I Had No Words

I like to talk. I talk a lot. It's pretty rare for me to be rendered speechless, but last night it happened. Twice.

The first time I was teaching the five-year-olds. The grandmother of one of my dancers walked into my studio and started correcting her granddaughter and criticizing how I had set up my room. I was absolutely speechless. 

In retrospect, there were many things I could (and maybe should) have said. For example:

• It is inappropriate and disruptive for you to interrupt class.
• Please set up an appointment to discuss concerns about your dancer.
• She is five. She is doing just great.
• Your correction and the expectation that goes along with it is unreasonable for this level in your dancer's development.
• You have made your granddaughter cry. You need to back off.

Basically anything would have been better than the deer-in-the-headlights look I sported. But I am trying to cut myself some slack because this had never happened to me before. Everyone is bad at something the first time they try. Apparently this extends to dealing with overbearing grandmothers.

The second time I had nothing to say last night was after I had taught my eight-year-olds. One little girl stayed after class and happily said,

"Miss Chelsea, guess what?"

"What?" I asked, bending down to her eye level.

"My mom parked on my cat."

I mean, really, what's the appropriate response to that?

Sissone Tip

I'm full of good explanations

I started teaching sissone en avant this month. The trouble we're having is that some kids are trying to do a grand jeté instead of a sissone. So I've been explaining that sissone goes up before it goes out. Apparently it's a fairly tricky concept.

Last night I talked about how sissone is a fireworks step. Fireworks go way up in the air before they explode. "What happens if fireworks explode before they go up?" I asked.

"They blow up people!" was the emphatic, and correct, response.

"Right," I said, "Mass carnage is bad."

And then, in a moment of reserved brilliance, one of my very quietest dancers muttered, "Bless their hearts."

I laughed out loud. 

I take my work very seriously, but I also manage to have a really great time. 

Best Excuse Ever

I get pretty grouchy when girls come to ballet class with their hair down. I am not a control freak (okay, I totally am, but that's not why this bugs me)--having your hair down makes it hard to dance. And asking the teacher to do it assumes that I have nothing to do before class.

But . . . I had a little girl come to class with her hair down with an excuse so good, I laughed out loud. Apparently if you are clever, I will bend the rules for you. Here's her excuse, verbatim:

Miss Chelsea, I'm sorry my hair is down. We had family pictures this afternoon and it took longer than my mom expected because my brothers had to participate.

"My brothers had to participate." That is fabulous!

Back in the Swing of Things

Okay, so my blogging took a summer break too. But I'm back! And here's where I'm at:

• I think this article has good information on dealing with ankle sprains. You've probably already found it on your own, but I wanted to make sure.
• The beginning of the school year is always a little jarring to me as a teacher. We start our year at our studio at the beginning of August so I have a couple of weeks with the kids before school starts. Everything is humming along and then, BAM!, school starts and their poor brains just aren't used to it. Progress is pretty limited for the first month or so. It's okay. It has to get hard before it gets better.
• Intermediate classes are hard to teach because you are teaching the kids how to take class--it's their first time without a set barre, or set music, and the expectations get a lot higher. I'll write more about this soon, but this transition is rough on everyone in the room.

All in all, I am very happy to be back. I love my job!

Egg On My Face

These girls are older than the girls in this story, but whatever

The other day I was teaching the five-and-six-year-olds. We were pretending to ride unicorns. (This accomplishes many goals at once: we worked on pony canters [a good prep for pas de chat], a manege pattern, and building dexterity in wrists and fingers). At the end of the exercise I said, "Wave goodbye as your unicorn flies away!"

"Miss Chelsea," said my little stickler, "unicorns don't fly. You're thinking of a pegasus."

Clearly I need to bone up on my mythical creatures before tomorrow's class.

That One Time I Got Mad

image courtesy of sillygirlrunning

Really, I don't get mad often. It's just not my style. I can get disappointed and I have elevated frustration to new levels of unhealthy, but mad just isn't me.

But then there was that one time . . .

I was new in town and tried a class at a studio where a friend was teaching. They didn't have an adult open class so I tried the advanced class. The teacher was 40 minutes late. When she did arrive, she didn't even bother apologizing and no one was surprised that she was late. She looked at me and said "With a 2-hour class we run out of stuff to do if we start on time." This was not a good sign.

Then she proceeded to lead us through a jazz warm up. I have no issue with jazz classes at all, but if I'm there to take a ballet class I really want to take a ballet class. But the teacher insisted that we needed to warm up first. I can sort of see the point; a lot of new research is showing that a short cardio warm up before barre can be really beneficial. However, this was a 15-minute warm up. We now had 65 minutes left in class.

Next we skipped pliés because "we are already warm." Have you ever taken a ballet class where you skipped pliés? Because you shouldn't. Ever.

Tendus, dégagés and rond de jambes were fine. But when it came time to do adagio she didn't like the tempo of the music so we used the petit battements music. And grand battements were done to a very legato fondu song because, again, she liked the tempo better. I ask you: what good is it to do an exercise if you completely ignore the quality of the movement?! Now I'll answer my own question: none whatsoever. Quality of movement effects muscular development and no self-respecting ballerina would mess with that. This is the part where I started seething.

Center work was . . . uninspiring. But worst of all it gave me a chance to watch other dancers (since we did it all in groups) and those poor dancers were terrible! Those poor girls were coming to class four days a week and had nothing to show for it. As a teacher, I find that inexcusable.

There was one girl in class who was clearly very naturally gifted and the teacher was obviously catering to her. Every center exercise was built around her strengths and preferences. Sure, she was fun to watch, but that left everyone else stranded without attention (desperately needed) from a teacher. {Side note: I don't think the person leading this class should be called a teacher. Does anyone have a suggestion for another term?} And the talented girl was being handicapped too; she wasn't being pushed to strengthen her weaknesses. And since class wasn't balanced at all, there was no way she could be the best dancer possible.

I felt sad for all of the students. Most of them were wasting their time and the good one wasn't as good as she was being led to think she was. One audition into her career and she would learn that there were all kinds of steps she didn't know. Like petit allegro.

Oh yes, the class completely skipped all petit allegros. And medium allegros. Just a grand allegro because "we are running short on time." Perhaps because we wasted the first hour, hmmm?

When I left class I hurt, and not in the good way. Class was unbalanced, had no natural progression, was musically a nightmare and just generally felt bad. I knew there were less-skilled teachers out there, but I had no idea "bad ballet" could get so ugly. I was angry. Ballet, and her students, deserved better.

In case you're wondering, that studio went out of business less than a year later.

They Missed the Point

The other day a couple of firemen came to the studio. They were examining the businesses in the complex to make sure that if there was an emergency we could all get out quickly. We passed. That's not the point.

The firemen had never seen a ballet class before. We had a great opportunity to do some informal outreach and our office manager did a terrific job of answering their questions. That's not the point either.

The dancers the firemen were watching were our pre-professional company and a surprising number of them were unnerved having an audience. This surprised me. I mean, ballet is a performance art. The goal is to someday have someone watch what you're doing. The girls in class were so preoccupied being nervous about having an audience that they missed what I consider to be the high point of the day.

The point is this: Guys, look at the hot firemen. Yay!

Why a Dress Code is a Good Thing

image courtesy of 5minutesformom.com

Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged. Sorry about that. My only excuse is that teaching small children roughly equates to teaching adorable petri dishes full of highly contagious germs.

Anyway, I love having a dress code. I have a friend who thinks that ballet is just a ridiculous collection of rules. Okay, I can see his point, but a lot of those rules serve a purpose. And a dress code serves many purposes at once.

I like uncluttered dress codes (think the opposite of Fame) because, as a teacher, I get a clear view of what's happening on a body. I don't know if you're really stretching your knees if they're always hidden under baggy sweats; I don't know how your posture is if you're wearing a giant shirt stolen from your dad's closet; and those wide-necked shirts that make you stand just a little off-kilter to keep it on your shoulders make you look like maybe you should be evaluated by a medical professional for scoliosis/kyphosis, etc.

Asking students to secure their hair (and I do love a nice bun) is not me being all control-freaky. Little kids especially, but everyone to a degree, have a hard time concentrating if their hair is always falling into their eyes. Hair in a ponytail can whip around and smack you in your eyes when you turn--and it hurts. Hair that falls out halfway through class is a huge distraction to everyone, mostly because I am expected to put it back up again when what I'd really like to do is teach the class. (Also, I am awful at doing hair. I should be your very last resort ever. EVER.)

Don't even get me started on why big jewelry in class is a very bad idea.

Right. Those are very practical reasons. But there's another reason I love having a dress code. These clothes are a uniform. Wearing the clothes designates to everyone that what we're doing in class is not by accident. We came to the studio to do something specific. The dress code helps everyone focus.

These clothes are also a costume. We don't wear them to school, or church, or to the movies, or to the park. (Okay, some little kids do and I think that's adorable, but you get my point.) When we put on the clothes we transform. Instead of being "a person taking a ballet class" we put on the costume and become "a dancer". We all genuinely dance better when we dress the part. It's as if we have set an expectation for ourselves and then live up to it.

Dress codes transform class. 

P. S. The very best way I ever heard to get your reluctant dancer to wear her ballet clothes is to blame "ballet". As in, "Ballet says you have to wear tights." This way mom and dad aren't the bad guys, and neither is the teacher. This nebulous, centuries-old "ballet" has set the rules and we all have to follow them. Many thanks to my friend Mary for the tip!

Impromptu Teaching

You can tell when a given picture of me was taken based on my hair length and/or color

I never show up to class and just wing it. I always have carefully planned classes with predetermined objectives. And I'm a better teacher because of it. However, sometimes the universe presents opportunities to try something new.

Since it's spring break my regular studio has cancelled classes. Since I can't go more than two days without dancing, I found another studio to take class at. But the teacher never arrived. So there we were without a teacher, and the secretary asked if I would just teach. I figured why not?

Here are some tips on teaching without preparation:

• take a lot of classes so that your brain has lots and lots of combinations and class outlines readily rememberable. (Is anyone else shocked that my spell check recognized "rememberable" as a real word? Just me?)
• try to tease out what other teachers' objectives are as you are taking class
• when a teacher gives a class-wide correction, watch to see if the next exercise incorporates that correction

Okay, technically those are tips to become more prepared. Here's some advice on what to do in the moment:

• keep your barre exercises short. Even the best-planned classes have trouble fitting everything in; short barre exercises will help you have enough time for center work
• it's okay to ask adults what they want to work on that day, and then let that guide you. Don't ask kids 
• center work will ideally include a center tendu or adagio (to help everyone get on their leg), an en dedans turn, an en dehors turn, and petit, medium and grand allegros. I like to make the petit allegro long to make sure we get a good cardio element 
• it's always best when the grand allegro incorporates elements you've already worked on in class. That way everyone can focus on feeling grand and wonderful instead of worrying about the individual pieces of the combination. If you can end on a good-feeling grand allegro, most people will have a really good feeling about the entire class

While I never know if people actually enjoy my classes or just smile because it's polite, everyone was smiling throughout the evening. And I had a great time!

Spring Break

image from susangage.com

This week is spring break at local studios. I have to say, I'm relieved. Students do funny things when they'd rather be outside playing.

Older students get kind of sluggish. Bless their hearts--they just aren't as quick on remembering combinations, their jumps aren't quite as high, and when you ask them to go to the corner for a grand allegro they saunter slowly.

Little kids get wired. Oh my goodness, those little ones almost literally bounce off the walls! They forget that the dance studio is a special place (code for "don't play tag") and if you blink, you find them jumping off the barres.

The older kids will return from spring break a little more motivated. The little kids will still be adorably nuts, but I will have had a week to recharge and prepare for the rest of the year. Spring break is a very good thing.

On Teaching My Own Kid

Teaching 6-year-olds is fun

I was really nervous to teach my daughter's class because I really, really don't want to turn into a psycho dance mom. But we've both ended up really liking it. We've settled upon a slightly schizophrenic approach to class (which is ironic considering how I specifically don't want to be a psycho dance mom). Mother-and-daughter is one relationship; Miss Chelsea-and-dancer is a completely different thing.

I like that I get to see her progress every single week, but I miss out on watching the demonstration classes. I like that I know exactly what's going on in her dance education, but I don't want to get used to that because I won't be her teacher forever. I love spending time with her doing something we both enjoy, but I want her to have her own thing too.

I was nervous my daughter would be a little sassy or less respectful because, duh, I'm her mom. She's only sassed me once and I handled it just like every other time a little kid gets mouthy in class. (I give them a small sideways hug and ask "Is that how you speak to a teacher?" It's worked every time.) And given her age, being mouthy once in two years is simultaneously age-appropriate and very good.

I was nervous I would be harder on my own kid than everyone else's. Every once in a while this happens. But my daughter saves her comment for when we are in the car going home and then she says, "You know, mom, I'm not your assistant. It's okay for me to not be perfect." She's right.

When I tuck her in at night I always ask, "How was ballet class?" I don't think she appreciates this because her response is usually, "You were there. You know how class went." I explain that I know how I thought it went, but I also want to know what she thought of the class. If I didn't ask how class went I wouldn't know that standing next to C bothers her because he is distracting, or that A is her favorite ballet friend right now. I wouldn't know that her favorite step is balancé, or that she misses doing the freeze dance game like she did in pre-ballet. 

I'm glad I touch base with her. It helps reconcile the strange mother/teacher split we live with.

Outsmarted!

image courtesy of picgifs.com

I've decided to do more work on acting in my classes. Not me acting--helping the kids develop acting skills. Right now we're doing guided improvisation at the very end of class.

Kids never cease to amaze me with the things they come up with. Some weeks everybody basically looks the same (example: in every class I asked to pretend to be one of the seven dwarfs, every kid just marched around). Other times I am delighted by the range of movement kids come up with.

And then there are the times when the kids just plain outsmart me. Some kids don't like acting or improvising, and they get pretty ingenious when it comes to getting out of the exercise. I'll tell you right now that if you ask a group of children to pretend to be an underwater creature, and your goal is increased movement vocabulary, there are a few things you should outlaw:

• No coral. Coral don't do anything.
• No kelp. Kelp are stationary with a little bit of waving around.
• No anemone. Never mind the part where I was impressed a kid so young could say "anemone"; these things move less than kelp but more than coral.

Kids are smart.

"Affordable" Classes

image courtesy of harnettnews.org

"Can you tell me where to find affordable dance classes?"

Guys, I really hate this question. There are so many reasons I hate this question. Let's put aside my grumpy mood for the moment and just talk about what "affordable" could mean here.

Affordable often means a particular percentage of a family's disposable income. Since I don't know your income or the percentage you're willing to part with, I can't answer this question.

Affordable is also a combination of factors. There's the monthly tuition amount, gas money getting to and from class, and the time commitment. Oh, and the expertise level of the teacher (which may or may not matter to you), not to mention how much your kid wants to take the class.

Sometimes people use the word "affordable" when they really mean "six-week course". It helps if you ask for what you really want.

In the above scenarios, I can't answer the question well because I don't know your situation intimately enough. But those are all pretty easy situations to be in. There are other times "affordable classes" conversations are much more uncomfortable for me.

Sometimes the question is a veiled way of asking me to give a discount. Personally, I can't do that. I do not own my own studio; I am a subcontractor and the class fees aren't set by me. Sure, I could rent some space and give you a private lesson at a discounted rate but it would cost more than the class fee you're trying to get out of. In cases like these, you should be talking directly with the studio owner or director.

Sometimes people start with "affordable" and then jump right into offering to pay me in homemade bread or French lessons for my kids or something. While I love bread, and I think that small-scale trade economies can be very beneficial in some instances, I never agree to this. Mostly because I can't pay my bills in a child fluent in French. But I've noticed that people who suggest a trade payment tend to try to sell you on the arrangement long after you've said the first no.

And then there are the times when this gives someone a chance to explain why they aren't taking class from me. This one doesn't bother me.

I'm not going to be annoyed if you take class from someone else. Honestly. I'll be interested to hear about the good things happening at your studio. If everyone took from me I wouldn't know that Brigham Young University has an amazing boys class or that there is a studio based out of someone's home nearby that specializes in beginning classes. (Which I can't link to because I can't find a website for them, but if you leave a comment I will ask my neighbor for the phone number.) I'll just be happy you're dancing.

I will happily recommend studios to you but they will always be based on the qualities of the program, never on tuition rates. I'll let you decide whether or not the classes are affordable.

Picking a Class for Your Preschooler

Me explaining a sauté

A number of people have asked me about how to pick a dance class for their preschooler. I'm about to be a little blasphemous here but here's my take: If your kid is under the age of eight we don't need to worry so much about amazing technique being taught. If you can find a teacher who trains gorgeous dancers, so much the better. But when I picked a teacher for my daughter, when I recommended a studio for my niece, and when I give friends my opinion on where to take their kids it all comes down to three things.

1. Is the commute something you can comfortably do?
2. Is the cost of lessons affordable for your family?
3. Does your gut feel good about this teacher for your child?

You don't need to have any dance expertise at all to make these decisions. You just need to know yourself and your kid.

Number three is so important. A dance teacher can be a powerful influence in your child's life so it absolutely matters how you feel about them. And a good teacher for your friend's kid might not be a good teacher for yours. For example: I have a pretty loud voice and a fairly large personality. When I get excited (say, by three-year-olds accomplishing something new) those tend to get even bigger. If your preschooler is afraid of adults with loud voices I am not the right teacher for you right now. I am a good teacher, but not the right fit for you. 

It's better to find the best teacher for your kid. We'll all be happier.

Even Ballet has a Dip

                                                                                                                          photo of my own little dancer

First of all, yes, I am referring to Seth Godin's book The Dip. For the purposes of this post you should know that everything worth doing has a Dip. The Dip is the part in between being a beginner and being a master. It isn't much fun, but it's part of becoming the best. (And the book is definitely worth reading.)

It's always interesting to me to see when the Dip is going to kick in for students. It's not dependent on age or even years of training. It happens when a student becomes aware of just how much they've accomplished (usually a lot) but doesn't have the context to know how far they still have to go (always a lot farther).

The Dip usually resolves in one of three ways: 1) the dancer sticks it out and eventually reaches a level where things feel fun again. 2) the dancer decides that this is not worth the work and quits. 3) the dancer decides that the Dip is because the teacher is sub-par and they search elsewhere for a teacher who can skip them past this stage. 

I am against resolution 3.

Granted, some teachers are better than others. And not every teacher is great for every student. So I have no problem with you searching out the best teacher for you. But be clear about why you're looking around. If you're at a school with a good track record for producing the kind of dancer you want to be, you should seriously consider staying there. No teacher has a shortcut to excellence. The only way for you to become truly accomplished is if you do all the hard work along the way. All of it.

And "fun" is going to mean something different when you get through this. When you're first beginning ballet is fun partly because it's so new. You get new tights! New slippers! New leotards! You're learning new steps all the time. You're getting to know your body in a new way. But during the Dip you feel like your tights are dirty, your shoes have holes, you're sick of every leotard you own and you start thinking that if you have to hear about "using your plié" one more time you might scream. 

When it gets fun again part of the reason it's fun is because everything is familiar. The clothes, the vocabulary, and most especially your body. It's fun because it's part of you and there's nowhere else on earth like class. There is a freedom that comes with knowing what you're doing.

How much work does it take to get through the Dip? I can't say for certain, but I know that I did more than 30 glissades last week alone. It absolutely gets fun again, but the only ways out of a Dip are to quit or to push through.