Michelle_Richer

Hi Lin The RAD class sounds fantastic and especially having the bonus of it being local too. For me I have to travel every where usually up to 40miles, a little further at my new Lincoln class tomorrow (Monday) as the Universities performing arts department is the wrong side of Lincoln, so I’m not sure of the mileage, perhaps about 45miles. I do multiple classes most days, except Saturday then its only one with Elite Dance Academy at Grantham. My London day could potentially end up with 5 classes and a local class too. I guess I must really learn to slow down and curb my appetite.

Hi Lin I get prior warning as I'm already in the system, that why I started on level 1, I originally contact them via email as I wanted to do levels 2 and 3 in parallel, but was told they were already fully booked, it did turn out that level 3 wasn't, but I didn't know that at the time. If you are only going for a single class, you have the option of a number of days. Tuesday is the only day I have free, as I have multiple classes on the others. My plan now is once I've completed levels 2 and 3 for this next term, then its levels 3 and 4 for the following one and that's most probably where I will stay for a while, while the teachers continue to bring new material to the class. Slightly off subject: Have you ever done "Conditioning for dance" at DanceWorks, it see its available from 6 -7 on Tuesdays, I may try it as a fill in on the ENB break, however it is just do-able between my Pineapple class the late ENB class.

Hi Lin You pay on Line, when the new classes are available they will show, just go to "what's on". Most classes are available most nights of the week, so there are 4 classes running, that is two classes at the same time. I think levels two and 4 are first then levels 1 and three. That is for Tuesdays. I'm not sure of the order for the other days. The only class that's different and I think only on a Friday, not sure of its name but it dance conditioning or fitness. You will see it under "classes". If you don't want to pay on-line I would suggest you ring them when the classes are visible on the site. According to an email I received some time ago, I should receive notification on the next terms classes starting in July, the first week in June, that's next week. Not sure when it goes public.

Hi Lin I found this on the ENB website and thought it may be of interest. The next Taster Classes will take place on Friday 23 August. These classes provide you with an opportunity to sample either a Level 2 or a Level 4 class without the committment of signing up to a full term. Please note that booking for these classes has not yet opened. To receive notification of when these classes go on sale,make sure you are signed-up to our Adult Ballet mailing list - email your details to classes@ballet.org.uk Needless to say I will be trying out the taster for level 4, as I will try and do levels 3 and 4 in the same evening for that term.

Hi Lin No the wedding is not mine. I received an invitation last weekend from my brother in laws Grand Son. I guess there will be music at the reception after the meal. I will find it almost impossible to resist using the disco (assuming they have one) to get everyone on the dance floor doing strolls which I’m happy to lead. I have quite a repertoire from the dance parties I attend. Only and only, if it’s conducive to add a ballet performance (Single track), I will do it as a tribute (full costume). Firstly the track is “Lover’s tears”, so I must turn it around with a happy ending through mime (Something else I need to learn). I have found a few examples of mime on Youtube, I also found an old listing of Anjuli’s that was very helpful, plus I have ordered a mime DVD from RAD. I did body Balance this morning; I ask sports centre about borrowing an un-booked sports hall, but unfortunately I have to pay. I desperately need a large studio, as yesterday in Pineapple I had to change the orientation of a lot of the sequence for the audience, my own studio is too small, so I have to zigzag the sequence which give false orientation when it’s danced on a full floor. As for ENB, the only thing I can say, keep checking the website, the only ones I know of, have just gone and they were advertised internally. I did level 3 and it was fantastic. Originally I wanted to do levels two and three together, which is possible, but most classes get fully booked very quickly. Internal dancers get advance notice, that’s why I had to take level one to get into the system. But even so, nothing in guaranteed, even though my teachers and also the head of learning know of my determination to do these two classes in parallel. I just have to wait for the notification and hope I get in early enough. As for my first performance, I must have something ready for next Thursday when Kings Lynn are back, as I have to perform my choreography to that track to the class, so no pressure! It will be a work-in-progress version

Should have read, including pirouettes landing in arabesque en l Air. It was late, my Tuesday trips to London for ballet usually result in 1AM returning back home.

Well I never thought I would say this, but the weekend was a really nice break from ballet, I finally got a chance to spend some time and loose myself in the garden, it was wonderful and the weather was very kind too. I even see a beautiful electric blue kingfisher flying down the river adjacent to my home. But today (Tuesday) was my first day back to ballet with Pineapple Studios and ENB. Pineapple was really good, we did a sequence including pirouettes landing in an arabesque, a new one for me, and it didn’t go too bad either. I even got the boro of a studio after class to work on my Choreography, especially as I have possible a new requirement, to dance it at a wedding reception. That is still a maybe at the moment. So there’s lots of changes to do and mime to be added, as it needs to tell a story with a happy ending. ENB was good as usual, but was told we only have another couple of weeks to go for this term and not sure when we get notification of bookings for the next classes as they are generally over subscribed. Only one session left this week and that’s rehearsal Wednesday night, must practice that in the afternoon so its squeaky clean and well polished.

Lin: ENB’s grading system starts at level 1 for beginners through to level 4 advanced, so I guess level 3 is highish. Aurora: That’s fantastic I’m glad Body Balance meets with your approval. My favourite fitness combination was a stretch and tone class that followed ballet class, it was also run by my ballet teacher at the time. It was similar to a no-stop Zumba session for 15 – 20 minutes as a warm-up prior to stretching, that warm up was very effective in increasing flexibility for stretching. That was my most flexible time and I do miss that class now, which occurs at the same time as my Angles Theatre rehearsals, but when our show is finished I’m thinking of adding back in on time share of one week in four. I went to Salsa tonight, but cancelled my Sunday Awesome abs class and my part in the Salsa performance at Carrington Country Fair as I really need to claw back time. I still have another Salsa event on Sunday night which I will be at. My garden and my home hardly ever see me other than for sleep.

I had a wonderful night at ENB last night, I attended their Level 3 taster and it was fantastic. I was a little worried about my knee before we started as I had a gentle reminder in the morning from my local class as we did jumps on the village hall hard floor, I said to Nicky my teacher I would be holding back a bit because of my knee, and I could feel it wasn’t fully healed. Although I did a lot of walking in London that afternoon, my knee was fine. I only had one incident in class and that was something I had never done before. We were doing Plié, the second demi we were doing was with a simultaneous back bend, I think I must have been trying to go too far and allowed the back bend to go down into my legs, I cant remember which position it was in as we were doing first, second, fourth crossed and fifth. It felt as if my knee had popped, the pain was excruciating, but immediately I came back it stopped, the amazing thing is, it had no lasting effect. We did go on to do jumps and that was fine with the sprung floor. My highlight of the evening was, when everyone had left except my teacher, we were able to go through my introduction choreography to a piece I’m doing, I wanted to add feeling with mime to the introduction Port de bra, she had come up with some brilliant ideas, so we danced them together, that really was fantastic, she is so so very helpful and enthusiastic, I think she is my favourite teacher now. I think I have managed to recruit another dancer from ENB last night for the RAD repertoire workshop, so that must be filling up nicely now.

Yes Lin: Body Balance is done to music. In-fact every exercise I do is done to music including those in my Gym at home. Somehow it helps endurance and makes things a lot easier, I usually use the faster paced Latin beats. Even at the Awesome Abs class I attend on Sunday mornings is accompanied by music. Coming back to Body Balance classes which I do twice a week, many of the stretches can be found in “The Front Splits Fast Flexibility Program (DVD set)”, Mary Helen Bowers Book “Ballet Beautiful” and Eric Franklins book “Conditioning for Dance”. So for me Body Balance does have merit, secondly its much nicer when you are doing it in the company of others, even if they have no interest in ballet. Two other sources of inspiration are DVD’s I picked up at the Royal Opera House shop “Pilates + Preparation for Ballet students DYNAMIC 5TH with Dreas Reyneke” and “Turning out Dancers ADVANCED PILATES with Dreas Reyneke” I have also found the Scottish Ballet’s video “Core De Ballet” very useful, especially for cool down. Now things are eased off for next week, I may get chance to rationalise my own workout training plan but utilising many of the aspects covered in these DVD’s and remove duplication where necessary too. It not about working harder, it’s about working smarter.

Hi Aurora Its not designed to be particularly strenuous, certainly the way its presented by my teacher but I always try a go the extra mile and stretch further than the class generally. This is something I keep meaning to add to my own workout routines which my teacher refers to as the Indie Squat (Its in preparation for something called the Birdie Pose and that's not very popular at the moment). The Indie Squat is designed to open up the hips, your certainly feel it and it may have merit in increasing turn out, but that is still to be proven. I have only been going for a month or two myself. Follow the link and see what you think: http://w3.lesmills.com/global/en/classes/bodybalance/about-bodybalance/

Hi Fiz Rehearsal went OK ish tonight, I did have one blank halfway through on one of the run-through’s when I lost concentration. Two of the other girls did the same thing but in other places. Just hope it doesn’t happen in front of an audience. We are still doing rehearsals next week with no half term break. OK about you pirouettes, Arabesques and back bends, wow, I wish I could get a good back bend, I know we do a fair amount of that in my Body Balance class, but not to the extent for good ballet. Good news from RAD, we have 16 confirmed dancers for the “Romeo and Juliet” rep Workshop and I got two more from ENB last night. We won’t be long before we are up to their full capacity of 22 dancers.

After my knee injury Saturday night, I have cancelled everything including fitness and dance classes upto my ENB class last night. But little by little its getting better. Firstly I was worried about going up and down steps especially the underground, as that was giving me grief on Sunday, but that was fine yesterday. However I did get a nasty reminder when dipping the clutch in the car, that certainly seem to find the spot, but by last night even that had gone. Although I missed my dance fever class yesterday morning, I did go and meet the girls and my teacher in the Sports Complex Cafeteria afterwards, just to tell why I was absent. My teacher there “Nicky” is also my local Thursday ballet teacher. I still called in at Pineapple Studio in the afternoon as I had promised RAD I would drop a “Romeo and Juliet” Repertoire Workshop flyer in for one of Pineapple’s notice boards. While there, just by chance I see “Maggie”, my Pineapple ballet teacher, she too had hurt her leg. ENB went well as usual, but I had to hold back on Fondu’s on the left leg, it was only a token bend, but my teacher didn’t say anything, but I did tell her after the class had finished. I also think I have recruited two more for the Romeo and Juliet Repertoire workshop from ENB. I’ve check out fondu’s this morning, whilst I can get down without pain, I still think I’m a little freighted to use it that far. I have a relatively light week left, with Rehearsal tonight, Local class tomorrow morning and ENB again tomorrow night, then that’s it. Next week is also fairly light with bank holiday and half term breaks, so a good chance to fully recover, as I then add another class to my Schedule at Lincoln for the following week.

Hi Lin I always use split sole ballet slippers, my teacher for her Dance fever class uses split sole jazz shoes where everyone else uses trainers. Although it’s a fusion of ballet and Latin, its very aerobic. I'm seriously thinking of getting split soles for that too. Your session sounded fantastic, I'm actively seeking repertoire classes myself. My day yesterday (Saturday) was fantastic but a bit of a disaster too. Ballet was good and I have persuaded my teacher to allow me to video her sequences, a real help for practice and my memory. The third Saturday in every month we have a Salsa Party at a restaurant in Boston, unfortunately the proprietor had mixed the dates up and was expecting us next week. Our organisers found a very nice venue at the last minute. Dancing was going fine until about 10pm, I was on the floor most of the time. Our organisers decided to do something a little different. It was an American dance called the “Wobble” which is danced solo, and is great fun for getting non-dancers on the dance floor. As virtually everyone came on the dance floor it was very crowded, so we extended to two more levels. Three of the organisers were on the top level, I and three others were on the next level and the remainder (about 60) were on the main dance floor. Firstly the music track is quite long, in excess of five minutes, the dance is very aerobic, it certainly works the hips and abs, it also has two small jumps where the whole sequence is repetitive to all four sides of the room. In my case the small jumps weren’t exactly small as I guess I’m a bit of a show off. That was a huge mistake by me, towards the end I could feel a sharp pain in my left knee, obviously I lessen the jumps until it ended, thinking I was otherwise OK. Shortly after I went on the dance floor to dance some Salsa and at certain angles the left foot was agony and had to come off immediately, needless to say I was not a happy bunny with a full week of ballet ahead. I rested for about fifteen minutes and decided to end the evening and go home, especially as I had no sports knee support with me. One the way out, I passed through the bar, the lady behind the bar ask me why I was going so early, I told her I had hurt my knee and It may be a real problem to me next week and why. Another lady at the bar ask me if I did pointe work and I said “not yet”, then she said “do us a pirouette then”, I declined. She was very insistent so I slipped my coat and shoes off, not knowing how slippy the carpet was with ordinary tights, I gently went into a pirouette on my good leg, thinking that was enough to establish my credibility. “Oh show us again” she said, then three guys joined us, about a dozen pirouettes later I had three guys behind me trying to learn pirouettes. It was really good fun and I know they didn’t want me to leave, but that really did bring a smile to my face. So I’m conserving my right leg for next week, especially for my two London trips to ENB.

Hi Lin Musical interpretation for me, is what its all about. I almost choreograph on the fly, I just have to go with the music, it just moves me. I have seen and listened to that artist before, mainly when I did classes at ROH, but I don’t know why, a couple of weeks ago, the music, the acoustics of the square sounded so beautiful and special the tears started to roll, it was really emotional. I made up my mind to following week to go over and buy the CD. Unfortunately the CD doesn’t quite capture the sound as I heard it, but its still extremely good. I have a whole list of music I want to choreograph, but not the time to do it in, and I don’t even think two lifetimes would be enough. But bit by bit I will keep chipping away at it. I think the reverse happens with me with my Salsa experience, I find various ballet steps either fit in (eg Balance’s) to Salsa rhythms or can be adapted (eg Pirouette’s). Sometimes when we exchange partners and I find myself without, its not unusual for me to drop the odd ballet movement or two in and remain in step with a fusion of both styles. For me its just dancing, it naturally comes from within, just love it. Salsa class and dance tonight (Friday), Salsa Party Saturday, Salsa performance at Woodhall Spa Show on Sunday. Must not forget ballet class Saturday too.

Thank you Fiz;, Its not quite the same class, Same teacher but different organisation and location. I have always left Monday evening free just in case my teacher came through, and she did bless her. Had a fantastic night tonight but an unusual one at Kings Lynn. I arrived early as usual as traffic is a bit unpredictable, and waited in there reception / waiting room. Only one other dance arrived and we had a bit of chat. Then I told her of a piece of music I had come across from a Chinese busker (if that’s the right word) who performs just outside ROH in Covent Garden. I had my DVD/CD player in my bag as I use it for playing ballet training DVDs on my rail journeys to and from London. I played my favourite track and told her I was choreographing some ballet to perform with it. Shortly after, whilst the track was still playing my teacher arrived, she immediately fell in love with the track, my dancing friend told her about my choreography. I am now tasked on my next visit in three weeks time to perform my own creation to this track. Although I think it’s a tough assignment as I want to perform it well, I can’t think of a nicer one.

Rehearsal tonight was frustrating, several dancers absent, routines changed since the week before, I ended up facing the opposite way to everyone else. The original routine was thought to be too difficult by the rest when dancing on the opposite foot, so they reversed it back to something that was familiar last week, but nobody told me. For the most part I’m in front and the other dancers are behind me, so I don’t get to see much of what is going on and I’m always conscious of timing. Not a particularly good session for overall progress, but we did finally get to see the stage. Still a few rehearsals to go. Ballet at Lincoln will soon be back, had an email from my teacher, she will be utilising a place in the University and will be back on line with Teens and Adult ballet in June. At some point I will need to start to shed a class or two as I think that will bring it up to 11different sessions.

Welcome to the forum Diarmaid Wow; It looks fantastic, sadly I’m the other end of the age spectrum and excluded, but never mind, I’m at the LAB Summer Intensive that week, but with your guest teacher Richard Ramsey the following week at the Chelsea Ballet Summer school held a Pineapple.

Just back from my London trip (1.00 am) after 5 1/4 hours of classes, my legs seem to have survived, so I think we are out of the woods now, just got to be a little bit careful until things are fully healed. Unfortunately go soaked tonight walking from English National Ballet to South Kensington Tube station, as the subway closes at 10pm.

Did a half hour workout at home this morning before my Body Balance class, then ballet this afternoon at Stamford, both classes I left my knee supports on, they seem to do the trick. At least they didn't let me down on Fondu's. Class was nice but only 6 of us this week, not sure why so many absent this week. London tomorrow (my highest endurance day), think I will keep the knee support on for that one too, then they can come off Wednesday for rehearsal.

Did Awesome Abs today and its back to Ballet tomorrow (Monday), Yippee!

Hi Lin I’ve just emailed my teacher cancelling today’s class; I must confess its getting me down a bit. I think I will do a bit of matt work, Scottish “Core de Ballet” was quite good, haven’t used that for a while, but used to use it as a cool-down, its quite low impact, at least I will be doing something.

The Congress goes on for three or four days, but when you dance Salsa regularly, you don't tire but you do sweat and consume lots of water. Ballet for me is a whole different game, especially with lots fondu's on the same supporting leg or lots of sautés on a hard floor. Those are the things that eventually give me grief. And of course I don't have the same level of stamina.

No but three hours at Pineapple is, then I have an hour in the morning, and one and a quarter hours at ENB at night. I leave home at about 8.45am and return home about 1am the next morning. When I’m at one of my Salsa Congress’s its not unusual for me to dance from 10am during the daily workshops and then in the evening social dancing until 4 – 5am the next morning, with all the usual breaks for meals.

There is some of that in Dreas Reyneke's "Dynamic 5th", which I have, its unlikely I will do nothing. After all this is a bit of a new experience for me as I dance every day. I have Dreas Reyneke's "Advanced Pilates" which I'm about to check out and if I'm really short of material I have Finis Jhung Entire Collection of 41DVD's to go through.