Where do I go from here?

[youngatheart]

The problem with that approach is that you develop a lot of faults which then have to be "unlearnt" - personally I do not like to see adults (or teenagers) placed in a class that is way beyond them for that very reason.

[Dance*is*life]

Agree totally youngatheart. I was only discussing that this morning with someone else. The morning class I attend on a friday is pretty advanced, but there are no restrictions on who can attend, so there are dancers who have picked things up as they went along and are now able to keep up. However, and this is what we were discussing, because they have obviously not learnt the advanced exercises in a proper methodology lesson, these dancers perform them with really incorrect technique. For example this morning we had sissone doublee en avant (sissone to attitude, coupe, assemble en avant) in a series, changing direction on each new sissone doublee. Many of the dancers were not closing the final assemble in a turned out plie and then turning to the other direction with the sissone. They were closing in a turned in position half way round to the other side and then jumping from there, so everything ended up out of alignment and progressively more and more untidy and turned in. We thought it was actually rather a shame, because there were some talented people amongst them, who could have been really good if they hadn't leapt in, in the "deep end", so to speak.

[youngatheart]

Yes that is exactly the kind of thing I mean! A teacher I know had someone like this turn up to her open class - imagine her horror when it came to the pointe section and the new student (who clearly did not have sufficient strength or technique to be on pointe) then proceeded to put on a pair of badly-fitted pointe shoes.

 

(All she felt that she could do in these circumstances as damage limitation was keep her doing basics at the barre, which even then the student did not seem happy about when she saw what the rest of the class were doing.)

 

I know another "senior" lady who currently attends an adult class that is too advanced for her - she is all too well aware that her technique is lacking compared to the rest of the class who have progressed up the levels, particularly in the centre, and says she would love to go back to the beginning to learn the basics "properly", but unfortunately the harder class is the only time she is able to attend.

 

So Becky you are definitely not alone - maybe you could attend the pilates and barre at one studio & the centre-work class at the other which would at least give you a bit of everything?

[Kate_N]

Just bumping this up with a link to Susie Crow's blog which has details of adult ballet clases in the Oxford area over the summer, which BeckyL (and others) might find useful.

 

https://balletinsmallspaces.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/summer-classes-oxford/