Dancers and bifocal/multifocal glasses?

[Yaffa]

An optician's assistant said she once advised a ballet dancer not to get bifocal/multifocal glasses for use offstage, as she thought it might mess around with her ability to guage distances etc. on stage. I'd be interested to know if this is correct and what dancers do in practice.

[taximom]

slightly off the topic, I have varifocal lenses but when I play violin I have single vision lenses set at the mid point of my vision.  BUT when I play percussion I need my usual varifocal glasses! This might be that I sit still when playing violin and do exactly the opposite as a percussionist as I run between timps, tuned percussion, untuned percussion and kit!!

Heather

aka Taximom

[Jan McNulty]

My optician years ago told me to avoid bi and varifocals if at all possible (not that I am a dancer).

 

I prefer to take my specs off to read.

 

I know people who have ordinary distance specs for driving because in various-focals the distance is a very narrow strip.

[balletgremlin]

I wear bifocals and can't say they've ever caused me any issues dancing (albeit not professionally). I've been wearing them so long I don't even notice switching between the prescriptions when looking up/down, it happens automatically.

 

I do struggle to spot but I don't think I can blame my glasses for that.

[The_Red_Shoes]

12 hours ago, balletgremlin said:

I do struggle to spot but I don't think I can blame my glasses for that.

May your specs be at least partially to blame? After all, spotting involves  focusing the eyes very rapidly. My pirouettes definitely improved after I had eye surgery last year as now I can focus my eyes properly. Before that they were just generally facing towards my spot but not really on it, if you see what I mean.