Finding the silver lining!

[2dancersmum]

I hope your DD is soon able to have her op Regattah and wish her all the best for her recovery.  Hopefully she will feel the benefit of this one for a good many years.  When my DD was younger she used to play with a little girl who had heart problems, an op aged 3 and another when she was 12.  I know they predicted better results from the 2nd op but lost contact with the family when she was 14 as they moved to be closer to family when the mum got cancer.

 

I hope your DD is able to continue with her ballet.  Perhaps when she is not fit enough to dance in her own grades she would be able to be a helper in classes for the younger children.  I also wonder if you would be able to find a suitable pilates class or maybe thai chi if you were able to find a class she could attend.  Thai chi is gentle movement and might well help choreography when she is older as , like pilates, it will help show how parts of the body are connected and move and again deals with breathing.

 

As for her ballet and her exams, is there any allowance that can be made for her during an exam so that she gets the time to rest between exercises?

[LinMM]

I was just thinking and then you said it that she could continue through the grades at her own pace in class and not bother with the exams.

I know it's nowhere near the same really but Inhave an injury at the moment(as an adult amateur dancer) and it's the allegro section I have to be careful in re jumping at the mo. But what I do is adapt it so if the teacher sets 16 jumps in first say then another 16 changement with 8 jumps to second and so on I just halve the amount or jump at half speed (halving the amount is better musically but you finish before the others and I just stand in my best fifth position!! )

I then adapt any big endings (grand jete etc) on the right side into a pas de chat or similar.

 

 

It is much harder for a young person admittedly to compromise in such a way but if it allows her to keep dancing without stressing her body too much then she can work out which bits to compromise on in each class (maybe not the exact same bits each week).

Sometimes it's just the repetitions if an enchainement is being done 3-4 times she may have to settle for twice and so on.

 

Dancers when they are injured often have to make such compromises anyway.

I really hope your DD can continue to enjoy her dancing in some way at any rate!!

[Belljul]

Sorry to hear of the health issues for your daughter Regattah. Wishing her all the strength in the world. And you too. I hope she is able to dance again soon, even in a lesser capacity, and they certainly sent the right paramedic to keep you chatting on the way to the hospital! xx

[Guest]

send get well wishes to your daughter for me ! 

- you could consider pilaties or yoga at the moment as it is low impact and alot of breathing and also could work on flexibility and strength with her at home to keep her in the mindset of dance

- since she is so young her views and ideas of what she wants to be when she is older may change if she is unable to dance as much when she is older (hopefully not!) and she may decide to be a lawyer or a teacher, what im trying to say is try not to get too upset if her dreams of a career in dance seem unachievable at the moment 

- if she is interested in physio or peadiatrics perhaps you could buy her books about the body and the muslcles etc that she could read whilst in the hospital for operations etc

hopefully ive helped! xx

[Regattah]

Thank you so much, everyone. Lin, Happymum and 2dancers, I think there definitely is room for continuing in some way with ballet, with the help of an understanding teacher! I know that it is possible to tell examiners beforehand about the condition, but they aren't able to make much allowance to the way the exam runs. Once, my DD's teacher forgot to tell her Grade 1 examiner. My DD, being tired, sat down whilst another girl was doing her character dance. She was really told off by the examiner! I'm sure if she'd been pre-warned, this is the kind of allowance that would be ok.

 

Littleballerina, you make some really good suggestions, thank you.

[osmum]

Best wishes to you, your dd and big dd.

 

Have you heard of floor barre? Just like doing normal barre but lying on the floor. It will keep everything moving in the correct way in between times when your dd cannot do regular class. I used to do it for a while, the class was full of mixed ability non dancers like myself, dancers like my dd and age range from young teens to 60!

 

Might be worth seeing if there is anything near you would be good for your other dd and yourself