Good feet

[Anna C]

2 hours ago, Medora said:

To the poster who was asking how to assess turnout: from a lay perspective if your child is comfortable in a frog stretch and if their knees lay flat on the floor (without pushing the knees down, just with the help of gravity) in a butterfly stretch then I’d say they have decent turnout. Whether it’s perfectly even is not crucial until they are older and audition for vocational school.

 

Does this make sense? Everyone else, would you agree?

 

Absolutely; “froggies” is used quite often in audition classes to see what level of turnout children have.  However, what it doesn’t measure is whether a dancer has the strength to *hold* turnout and work in active turnout (“froggies” being a passive exercise). 

 

This is a very old thread but a useful discussion on turnout, and explains passive and active turnout:  https://www.balletcoforum.com/topic/1905-different-ways-of-measuring-turnout/

 

[Ruby Foo]

5 hours ago, Robinredbreast said:

For JA’s and arguably WL I don’t think there is much extra classes can do. RBS is all about the physique and there’s little you can do to change what you’re born with. That’s why I get cross with some teachers attributing a child’s success in these schemes to their training: in my view a child with non-RBS physique (which is in no way the same as non-ballet physique….) cannot be coached to be offered a place, no matter how good the training. 

 
In my experience, RBS take a wide range of physiques both for JAs and vocational. The rule for long legs and short torso, longish neck and good feet probably stands true but its interesting to see the many variants of this.

There is so much more to take into account. The way you move, how you interpret the music, your natural musical phrasing, your natural sense of line, sense of performance, how you tell a story, flexibility (for ease of movement), turn out (for technique), your ability to pick up sequences of steps, focus and concentration, natural sense of turning, balance, natural ballon, etc

Its all about ' natural' gifts that can't be taught from a physio or a teacher although they will certainly be able to help in some areas.

It sounds complicated but an experienced teacher can tell these things from steps as simple as skipping, gallops, jumping.

 

[Ruby Foo]

Just to add and, as others have said, no one has it all. An RBS associate teacher once described it as a Rubik's cube, you just hope to cover as much of each side as possible and have as much fun as possible!

[Dance.Mum]

16 hours ago, Medora said:

Bad feet are sometimes referred to as biscuits 😂

Never heard biscuits used to describe bad feet but I have with regards to pointe shoes.

[DancePhysioUK]

On 18/02/2022 at 08:36, BallerinaMum13 said:

I was wondering if some of the more experienced parents have a point of view on ballet physio classes for the 8 - 10 year old range (the JA range). I see on Instagram that these are very popular even with younger students. Would this really give a young, classical dancer an edge? Is it just clever marketing? Is it too much too soon? 

Theres so many options for 'physio classes' now which is great as the profession moves more into a science based approach rather than the traditional methods (although still a long way to go for sure) 

 

Theres an ever growing number of dance teachers now teaching PBT (or progressing ballet technique) which again is amazing to get the awareness of what muscles are working and how this can help us.

 

Depending on the level of dancer, physio can be useful in a number of ways. 

 

To check facility;

To understand how much the body is capable of naturally standing and doing ballet positions (which is what they look for in the physio assessments at auditions). Emphasis on the 'naturally'. Some people will find ballet technique much easier to perform than others depending on how you're born. BUT, this doesn't mean if you don't have the natural ability that things can't be done to strengthen and create the illusion (in a safe anatomically friendly way). which leads me onto...

 

Understand which exercises will be most beneficial; 

Every dancer is different and this is where knowing what works for you individually may not be picked up in general PBT classes by dance teachers. (Although I'm sure there's dance teachers out there who are incredible with this). Sometimes an assessment with a physio who has an understanding of the dancers needs can be incredibly useful and have a feed forward effect in their training. 

 

To create a long lasting career;

Dance careers are often cut short due to injury so having this input from early on can actually help the dancers understanding and management of their body going forward later into their career.  

 

However all this said, to see a a benefit the child has to do these exercises in their own time too. Theres no point in having 1 class and thinking that this will change your technique forever. Research suggests that these dance specific exercises should be done 2-3 times a week to make a significant difference to technique. So maybe weigh that up if you're thinking of paying for a couple classes only. Depends on the Childs interest in actually doing these (*sometimes boring compared to a dance class) exercises.

 

(*...and I'm allowed to say that as a dancer turned physio who also didn't do their exercises back in the day - hindsight is a beautiful thing)