Michelle_Richer

Hi Fiz New beginnings, onwards and upwards. I think you have the details of other classes in Lincoln other than the one Kat my teacher runs, I know there is GoDance, as I was due to go to the Sleaford one tonight, but with the thick fog I didn’t go. I hadn’t made any arrangements with them as they are just a fill in when my Angles Theatre class is on break, which it now is. I will see the girls at GoDance Sleaford next week to wish them a happy Christmas etc and probably take some chocolates in too If you are coming to my class, you had better get your pointe shoes ready as Kat is starting a half hour pointe class after Christmas and she needed at least four students to make it feasible, she has three already with me, so you should make the fourth, as I know you were keen to do pointe work. All I can say is welcome in advance, and you take care.

I badly over estimated how long it would take me to drive to the Rep workshop in Kent. I simply did not believe my Sat Nav and I arrived a little after 12.00, but the workshop was not until 3pm for registration. I did pop into the South East Dance Studio to make myself known but there was nobody on the desk, so I had a nice chat to a lady whose's daughter was in there. As I had time to kill, I though I would walk into the village (Hextable) and find a nice pub for lunch, but nothing doing. I managed to find a couple to ask, and they told me it was a 20minute walk to the next village Swanley and recommended a pub there. I did wonder a bit about the effect on my legs but they stood the walk there and back. As it was, I was a nice day and I was wrapped up well, although on the way back two ladies did stop and offer me a lift but I declined. The workshop was fantastic, but the details are on the other thread. Scotland was mostly about fact-finding, firstly I was wise to have taken the longer time option for transfer at Edinburgh Waverly station. I couldn’t have done it in 15 minutes as it’s a very large station to find your way round. I actually met up with a lady who had missed her connection for the same reason. The class I attended at Scottish ballet was labelled as their Intermediate class, but they allowed drop in dancers like me, but they do stipulate 4 years experience. After class one girl in the changing rooms ask me how it compared with my level 3 class at ENB. In general terms it was very similar, but their session was slightly longer by 15 minute, although their barre session was shorter. ENB’s enchainement are a bit longer, but Scottish enchainement including pirouettes went into doubles, where ENB doubles would have been an option as many are still with singles. The teacher we had was not their regular teacher as she introduced her self to the whole class but she was know to some of the dancers. Her manner was very encouraging and complementary although occasionally she did give out corrections. She would use the term “ladies”, where I am used to “girls”, and in that context when someone refers to me as a lady it makes me feel old. I don’t know if it was her accent or what but she gave it an air of elegance and I liked it. The class was comprised of 13 dancers including me, all young ladies. But one of the dancers said usually there are about twenty, which I think the studio we were in would be a bit crampt, but then I’m spoilt with the large upper studio of ENB. When I first arrived in the studio, there was only one other young lady in, so we had a bit of a chat. She was 19 and had trained and qualified with Bolshoi in Russia, later on after most of the other dancers arrive another young lady joined her of a similar age. During barre work they were directly in front of me on the first side, many of the exercise they did was with the supporting hand off the bar, otherwise the exercise was identical in every other way. When it came to centre practice in small groups, those two would always go together and last, there technique was streets ahead of every one else, they were brilliant but never the less our teach would still add in advice for them. On one occasion when they completed a very impressive enchainement I gave a clap, but found myself very alone with that, so I'm not really sure how the other dancers feel in their presents, for me they were an inspiration and has certainly raised my personal bar. At ENB if some does well most of the class clap in support and is very encouraging. My time at that class just whizzed by. The out come of the trip, I have made some useful contacts for the future and understand the logistics of going there, next time I need sufficient time to explore Glasgow too. The down side was the 5 hour train journey from Glasgow Central to Euston on Virgin Trains, that is a very long boring trip. To round the day off I did my two regular classes at ENB but level three was with a relief teacher this week. At the end of it my legs seemed to have survived reasonable well. One class already done today, Ballet + a stretch and tone class to go for tonight.

A really nice Nutcracker rep workshop from RAD, however the choreography was very much changed for an all female corps de ballet. First I though we were going to have to split up for male and female rolls as that's what we did with RAD for Romeo and Juliet in "Dance of the Knights". However we didn’t, there is some similarity to the video clip but not a lot. If I can still remember what we did in the morning on my train journey to Scotland I will jot it down so I can create my own version for all female dancer’s a little close to the clip but utilising bit from both in an hybrid enchainement. Anyway it was real fun and we got to choreograph our own ending and finishing pose. We also had a small audience for our final performance, not something RAD usually does. What was a little sad, there was only three girls including me from the UK, six of the girls were from Belgium, and another girl not from the UK. RAD doesn’t usually operate with such a small class, I know they prefer 18 or 20 and start to limit it above 22. There is another Repertoire Workshop coming up “Swan Lake”, to be held somewhere in Berkshire on the 26th of January. I will be chasing my contact there to get some tangible info, as I will be on it.

Tonight’s performance by adult ballet went really well, our teacher said “it was spot on”. One of the ladies from the audience when she collected her little daughter (a ladybird) after the show, came up to me and was very complementary about our Adult ballet performance, I guess that was the icing on the cake. The bad news is, it was videoed professionally and will be available later, then I guess the cracks will show and bring the euphoria back down to earth. Anyway I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was my last performance this year. Tomorrow it a Nutcracker Rep Workshop by RAD in Kent, then Monday off to Scottish Ballet in Glasgow, trains permitting. And back to my regular classes at ENB on Tuesday. I finally get a break on the 20th.

My feet are substantially better today. Our show went reasonably well other than about two thirds in, we all got a little ahead of our timing, but there was a point where a large signature in the music was present that allowed us all to regain timing and finish correctly. I really enjoyed it and I think the rest of the dancers in my group did too. Another performance tomorrow night, must check the timing this time, but I think I know what went astray with our group. A really good turnout in the audience and quite enthusiastic with their applause during the finale.

That was one of the things I had to show her, apart from doing a retire/ releve on each foot to asses strength etc. On jumps I would deliberately not go fully down on the heel as that stretch was quite painful, hence heel-drop therapy, however my ENB teacher spotted this, as I had some recovery through strengthening. I guess the combined effect of Sundays 7 hour stint and especially the ENB jumps where to be fair, I gave it all I got, full flat feet at the bottom of the plie and as pointed as I could get when in the air, I just over did it. I was without doubt my own silly fault. Although I have several classes still to go before the end of the year, most are getting down to single figures even if they are scattered all over the UK. Christmas will be a total ballet shutdown for rest and recovery (20 December - 3rd Jan).

ENB On-Stage Adult Ballet Workshop: Coppélia London Coliseum 26 Jul 2014 at 09:30 – 12:30 £25 See Link http://www.ballet.org.uk/whats-on/coppelia/-stage-adult-ballet-workshop-coppelia/

This week has turn out to be very challenging. After my 7 hours of Swan Lake at ROH my ankles felt fine, however after Tuesdays ENB classes with its associated jumps and the walk back to the tube station, my ankles were beginning to play up. I knew after the walk across the car part at Peterborough Railway station on the way home I was likely to have trouble the following morning. I was right, I had real problems just walking about and I was due to start dress rehearsal for our show the next day. It was a huge gamble, I cancelled all classes for the Wednesday, virtually hoping for a miracle. I was amazed how much recovery took place with just one day of rest from ballet, never the less I still did not want to push it on the day of the rehearsal. Firstly I did my local class with Nicky, I informed her that I would sit out on the jumps as I needed to preserved my legs for the show, she was comfortable with that. Secondly, I did a further hour at the hall which was practice for the show against our video of the last class. Unfortunately there was a fair bit of confusion towards the end of the video as the teacher was shouting instructions and various interpretations took place amongst the dancers. At tonight’s dress rehearsal that came through, but it was the only real incident. I had a chat to my teacher afterwards as to what her real intention was, that’s now clear for me, so we need to get a short briefing tomorrow night so everyone is singing from the same song sheet. We also have to alter one of the formations into a “V”, rather than a line as the stage is a little smaller than our studio, but all in all it went far better than I had anticipated, both technically and physically from my ankle issue. The things I was dreading the most because of the pain they caused was (Jete en tournant and Pas de chat’s) which turned out to be a non-event. We only had one shot at our enchainement as every group had a piece to perform from three different performing arts schools. Unfortunately we never got to do the finale as the little one’s needed to go home. So we will basically wing it tomorrow night when we perform for real. There are only 7 dancers in my group including me, one other older lady and the rest teens. One of the teens is ex-royal ballet, but she has said she will be going back after the summer break. As the only ballet I have planned in the next two days are the performances, that should help my ankle recovery an awful lot. I’m really looking forward to performing now, without the worry of pain striking.

Nutcracker Rep Workshop for this weekend 8th December at South East Dance Studios, Hextable Kent, is still available for booking Scenes Piece of repertoire to be covered during the workshop; Waltz of the Flowers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpN-6uGQMsQ Please note the version studied may vary to the choreography shown in the clip. Who to Contact If you need any further information regarding the course, contact Monday - Friday on 020 7326 8025 / email: khart@rad.org.uk. For contact on the day of the course, please call Becky Martin, Regional Assistant for the South East, tel: 07780 111 907 . This is the message I got from Katie Hart: "We still have places available for this workshop if you know of anyone who may be interested in attending, please ask them to contact me directly".

Quite an eventful weekend: Saturday I attended the annual performance of my Peterborough ballet school “TU Dance”. I was expecting some out of the way small auditorium. When I arrived at Kingsway Conference Centre I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was huge, not sure how many hundred it could seat, but it was a lot. Large stage with a large video display scene at the back displaying close up of the dancers on the stage. Everyone could see in detail what was going on. There were brilliant singers from TU dances music theatre students, all different dance types including ballroom. Some ballet from pre-primary through to grade 4, a couple of the grade 4 teens were in my ballet class and they were performing to music from Giselle, funnily we had that as an exercise a couple of weeks back. However non of the adults from adult ballet were interested in performing when I ask a few months ago, which was a real shame. I was so so envious of being able to perform on stage at that venue. As it is I have all but said goodbye to that school as next term I’m with LAB and will only visit TU Dance when LAB is on break. Saturday started off with a bit of a disaster. I left home at 6.15am and arrived at Peterborough Station at 7am for the 7.26 train to Kings cross for my ROH Swan Lake master class. About every ten minutes or so, the train expected time was put back by ten to 15 minutes, I wasn’t too worried as I had build in quite a bit of contingency. The train finally departed at 8.46am, which meant I arrived about 20 minutes late for my class, needless to say I was furious. Everyone was doing work at the barre when I arrived. I quickly and quietly joined then and just acknowledged my teacher. I spoke to her later. The class was fantastic as we covered 4 scenes from swan lake, Entrance of Odette (Odette’s mime), Waltz of the Swans (Very much cut down), Pas de Deux (As we had a male dancer), Odette’s Solo (one of my favourites). Although all in all that was seven hours of ballet, my feet stood up very well, I just hope that last for the performances I have next Friday and Saturday night. We finally managed to finish our Lincoln show sequence tonight (Monday) just the Thursday dress rehearsal to go now, some of the teens are a bit unsure, so our teacher videoed our last run-thru tonight which we will all get a copy of. This must be the quickest studio to stage performance I have ever done but I’m feeling reasonable comfortable with it now. I will be utilising the hire of my local hall on Thursday morning to consolidate it ready for dress rehearsal, then we have the finale to do too.

Hi Lin I just had an email from City Academy, I'm not sure if you will have got it, since you transferred your class, but ROH are not allowing members of the public in for our friends and family performance. So the performance at the end has now been cancelled.

Hi Lin When they let you in at the stage door reception, go through to the artist's café, down to the bottom and turn right, follow the blue line to the lifts, go to floor +5 , then the Macmillan Studio is the one right at the end on the right, and don't stop on the way to watch the professions, its frowned upon, that's what I was told by a class I used to attend there. I'm off to see the youngsters of my Peterborough class perform Saturday night at a local theatre, a couple of teens from my class are performing too, but non of the adults (Shame). Peterborough is generally a very nice class but unfortunately it will be one I will have to drop when I start LAB in January. I will also be dropping my local class too, but will still retain the hall for rep rehearsal, so I will still see Nicky my teacher even if its just to hand over the keys.

Ankles are still holding up although the exercises are quite painful. Although I think I might have pushed things a bit today. Went to my local class the morning and the hall was cold at 14 degrees, I hired it for an additional hour after class to work through my Lincoln show sequence, which is still not quite completed, only Mondays class left and dress rehearsal on Thursday. That left me short of prep time for my 7 hour “Swan Lake” master class on Sunday at ROH, so I dropped my Peterborough class tonight, and a good deal of time was spent this afternoon and evening in my own studio to work on it, now my heels are getting quite sore. Ah well starting Sunday I have a 15 day continuous run of ballet. My last class this year is 19th December and I will really looking forward to the break. Oh the joys of housework, cooking, the therapy of cleaning and even the washing up. I really cant remember what that feels like to be so chilled out.

Mimi66 Interesting points of view: Firstly when working for corner to corner it’s a herd response from the dancers, as everyone is in very small space marking the music with the teacher in front. But never the less there is some parallelism, but in many cases it develops a bit like a wedge in distribution. It’s unlikely every one stops exactly at the same time unless the music stops. So its not quite as clear cut as it would seem. As for personal space to dance in, you give that up when you cease dancing. In that I’m not implying anyone is going to collide with you or push you out of the way, but if your not dancing its your priority to remove yourself from the dance area in a safe and orderly manner, that only common sense. Marking as other groups go across the room I think is fairly common, but I have never seen it encroach on the active dancing area or the assembly point for the next group of dancers. Neither do I think it’s a distraction for the teacher or other dancers, but it is a valuable learning technique to reinforce the memory for the enchainement that they are about to perform. Marking in this way is almost done on the spot and occupies little space. Your statement “one has to be able to pick up enchainement on the spot”, I think is invalid. Yes this is true if you only have one or two teachers and you have been with them some time. You will be familiar with there style, then you have few sequence blocks to link together, possibly 3 or 4. However someone who is not familiar with that teachers style may well have to remember and process 20 or 30 steps. In the real world we live between those two dynamics, the familiar and the fragmented. And of course how good the teachers instructional technique in presenting this enchainement also plays a major part. Coming back to this popular term “Spatial Awareness”, I have never seen an issue with it in any of my classes. I know there has been a few comments of isolated incidence and I think that’s what they are. Spatial awareness come in to its own when you take a performance piece from the studio to the stage. The geometry is different and allowance has also to be made for lighting. Firstly when we took our performance piece from studio to the Angles Theatre stage, the stage was smaller and far less wide than our studio, so separation distance has to be scaled down. The entrance on stage was from the upstage right corner (wing), the enchainement segment we had for that was danced along the diagonal to the downstage left corner and back with 12 dancers going 2 by 2. This was fine in the studio, but on stage it took us back out of the lighted area and back towards the wings. We had to utilise an existing pas de buree to change direction by 90 degrees halfway through to then go towards downstage right corner and closer to the audience. After that we broke formation and reformed as two groups of 5 like a dice, on opposite side of the stage and a group of two in the middle. The two groups of 5 would mirror each other, one girl on dress rehearsal got completely disorientated during this change and she was no newbie. We had three other subsequence's to do with 3 or 4 dancers and a final sequence with all 12 dancer ending with our closing pose. A hell of a lot of spatial awareness was required as both the geometry and the sequences were changed at the last moment. I think every dancer during our week of performances did have a blank moment at least once, it just went with the territory and you coped. As for the demonstrations of teacher skill navigating between stationary dancer that have been preposition is good. Navigating between moving dancers that have stopped dancing, and have no anticipation of the event demonstrates excellent skill in spatial awareness and motion. Why did I do it, because I can but never the less I don’t make it a habit, but I do think I aught to order a new red tutu for class just in case.

I guess I feel some agreement coming on and that cant be right (About the going back to basics class), at least 8 of us at ENB do two levels of class, for me one under pins the other. However as I do lots of different class, they are also at different level and also accommodate a wider range of movement taught that I would not experience from just a couple of classes. Also amongst my classes I have three teachers that regularly attend classes as dancers, so there is no surprise there. LinMM At our level 2 class at ENB which normally limits dancers to 28, did use the easy harder option tonight, I have never noticed it before. I can’t say I remember seeing it at level 3, I guess by that time you are expected to know what you are doing. Mimi66 Remember the conversation we had about me navigating through dancers that had stopped, with my travelling turns. My level 3 ENB teacher gave an interesting demonstration tonight. She place a number of dancers together, they couldn’t have been much more than a foot apart in both dimensions (X and Y), and she navigated through them using chasse pas de buree’s to demonstrate looking where you are going. Girl after my own heart. If that’s not spatial awareness I don’t know what is. I can just here the cringes “do try this at home”. Ref my last post Unfortunately I didn’t quite give all the facts, the enchainement was part of our show sequence. The part I referred to was in-fact in error, I wasn’t sure so I did ask the question of my teacher “Should WE be doing ????? or ?????”, the response was “ Oh yes Michelle your right it should be ??????”, and that was the end of it. I wasn't and didn’t come over as a smart arse, but it would have been wrong of me to leave it and get it corrected later when that had been embedded as muscle memory in the other dancers. I guess that’s contrary to the thinking of many on this forum, especially where they have developed from a long term child-teacher relationship and perhaps that dependency is still there. For me, I have never had it so I guess its new thinking.

Hi 2dancersmum I’m well aware of the differences of the small mixed ability classes and that of the large open London classes like Pineapple and Danceworks as those have been my classes too until my heal problem last week when I needed to reduce my Tuesday loading significantly from 7.5 hours. But even so I have never seen colliding dancers or dancers getting in the way of other dancers. For that matter I have also attended large open classes at Northern Ballet in Leeds, again that phenomena is not present. Spatial awareness sounds a very grand term; in reality anyone who has socially danced on a crowded dance floor is well aware of it, as your techniques changes completely to that of an open floor. However one thing I have seen at pineapple but not too often, is dancers leave on centre practice where they have had trouble remembering sequences, that could be put down to inexperienced dancers but I would equally suggest the teachers presentation format could be improved too. Here is an interesting etiquette question: Your teacher demonstrate an enchainement, you think she may be demonstrating part of it in error, the rest of the class copy what she is doing without question. Do you raise it with her strait away to prevent other dancers acquiring an inappropriate muscle memory? Do you wait until the class is finished and have a quiet word? Say nothing with the assumption that the teacher is always right? Phone a friend? Ask the audience? That situation happened to me tonight.

The one class caters for all is common in most areas; perhaps it’s necessary to attract sufficient dancers to make it viable. Of course the skills of the teacher to be able to adapt this makes all the difference. In my class this afternoon of about 20dancers, only about four of us did the more advanced option on a couple of corner to corner enchainements. There seem to be a lot of reliance on the word “etiquette”, in our class today we help each other, I would include that in etiquette too, rather than the elitist attitude that you’re not good enough to be in our class because you make mistakes, sounds very much like “you can’t play in my garden”. Recently I have met two separate young ladies in my Salsa class that did ballet as early teens and gave up because of bullying, I ask myself, is this a culture problem stemming from the attitude mentioned above. What has been described is in previous posts sounds very much like blatant bad manners which I have not experienced in any of my classes, but I have experienced a quite different set of bad manners that I am sure down grading would not correct. But then am I oblivious to such behaviour due to my lack of experience with a short chronological time in the ballet world, together with being the bad girl of the forum, I guess that’s the black swan in me. Oh well two classes down today, only rehearsal for our show to go tonight.

Well Mimi66 Best not get too confused as to where to go for ballet, the studio or the motorway. My original response was to your post about positioning where I see little difference irrespective of what grade you are. You seem to be pre occupied about dancers being in the wrong grade, if that were so they certainly would not be enjoying it and would be inclined to leave or go down a grade, and of course it does happen. I know at least two who have done that, they don’t need to be pushed. I really don’t understand this statement “What is so wrong with being in a beginner's class, if you haven't learned the skill which is required in an elementary level class”, I would have thought you learn elementary skills in an elementary class, otherwise one could argue you learn advanced skills in a beginner class and of course that’s nonsense. Learning is by it nature an incremental process, each time you transition from one level to another it will be more challenging for a while at the beginning and mistakes will be made. I am really amused by the statement “Michelle, this is one of the " I hate to admit but my mother was right" type of truth. If you are still dancing 5 years later, you will have a quite different opinion. I promise you.” As one from a non-ballet background there appears to be this thing about chronological time. I have seen posting like: after a year or two its advantageous to do a couple of classes a week then moving up to 3 classes a week. I already do that in one day, sometimes more. As it is I'm now, I'm having to restrict my endurance to allow my body to recover, however for me 3 hours / classes a day still appears sustainable rather than my Tuesday peak of 7.5 hours which has taken its toll on my ankles. However I can understand the logic behind allowing time for the body to adapt in the initial stages of ballet training. I would still like to know why my opinion is likely to change in another 5 years?, and yes it is a big if about me still dancing, that depends how my health holds out and not my desire to dance, I was socially dancing along time before I started ballet. Moomin: I am totally unaware in reality that such a problem exists with positioning and collisions, very occasionally it may happen but I would never try and draw an conclusion against an isolated incident

Hi Mimi66 I would generally agree with not overtaking when you are completing a travelling sequence; however on marking when others stop and give up, my perspective is they are no longer dancing and are not utilising that studio space, so I will continue providing I think it is safe to do so. Unless (a) I’m instructed otherwise or ( the music stops. It depends what confidence you have in your own ability to navigate. If I am with a small grouping going across the floor then I have to adjust my pace (stride, jump etc) to maintain position as we all do, it’s a little more difficult for a formation of three where you are the single lead. As far as I am concerned the positioning is the same for an absolute beginner class as it is for a more advanced class. However I am somewhat concerned at your elitist view that someone who displays some difficulties should be relegated into a lower class. That must be sole destroying to someone who is trying very hard to master something new and it doesn’t quite come off the first time. What are you suggesting they should do?, give up and say I can’t do it, I should go back to a lower grade?. I’m glad I’m not in such a class, I hope I have a teacher that recognises my determination and is there to assist me to blossom and stretch my ability. After all, the main reason we are there is to learn and develop, and should not be frightened to make a mistakes on the way. This is why I like the approach of some of my teachers in a mixed ability class, they cater for that in their stride and it works well. No one is disadvantaged as a result.

Hi Mimi66 I agree, a bit of a rant: Firstly position at the barre where its a regular attended class of the same dancers, then their positions generally are quite stable out of comfort or habit, however some teachers will choose to change these periodically. So why should the dancers not do this for themselves and come out of their comfort zone, a real advantage I would have thought. I can understand the logic of keeping the same groups together whilst doing an enchainement or travelling turns from corner to corner, when going on the opposite diagonal on the opposite foot. Commonly one or two do change groupings, but it has no adverse effect on the class as a whole. When dancers assemble in the centre en face, there is no specific position for each dancer based on the last time they were in this position, I have never known this at any class I have attended. Mostly the more confident dancers will tend to go to the front, sometimes the teacher will break the class up into lines where everyone will get to dance in the front line position whilst doing that exercise. What I find particularly helpful but not all that common, is where the teacher has easy and harder options on an enchainement which is really useful in a mixed ability class. Let imagine this is corner work but it can apply equally in the centre. Most confident dancers go first with the more challenging option in the assigned groupings 2's , 3's or 4's. Next grouping will tend to be those confident with the simpler option and then finally the least confident (Last one or two grouping) using the easier option following the teacher. For me that is a very successful combination of taking into account the wide range of abilities. There is a less structured situation that occurs, I wonder what you will make of this. before we assemble in our grouping our teacher will often say mark it to the music and she will lead corner to corner or whatever, the class follows en mass, quite close together but without mishaps. The teacher will stop part way across the room, but does not give an instruction to stop, the music is still playing. For me, especially if we are doing travelling turns, I will continue to my final destination (The crack in the wall on opposite corner), even if it means navigating through those dancers that have stopped. If the music's playing, I'm dancing unless instructed otherwise, that's what I'm therefore. I personally would hate to see a highly regimented class where dancers don't think for themselves, and have to stand in a certain position like a penguin. It certainly would not work for me.

Ankles held up OK during ballet classes on Wednesday and Thursday, with Social Salsa dancing Friday night. It looks as if 3 hours a day is sustainable with my current heel-drop therapy. The exercise itself is very painful and sometimes I have to break that session up a bit, especially the bent leg part. But the main thing is I’m not suffering like I was after class. The most peculiar observation is, how much better my feet feel after my half hour pointe work on a Wednesday, but I guess that’s because my Achilles’ gets compressed, whereas the pain originates from stretching. Ah well, I guess I’m am going to have reconcile myself to pain for the next twelve weeks, as the heel-drop therapy protocol calls for weights to be added once the pain disappears in order to increase the load further until pain is detected again. At the moment I have two ledge type surfaces, neither is ideal, so I need to look for something better over the weekend, as its likely I will continue with this strategy beyond the twelve weeks, but at a less intense rate. As I’m reasonable happy with my pre-Christmas loading of ballet classes and performances, I’ve committed to doing Scottish Ballet on the 9th of December, I’ve just booked the rail tickets and the hotel. Timing is now the only issue, as I will be leaving a RAD workshop in Kent at 8pm on the 8th, my train from Peterborough leaves at 9.45am the following morning, its not going to give me much time for sleep, so I must catch that up on the train.

I am really touched by such wonderful caring comments from you all, I really appreciate them. So thank you all so very very much. For me I am taking a halfway position but keeping it under review. As I have indicated in an earlier posting Tuesday is my heaviest day, I am removing 3.5hours of dance endurance from that particular day. The remaining days are a lot less arduous and in any case we are almost up to term break for Christmas. Whilst with the physio, she has copied me the 13 pages from her reference book which amongst other things describes “Alfredson’s painful heel-drop protocol” in detail, she is very confident in its effectiveness and she is also fully aware of my existing ballet commitment. At the end of the day I am seriously trying to achieve the best possible compromise while my Achilles strengthens and heals, even though the exercise protocol is painful to start with.

Hi Balleteacher The Physio asked a number of questions in order to investigate the cause of the pain like badly fitting shoes etc, in the end her conclusion was the same as mine, overuse, especially when I mentioned my Tuesday could extend to seven and a half hours of ballet when I add on my hour of Ref practice at Pineapple, and a further half hour before class at ENB. I know that’s not every day, but I generally have multiple classes most day, and on top of that I attend most Rep workshops going. The condition appears to be well known and understood, its called Achilles tendinopathy, the exercise treatment suggested by my physio is know as “Alfredson’s painful heel-drop protocol”. This is strait out of Brukner and Khan, Clinical Sports Medicine BE, McGraw-Hill Profession”. During the session with my physio, other observations came out: My arches we considered to be low, when I did a releve my right heel appeared to roll in a little. When I stood normally, I appear to put my weight on to one foot, but it could be either foot. I tend to stand on the ball of my foot rather than the heel fully down, I very much agree with that observation as I often get told off on changement that I don’t fully put my heels down. No real conclusion was drawn from all that. My balance in the physios consulting room was also rubbish, but I think that was just a bad day, she suggested going to a gym and using a wobble board, but I told her I already have one. I started the day (Tuesday) with the heel-drop exercises as recommended, it was somewhat painful to start with but eased a little as I did more reps. Then it was off to my Dance Fever class at Castle Sports in Spalding, when I got there the car park was, I had to park a 10 minute walk away, that made me late and I was trying to rush to the class, my right ankle was giving me hell and I almost aborted going there. The dance fever class(Fusion of ballet and latin) was quite hard on my feet as there was quite a lot of jumping, which was on a hard gym floor. But never the less I survived it, after I had a coffee with the girls and walked back to the car in a less hurried fashion, that was a lot easier on my feet. At this point I was extremely unsure about doing my two classes at ENB, but surprising when I got off the train at Kings Cross they were not as bad as my previous visit, although I still had quite a limp. At ENB I told both of my teachers prior to starting class as I was very apprehensive about being able fully do both classes. As it was I did, furthermore when I left, my feet were in a far better shape than when I arrived. Although they were starting to get a little painful by the time I had walked (20 minute) to the tube station, they were in a far better condition than my previous visit. I think the improvement, although only one exercise session, has contributed to it, but it has also helped by suspending my visit to Pineapple. I really do need to get a significant improvement in the short term, as I have another normal week after this one, then I’m committed to 15 successive days of ballet. Hi 2dancersmum The overall condition has been developing since about July as far as I can recall. As for GP’s, I’m sorry I don’t have much faith in them to provide effective diagnosis or treatment for this type of condition other than hurriedly writing a prescription for pain relief.

Hi Lin Your memory fails you, I posted the RAD workshop on 2nd of October and you responded to it. See link http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/5004-new-adult-repertoire-workshops-from-royal-academy Don't forget, although its not on their site yet, but they will be running a Cinderella Rep workshop in February.

Went to see the Physio today, that was a very painful experience when she found the fluid build-up on my ankles. While I was there she massage them and treated them with ultra sound, she has shown me how to massage them too. I have some exercises to do which will also strengthen it using a step or ledge. There are two types, the first using strait legs is called the gastrocnemius drop, and the second with knees flexed at 45 degrees called the solius drop. Basically I go from demi-pointe through flat to the foot pointing up on the ledge then to repeat, one foot steps on demi-pointe and then the other. The exercise set by my physio calls for 3 x 15 reps of each, twice a day, 7 days a week for 12 weeks. I did my Lincoln class tonight; I did get a bit of a reprieve as we were going through costumes for our show. My teacher brought a pile of romantic tutu’s in, although I have my own, both my teacher an I took in a range of coloured leotards, as many of the girls only have black ones. So about a third of the class time was spent discussing what to wear. Unfortunately we did not finish part 3 of the show sequence. Most of this time my ankles and legs were playing up, I think it was aggravated by the pain I felt when the fluid areas were pressed in the afternoon. Tomorrow (Tuesday) which is my heaviest ballet day, I think I will suspend Pineapple for a while to give my ankles a fighting chance to recover, aided by my new exercises.