FullContretemps

Not going to get into shoulds and shouldn'ts, risks vs regrets and all that, but just pass on a piece of advice I was given (by my very wise mother!): do what you love doing for as long as you love it; then do something else.

t_rose I know which two you mean, and one of the juniors is from that school too. I'll have to be careful what I say now haha! shygirlsmum I was house mothering, so not directly involved in organising but will pass on your thanks to Miss Sharon edited to add, actually t_rose, the two girls could be from either of the schools I dance at as there were two from each in Inters A and one from each in juniors. But I can guess which it probably is.

Oh I'm so glad to hear it I know who you mean now shygirlsmum - your dd was on my corridor! Sorry about the lost shoe - we did do our best to find it! And now I know some of you are on here I can keep up with how the girls are getting on. A big well done to them for working so hard and it was a real pleasure to see them enjoying themselves.

Shygirlsmum I wonder who your dd was. I have just got back from YBA and I have to say all the girls worked really hard and did an absolutely fantastic job of the final performance (or at least the dress rehearsal I saw!). I felt very privileged to be there and witness a huge amount of top quality teaching and learning packed into just four days. Well done everybody

I know someone who's just got a pair so will let you know if I hear how she gets on with them...

Did anyone else see Wednesday night's performance (Souza and Oliveira)? I am better informed on the doing dance side of things than the viewing side (through lack of opportunity rather than choice!) but from a layman's perspective on all matters except technique, I was suitably impressed by Souza's Romeo debut. Any further thoughts? Wish I'd been able to see the Rojo/Acosta and Klimentova/Muntagirov casts. And just maybe the others to compare! Edited to add last line

Yep. Got to get mine in by that session if I am brave enough to take it! Deliberating between Summer 2 at HQ and Liverpool in Nov/Dec neither of which is ideal for various reasons! Pretty sure I'd not pass the new one though...

I am blessed (or cursed as I usually get stuck in it...) with the world's deepest demi-plie. Many hands are OK I think, and narrow hips which are only appreciated in ballet not the real world! Everything else I would happily trade!

Was going to try and post under a different name but I guess there are few enough people on here who know me in real life for it to matter! Sorry it got a bit rambling. Ooh here is a fascinating topic. I can't comment on being in vocational school or a company as there are so many reasons why I could never have been a professional dancer, and I can see that it could be a very challenging environment for dancers with additional needs. I'm mostly commenting from the point of view of ASD/Asperger's/HFA/whatever we want to call it as I was diagnosed last year with Asperger's. As many others have pointed out, it was a huge relief to get this diagnosis at the age of 24 and it has helped me understand myself and how to manage the things I find difficult. (Let me be clear here: my autism is not very obvious to those who just see me in day to day life - my friends and acquaintances just see me as quirky and I've not told many of them about the diagnosis, so I do not have as many issues as some on the spectrum.) What I found really interesting was when I went for my follow-up appointment with the psychologist, we were talking about how to balance the need to be sociable and the difficulties of being sociable and need for my own time and he picked up that a massive coping and enabling mechanism for me is my ballet. Going to class means spending time with people in a clear, structured environment where relatively little interaction is actually required. I know exactly how to behave and what to expect and the order that class will take. The music and the movements are generally familiar and that is calming. Technique is very specific and prescribed and can be worked on. There is a short space of time at the beginning and end of class in the changing room where it is optional to talk to others but this can easily be minimised as necessary. So you have the feeling of being with people but in a manageable quantity. Funnily enough through that I have actually made a friend or two and now might actually stay and chat for a while after class and keep up with people on Facebook, but it is my choice and I can take it at my own pace, as little or much as I can manage. The psychologist was quite amazed as we discussed this and he drew it out of me (had never added it up like that myself before though I knew I loved it!) and said he felt like he should prescribe ballet for everyone because it seems an ideal environment for us haha. Of course in school or a company there are more social issues, but I'm guessing it's likely there is a special interest of dancing, which in that environment would actually be shared by those around. So yes, I think it would be a challenge, but even bog-standard school and University and a normal job are a challenge if you have ASD. If you can find one or two people to stick together with, wherever you are that can get you through. I am likely to be wrong, never having been there, but don't know whether vocational school/company would be much more difficult than elsewhere.

Oh it is such a good job I would never have been a professional dancer. My teachers allow sports bras (or just bras I think some girls wear) in class, and though they prefer if they can't be seen they don't make a fuss. Think they might more with the younger students though as they tend to have ones that at least match the colour of their leotard. For exams/performances I've always been allowed one if it couldn't be seen (found a good nude strapless wonderbra that actually supports) but have occasionally taken an exam with just the shelf in a leotard but wasn't really sufficient. Have often commented with my dancing friends that there is a massive gap in the market for leotards that accommodate the more well-endowed among us - that laugh at Bratek leotards because we have no hope of fitting our assets into one that fits the rest of our body properly! They could make them in actual bra sizes I suppose... Rules at vocational school sound a bit unhelpful and I can see how they could contribute to children's weight issues. No one likes to wobble all over the place and surely teachers can't enjoy watching it.

Thanks everyone! Thought that might be the case. We will look into staying over then rather than trying to rush around and panic! Guess I can deal with taking the extra day off work

Venturing out from my normal lair of Doing Dance, so do move if I've come to the wrong place. My fiance has got tickets for ENB's Romeo and Juliet in the round for my birthday on (18th June performance), but I don't think he realises how long it will be and I'm worried we will miss the last train back (we live in York and the last train is I think at 22.00 from King's Cross). I'm assuming with interval it will be more than 2 1/2 hours though. Does anyone know the running time? Many thanks!

It is, and I think you're right Lin - can't think of any other costs. It was very good value last year as I had free accommodation but not sure about this year as venue has changed and I won't be able to get the annual leave this year. Fantastic fun and great teaching though!

I have quite narrow feet (used to be really narrow when I was younger) and they don't have much natural arch - only just enough to be able to do pointe really, though that's also partly because my ankles don't bend that way (have the world's deepest demi plie though!). I wear Gambas and absolutely love them. I started out in 93s which were good, then had a pair of Blochs which didn't really suit my feet and now have Gamba 97s which have a 3/4 shank. This helps with being able to use what foot flexibility I do have and they fit really nicely and are really comfortable.

I have a music degree too and would take double time to mean twice as fast (though I would probably say double speed). Haven't ever heard it the other way round in music or dance.

I have a friend who calls soft blocks/demi pointes Delcos which was one I hadn't heard before, but think that might be the brand (like calling vacuum cleaners hoovers!) As for vocational, that's made me think. Previously I would have thought just those at 'vocational school', but now thinking I would include those not at full time dance school but heading for a career in dance as vocational. I also think it's amusing that RAD call the vocational exams vocational, because I am definitely not a vocational student (trying to debate with my teacher that I really don't think I can pass advanced, especially before it changes. At the ripe old age of 24 and in a full time definitely not dance-related job!). I also find it amusing how many people that the particular fondu I'm talking about has nothing to do with cheese on this occasion (though I did live in Switzerland for a bit so they might be forgiven for that one!). Frogs legs is another one which confuses non-dancers (what do you mean my frogs' legs are amazing?!). Turnout is fairly self-explanatory but when I was new to the ballet world it took me a little while to figure out that extension just meant height of legs.

Yes Ellie, I think you do have to have Intermediate to teach IDTA or RAD (don't know about ISTD), though possibly not if you're over 21 or something for IDTA which is a bit random!

Hi there, I can't think of a dance teaching board that would have a prerequisite of GCSE dance, unless perhaps you are thinking of doing a University teaching course. The IDTA teaching seems to just be a matter of finding an IDTA member to coach you in what you need to know to take their Associate exams (Pre-associate 1 and 2 and Anatomy, then Associate exam. You are then qualified to teach up to Intermediate and can do further exams to qualify to teach the higher grades). You can take different pathways with them: the 'theatre' branch where you choose to specialise in ballet or tap or modern or theatre or the 'ballroom' branch which includes freestyle and some others. I think to do more than one style you would only have to retake the specialist bits (so not anatomy, for example) but not sure as I have never done it (I am just about to start on the ballet qualification). More info here: http://www.idta.co.uk/Site2/Membership.html It seems like a bit of a vague system from what I can gather, but it seems like the best way is to do it through an IDTA member who can help you. You could try ringing them if you have any questions although they didn't make it an awful lot clearer to me! I will try and answer if I know about any other questions, or I think there are others on here who have done the process. But in answer to whether she needs to do GCSE dance, I wouldn't think it matters at all - I don't have it, and I know the IDTA doesn't require it and neither does RAD (certainly for CBTS and I don't think for their degree in Ballet Teaching either). Though I suppose it might help give a theoretical background and make the other qualifications easier.

I have had at least 4 different teachers who were RAD trained (even if not all were teaching me RAD at the time) and none of them would have advocated the 'developments' you are talking about. All enter candidates for vocational exams, get good results and send students to vocational schools. Sounds a bit dodgy to me!

Thank you very much RK Yes I have - good to know it is still the same pathway and well done on passing everything! You must have put a lot of work in. I will wait and see what they say when they reply, and my teacher is going to see what she can find out for me but if it goes ahead I might be coming back to you for more info. Thanks again!

Hi all, I have done a search but not found exactly what I was looking for, only from a long time ago so wanted to find out whether it was up to date. Basically, I have a very exciting possibility that I might be able to get into teaching ballet, initially by assisting in younger children's classes, gradually moving to take over running some of them myself in a term or two. Because I don't have much experience of officially teaching ballet and for parents to know, the teacher I will be working for would like me to have (or at least be working towards) a formal teaching qualification. I also think this would be useful because it will give me a framework for the knowledge and experience I am acquiring, it will give a background into areas of dancers' health and safety as well as anatomy etc that I haven't focussed on academically before. Ideally I'd have like to to RAD's CBTS to start with as I feel like (not judging whether rightly so, but I feel it does) it opens more doors, in this country at least, but the cost is currently prohibitive to me and I also don't know whether I can commit to 2 years. I have never done any ISTD so not sure about that. It looks like the DDI would be about £500? So I will probably try to go with IDTA as one of my current teachers is registered with them as well as RAD and she is a fantastic teacher, doing a mix of free work and bringing in useful bits of various syllabi as appropriate. So my question is, how does getting the qualification work, and how much is it likely to cost? If anyone on here knows?! From what I could gather from old threads there seemed to be a couple of exams to do (Associate exams?), but assuming there is also paperwork and teaching practise. I have also sent IDTA a message and will ask my teacher tomorrow but I am greedy for fast information, especially from people who have been through it before so any insight would be lovely! SOrry for a long message and thanks!

Not sure whether it's 'accidental' success when I achieve something new, but I would agree that I'm not expecting success. So I might try and give this positive thinking malarkey a go! Maybe I need to be focussing on the confidence to try and to think I can do it rather than just trying 'just in case' it works! Dickens would definitely have not been impressed with me And having been thinking about pirouettes with everybody talking about them I am even more inclined to believe you positive thinkers: I have a habit of hopping round the last half turn of double pirouettes because I think I can't do them, but once I started trying to stay up and not hop I found I could actually do them fine quite a lot of the time. Can't wait to get to class later and try out the power of positive thinking And I love the term 'ballet greedy' too! We were in fact discussing something like that in class last night and I wish I'd had the word then.

Interesting what you say about attitude Anjuli as it's something I've been thinking about in life rather than dancing recently but I think I approach both the same way. By nature I tend to look at the worst likely outcome of something - in the case of dancing, I would sarcastically take on a challenge not expecting to succeed. For me it's a defence mechanism. I won't be disappointed if it doesn't work out as well as it could because I'm prepared, and if it works out better than I thought then I get a fantastic surprise. So for me although it sounds like a negative attitude I see it as a positive attitude because I am never disappointed and often happily surprised. Other people have told me that I'm setting myself up for failure though, and that it's really negative to always be looking at the problems. What do other people think? Sorry if I'm wandering off topic a bit. Mods feel free to send me over to Not Dance or somewhere if I'm going to derail things!

I think I might be the same Lin with having become an 'I can't do brises person'. As Anjuli was saying on the other thread, a lot is about attitude, and I do try to keep a positive attitude but this one really does get me! They have definitely improved over time though, when I think back to the things that I used to find difficult. I will try and keep my comments about attitude to the other thread though or will start rambling. Anjuli I think you've hit the nail on the head for me with 'The problem for many students is to get the momentum to move at the same time one is doing the beat.' It's getting off the ground high enough (and travelling enough I guess) to get the beat in without any kind of preparation. In an enchainement where it follows a travelling step I can manage, but starting from stationary or doing a whole load of brises in a row it seems so hard to get off the ground! Will try the one you suggest when my foot is up to it!

Yes I totally agree Aurora - just took a bit of getting used to haha. And I agree about canned piano music - I loved so much going on a whole week's course in the summer with live pianists. Not only live pianists but absolutely amazing ones (both involved in this project). And if you're going to use a recording it may as well use a variety of instruments and styles rather than just the traditional.