe fitters at their HQ in Sleaford Lincs)

I think the problem with GCSE Dance , is that many of the YP likely to take it are all ready working at or above NQF/QCF level 2 - those studyign towards Intermediate or advanced are studying at NQF/QCF3 ( which is A level) I'd also be interested to know how many state schools even those who claim to be performing arts specialist schools have teachers who the CDET accredited awarding bodies would allow to deliver their qualifications ? and how many of the teachers teaching dance in state schools are PE teachers without a dance teacher qualification. Interestingly, and i think fuelled by the need for 2 adults poolside in school sessions many schools with their own swimming pools employ an swimming teacher who is not QTS on the 'unqualified teacher' pay scale ...

also 'starlite direct' is the wholesale side ofthe company that trades to the public as dancing in the street and on that site they stock / sell at retail Bloch Dancewear Capezio Dancewear Arabesque Dancewear Dans-ez Dancewear Freed Dancewear So Danca Dancewear Wear Moi Dancewear Lulli Dancewear (Sale) as well as their own starlite products

which isn;t really a change from the old system (barring new content) iirc when there were three teirs of gcse papers you basically had a CSE paper ( exceptional marks get a C most candidates will get D-G) an O level paper ( C-A* , narrow chance of a D else Ungraded) and a paper for the marginal level 2 pass candidate ( trading the chance for Aor A* to be more likely to get a C with the mark range providing B-E grades)

seems to be an issue in terms of luck of the draw whether a 'normal' school will have a decent teacher of Dance as a curriculum subject rather than it be someone that is taught with varying levels of competence by (girls)PE teacher / drama teachers etc . Also how many teachers of other subjects are in fact better qualified in dance than the teacher teaching in in the school , ( by virtue of havign higher grades / vocational awards and/or continuning to dance recreationally ??? )