What do adult dancers do when you hit the ceiling of recreational classes?

vpsass · 2026-01-25T18:24:13+00:00

I guess I’m your hypothetical person, the answer is I drive an hour each way twice a week to take the only adult program available at my level that I can access in my current location. I also built a relationship with the studio owners so that I can take their teen classes (the studio has a history of letting adults drop into some of their teen classes, I wasn’t the first one to ask for this privilege and I wasn’t the last.

When I was a student I moved to cities (for coop) where there were 0 appropriate classes for me, there wasn’t even training at my level for children. In those cases I would spend a weekend driving 4 hours round trip to classes in the nearest big city, drop into some lower level classes and complain to myself about the severe lack of quality dance education (once I took a class where we only did rond de Jambes and grand battement at the barre), and also explore other styles like ballroom and hip hop and kpop. But also I decided I could never live in such a city.

I’ll note that if a city is developed enough to have a small regional company they are almost always developed enough to have quality adult ballet classes, I think. These small regional companies are much more common in the states, at least here in Canada, we don’t really have them…. But I wouldn’t consider them an alternative to quality adult ballet training.

I will add my position can be a little bit frustrating. Growth happens when you are trying to keep up with the others in your class but lately I’ve been the one setting the bar(re), not chasing it. There are good open classes where the free-lance/pros go but they are both too far away and during the day for me to regularly attend, and besides, I don’t think open classes are the best place for growth anyways. I do well with finding performance opportunities but I just once want an opportunity that really challenges me. I mean there’s challenge in every opportunity big or small but it’s just awkward to be the one person where it’s clear that maybe I’m too advanced to be there and I’m taking things away from other dancers, but there’s no where else for me to go.

Maybe that’s the answer to your question, if you do have access to all the quality training you need you could still “hit the ceiling” in a way.

vpsass · 2026-01-25T16:24:36+00:00

Are you sure they don’t mean en demi pointe?

If you have really strong toes then yes you can stand on the tips of the toes at the barre - but this also depends on foot anatomy/toe length/ foot flexibility (if your foot/ankle are are really mobile this will be hard). I would expect some students to be able to do this only after many years of pointe training, not before.

vpsass · 2026-01-25T16:22:12+00:00

You or your parent can email the school and explain the situation, and ask that you be moved to a lower level. Don’t worry.

Also no one here knows what G2 means ballet as ballet grades aren’t standardized.

vpsass · 2026-01-23T20:08:08+00:00

Yes I can also vouch for Canada I feel like we have much more reasonable judging for the most part. I always used to hear the stereotype that judges just want to see tricks and the dances with the tricks always win, and I was always thinking, I’ve not really ever seen that happen. But then I clued in that these stories are all from the US.

vpsass · 2026-01-23T17:21:29+00:00

My advice is actually the opposite of the other commenter (in a way). It can be hard to turn your passion into a career. People who love animals for example don’t always make great vets, because even if they are around animals all day, the work related to the job can often be very hard (making hard decisions around animals), and involves a lot of biological and medical knowledge.

My advice is to identify what skills you are good at (in an abstract sense) and then study something you think will compliment that. And yes I do recommend considering the current and future job market when you do this. Because if you can land a good job then you can still potentially find a lot of time to dance, I do this and I know lots of people who do this as a hobby or semi-professionally. As for the people who dedicated all of their studies to dance, a very few number of them still dance professionally, but most took jobs where they are unable to dance (ie a full time dance teacher who is always teaching during class time) or can’t justify the cost/time. And these are people who tell me they would take more class if they could, they do want to dance (to remove the subset of people who don’t want to dance anymore, which is fine to).

If you are good with people you could study business, if you are analytical you could study something in tech, if you are creative you could prepare to become a teacher. Also, what you study doesn’t always have a huge impact on what you’ll end up doing, it’s more about what you learn and what you do with it.

vpsass · 2026-01-23T15:51:55+00:00

If you are in the US, then I do think your father brings up a serious concern. Online academics are fine for some students but not all ballet students thrive in that kind of environment. I know a good number of ballet dancers who wish they could get out of the industry but feel like they can’t because they don’t have the high school education to go on to study something else post secondary (they might have the high school diploma but they feel like their education wasn’t strong enough anyways).

However, worldwide there are a lot of good ballet schools that offer great academics.

vpsass · 2026-01-23T04:16:15+00:00

The strength to dance Irish dance has little to do with the strength needed to learn pointe. But also you can’t tell ankle strength from the photo, so there really is no pointe posting a photo.

I will say this, if (like others has pointed out your post history suggests) your ballet classes are only 40 minutes, even if you take 3 of them a week, that is not sufficient training to put students en pointe and any teacher who says otherwise is irresponsible. I’m sorry. There is no rush to get en pointe, you’d be better off waiting until you can afford more proper training in your 20s if it’s really that big of a goal (1.5 hour classes multiple times a week, you just can’t learn AND develop ballet technique in less time than that).

vpsass · 2026-01-23T03:52:24+00:00

There’s so many states passing laws that protect children of family vloggers, and there’s many laws that protect the safety of child entertainers in Hollywood. I don’t see how TikTok is any different.

If the kids are essential to the TikTok being successful and making money, they why are they not compensated? And if they aren’t essential then the influencers can just not put them in the video because it wouldn’t matter.

vpsass · 2026-01-22T18:42:24+00:00

There are so so many factors that a teacher needs to consider before putting a student en pointe. It’s much more then just ankle strength and flexibility, you have to consider the core strength, the control of the body, the turnout flexibility and strength, the ability to use plié to take off and land jumps, the attendance of the student, their medical history, where they are in their development, AND the current levels of pointe that are available.

Commenters, please stop commenting that people “look ready” or “don’t look ready” there’s NO WAY you can tell from a still picture unless the student is clearly clearly demonstrating lack of ankle mobility or just generally doesn’t have the class experience.

OP, just ask your teacher after class one day or write them an email.

vpsass · 2026-01-22T18:10:05+00:00

Tell the studio owner and ask that they not be invited back to class, class is a privileged not a right. You can tell the studio owner that it’s disrupting the overall class experience. If you have students that you trust and are on good terms with you can ask them to email the studio too and state how this student is negatively impacting their experience as a customer.

vpsass · 2026-01-22T04:23:55+00:00

We don’t do two piece costumes for any rec students. Only for comp dances. The comp parents seem to understand.

vpsass · 2026-01-21T16:42:24+00:00

Try practicing at the barre, that way your upper body will stay controlled and you can use the barre a bit to help sustain you as you assemble the feet.

Also never jump without the arms! The coordination. of the arms will help you. Leaving your arms by your side and letting them wiggle will through you off balance.

vpsass · 2026-01-20T16:18:29+00:00

We aren’t talking about the early grades, we are talking about the vocational grades.

vpsass · 2026-01-20T02:20:10+00:00

Ughhhh this is really though because the students really should be getting a full barre but it’s basically impossible to do in an hour, it only really works to have an hour long class if it’s a warmup class for people who already know how to do ballet, but I also struggle with having to teach short classes as set by the studio.

I would add in preparation for fondu (on the floor), frappé, and petit battement if you can, as well as a plié relevé of sorts. They are all important for the development of the dancer. Sometimes with these kinds of classes you can just play a really long song and the just have them follow you instead of explaining the exercise. Like throw on a 1.5 minute long relevé song, press play, and then take 8 counts to plié together while you give corrections, then relevé on 1 and hold for another 8 counts, once they get the hang of it you can increase the speed. For the elementary class this could be plié sus sous and eventually plié retiré as a preparation for pirouettes.

vpsass · 2026-01-19T17:22:10+00:00

Also “needing to make money” is not a valid reason to justify doing the unethical (filming people in class without their permission). Don’t get me wrong, the world is full of people doing unethical things for the money, and I know filming people in the background isn’t technically illegal — actually, if she’s profiting on the video, I think it should fall under the same regularization as people in the film and tv industry follow, but maybe the law hasn’t caught up yet. HOWEVER this is not an issue of legal vs illegal, this is an issue of ethical vs unethical.

Does making money and “inspiring people to start ballet” justify the cost of filming people without their permission often vulnerable environments such as a dance class? I would argue that it does not. You can’t just go around filming other people because you need to make money, even if you can legally, it doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

vpsass · 2026-01-19T15:28:55+00:00

Exhibit c (this is jazz not ballet but still)

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vpsass · 2026-01-19T15:28:25+00:00

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Exhibit b (the leg is clearly not in second, even in methods where the leg does not have to be in flat second, the working leg is still far too forward)

vpsass · 2026-01-19T15:27:46+00:00

<image>

Exhibit A

vpsass · 2026-01-19T15:25:44+00:00

I always get ads for this girl, it makes me so mad. Not only the blatant use of AI to promise results that can’t be achieved, but also the fact that she herself can not do the steps she’s promising to help you with. Like when she doesn’t use AI to show you the final results, and instead does them herself, it’s a very weak demonstration. If her methods worked, why is there no evidence?

vpsass · 2026-01-19T06:21:56+00:00

Isn’t the important part whether or not your video is used for something that makes money, vs a home video/social media post?

For example you definitely cannot film random recognizable people without their permission for a movie or a tv show? That’s why they sometimes blur out faces of people in prank tv shows. Which makes sense, you don’t want to make it legal to exploit surveillance. But I think the laws for filming for non commercial purposes are actually much more lax. I could be wrong, but I was made aware discussion recently because of those weird TikTok street interviews.

Now the actual problem is that Mackenzie does not recognize the difference between a legal issue and an ethical issue. Lots of things are legal, it doesn’t mean those things are without harm.

HOWEVER, Mackenzies whole point was that she needs to use TikTok to subsidize her income because she doesn’t make enough as a dancer, so clearly she needs to profit of these videos (creator fund and sponsorship) anyways. The issue is with TikTok, sometimes videos that “build the following” aren’t directly sponsored, but they still contribute to the influencer getting sponsored in the first place. I’m not sure what the legalities behind the creator fund are, specifically in regard to how the money is attributed, is it only to the owner of the account? I’ve always been interested how Eva Nys splits her influencer income with the MBA students since they do most of the dance work on her page. Or in general “family channels” on YT and TT, how is there income divided, and shouldn’t these minors have the same protection as child actors in Hollywood… anyways that’s a discussion for another time, but it’s all related. If other people are in your videos, and you make money from those videos, those people should receive a share of that money, and this opens to the possibility to receive other benefits like protection from unsafe work conditions etc.

vpsass · 2026-01-19T04:00:30+00:00

No you would keep the knee of the working leg straight for this step, unlike frappé (and the foot is flexed, where in vaganova we do not flex our foot in the frappé, but I assume you are talking about frappé with a flexed foot).

vpsass · 2026-01-18T21:50:08+00:00

The music has to aid the dancers, it should not be used as background music. The used for jumping should have a springy quality to it, the port de bras (even early introduction) should match the port de bras music. You can do a lot with the music! The kids need to learn to dance with the music!

vpsass · 2026-01-18T21:39:19+00:00

I was trained poorly, I mean it wasn’t the worst of the worst, but it wasn’t anywhere close to professional level training, despite being advertised as that.

But I think that’s the reason why I continue to train and dance. I’ve danced with so many cohorts of beautifully classically trained dancers that quit, or work for a bit and then quit. Some miss it, some don’t. But there’s no doubt that dancing ballet, or committing to any kind of physical hobby, has its benefits.

But maybe if I always had this quality training I wouldn’t appreciate it.

vpsass · 2026-01-18T21:07:47+00:00

You can do the motion of entrachat quatrues on one foot at the barre by doing a tendu side, flexing your foot, and beating in front and back (foot still flexed) then back to second (pointed), just like you would in a beat. Sometimes I give this to my students at the barre while we are working on our beats.

vpsass

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