r/BALLET • u/fingertoes88 • Dec 09 '24
Adult students who are obviously not ready for pointework, thoughts?
Recently I came across DUCON's livestream on YouTube, it had a pointe class segment that I watched in full. This is an adults intensive, which means it's not a pre-pro class.
I noticed almost 90% of the ladies in the class were clearly not strong enough to be on pointe. There were very concerning issues like terrible sickle, climbing onto pointe with bent knees in CENTRE, one lady almost snapped her ankle in half trying to get onto releve. This isn't even accounting for other issues like not getting over the box, scary looking knuckling, etc.
Understandably this is probably a 2-3 day intensive, so instructors won't be able to correct these fundamental issues. Obviously they're adults, and adults should do their due diligence before engaging in pointe. Ultimately there's less risk compared to a growing child, but I'm curious what everyone's take is on it. Is there a moral obligation for teachers to encourage those who are clearly not ready to stay at the barre during centre, even if there's a (in my opinion) misplaced sense of confidence?
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u/vpsass Vaganova Girl Dec 09 '24
Without seeing the video myself, it’s hard to assume where each of these students lies on the spectrum of pointe readiness.
On one hand yes, it’s super dangerous to be climbing up onto pointe, and even worse to be dancing with sickled feet en pointe.
On the other hand, everyone and their dog gets outraged on the internet by a dancer who doesn’t have crazy svetlana banana arches. I’ve taught many adults en pointe, some of them did not have super flexible feet or hyperextend knees, they all managed to dance perfectly fine. Though I suspect if the internet saw it they’re would be at least some comments with the outrage of “sHeS nOt eVEn oVeR hER boX she should not be en pointe”.
And also we have to remember the learning is a process. Like sometimes beginners climb up onto pointe, it’s not good, it’s a terrible habit, but no one starts out perfect. From what it sounds like from this post, Ducon should have asked some dancers to stay dancing at the barre when en pointe, just for safety.
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u/firebirdleap Dec 09 '24
Precisely all this. The internet really likes to get their panties in a bunch whenever they see someone who doesn't have perfect technique on pointe, but frankly, it's a learning process like everything else. Much like when people start learning ballet, beginners do all kinds of weird shit because most of this is not natural to the human body. Beginners also have often not found "their" shoe and don't have the mental toolbox yet to make their shoes work for then yet - as evidenced by the numerous posts here where a beginner was clearly given a terrible pair of shoes. Besides, plenty of 11/12 year olds also look like this when they start.
The internet pointe police can really get in your head, too. In spite of having done ballet as a kid and picking up again with ballet several years ago, I still often feel unworthy and undeserving of doing pointe. We got our Nutcracker photos back and I was nervous about posting some of them because I was performing a character role where the choreography was explicitly supposed to be in parallel. Last thing I needed to see was ~you shouldn't be doing pointe if you can't turn out~ like come on, I know.
It took me a lot longer to start pointe than it did for most other adults, but even at that i feel that at some point, adults should be able to assume their own risk for things.
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u/bdanseur Teacher Dec 09 '24
Yes, and the meanest comments all come from private anonymous accounts with no pictures or videos of their own ballet work. Julie of Broche ballet is a good example of this and she did a video showing all the mean insults about how she isn't ready for pointe when Julie is perfectly fine on pointe.
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u/firebirdleap Dec 09 '24
Yeah, it's always basically fake accounts or brain rot dance moms making these comments. Actual professional dancers and teachers have better things to do. Hell, I saw a video of 11 year old students at the Vaganova academy in the early 90s taking a pointe class and due to the struggles of the early 90s Russian economy, not all of them had well-fitting shoes. Of course there were a ton of comments about how these students shouldn't be doing pointe - at the Vaganova Academy.
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u/bbbliss quit the sub, don't talk to me Dec 09 '24
There’s also the occasional 11 year olds leaving comments on pro accounts telling them how to dance better lol. Those can be forgiven since they are children and you just kind of have cabbage for brains at that age!
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u/bdanseur Teacher Dec 09 '24
Pointe shaming is a sport on the Internet. Either it's about how some adult ballet dancer shouldn't be doing pointe or they're screaming too young. A lot of people just lose their shit if they see an 11YO doing pointe, even when these girls at 9YO dance like pros and those small bodies are twice as strong for their body weight due to physics. Lots of girls compete en pointe at 11 or 12 which means they likely started at 9 or 10.
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u/baninabear Dec 09 '24
I get a lot of weird ones from ex dance students who never made it to pro and are salty about it. It's this weird mental hierarchy of hating on adult starters, hobbyists, plus size dancers, etc. The whole "well at least I was skinny/had a chance" thing is wild, especially when the people they look down upon are the ones putting in the work to improve while they seethe on their phones.
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u/vpsass Vaganova Girl Dec 09 '24
Every hater who “USED” to do ballet just tells on themselves.
Like congrats you used to do ballet. I’m out here doing it now. What’s your excuse, we are the same age.
It’s easier to be a hater when you don’t go into the studio anymore. The mirror doesn’t lie, they bully us on the internet but if they went to class they’d have to bully themselves much more and that’s their sad reality they have to live.
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u/JohnlockedDancer Dec 09 '24
I once saw a plus sized woman (I think) who was doing pirouettes and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t even en pointe, but I saw this comment or something similar: the girl behind her will go far! And that girl was skinny or at least not plus size and I thought that the person commented that just because the plus size girl was plus size. At least, that’s the impression I got. The plus size girl was really good and someone just had to comment on the person behind her smh.
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u/YouTotallyGotThisOne Dec 09 '24
thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm an adult dancer who went en pointe when not really ready (probably still am not ready) and I feel like I should do an AMA for this sub. Like:
- I have feelings! Just in case people forgot.
- I am an adult with a fully-developed body and a realistic awareness of risks I'm taking.
- I have no intent (or possibility) of ever becoming a pro, and if I do suffer major injury it will be an "oh, well," and not devastating/career-ruining. (Worth mentioning that I also have health insurance.)
- Because of a disability plus my weight, I realize no teacher ever is likely to call me "ready." So if I wanted to dance en pointe, I just had to decide for myself that I don't care about teachers and am willing to take on the risk.
- Because I know I'm not the strongest, I don't do everything en pointe. You won't see me do a pique arabesque or a pirouette (yet, or maybe ever). I am a mature adult and know my limits. So if you think I'm "not ready," it could be a question of, "not ready for what?"
- I'm burdened with knowing in every class, at every shoe fitting, there are people thinking I'm not ready. It gets in my head. And I need to remind myself that it doesn't matter.
The pearl-clutching and hand-wringing that happens around adults not being ready to me is just that. It's a cabal limiting access, making people feel unwelcomed. And when people call out eachother, as so often happens on this sub, it reads to me as tattle-tales.
TLDR: You don't know people or their stuff, and you don't know people's risk tolerance, so live and let live.
(flame away)
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u/firebirdleap Dec 09 '24
Lol, I've seen many adults with varying levels of pointe readiness over the years and I've not seen ONE pointe-related injury (aside from the standard stuff like blisters and bruised toenails). The "I'm just worried about you" from non-teachers and non-medical professionals is such a cop-out.
I'll admit to having been kind of salty at some people who got to start pointe before me when it took me years to get there, but ultimately I'm not the teacher - I'm just a student like they are and not the ultimate arbiter of who does and doesn't get to own a pair of shoes.
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u/Playmakeup Dec 09 '24
I took an adult pointe class and saw all kinds of strength issues, wrong shoes and shoes that were not even on properly, and no one got hurt. I’ve done more damage to my ankles in a Toms flat that I did falling off of my knee well fitted pointe shoe.
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u/firebirdleap Dec 09 '24
Worst I've ever seen are rolled ankles - usually from the people with really flexible feet, which ironically are the feet the pointe police thinks you HAVE to have to do pointe. It's never anything serious and they're usually good to go by the time the next class rolls around.
The really bad pointe injuries mostly happen to the young pre-pro students who go from starting Pointe to rehearsing Esmeralda 30 hours a week for YAGP within a year. Adults are almost never in that situation.
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u/Playmakeup Dec 09 '24
I feel like adult brains inherently won’t let us do stupid shit. I’ve watched teenagers just going for pirouettes on pointe right away, but I’m scared to even do a pique in center.
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u/orientalballerina Dec 10 '24
I’ve done Ducon twice and this is precisely what they tell the adults: it’s okay to stay on demi but many of the adults insist on doing pointe. And if they switch the schedule up and cut back on pointe class, the adults complain they are being shortchanged. 🤷🏻♀️
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u/nomadicfille Dec 09 '24
So I've actually watched back quickly some of the intensives during lunch -specifically the pointe portions from the last year's winter intensive and this past summer's intensive. Not a teacher myself but honestly I've seen far worse in my own classes ( two real egregious cases come to mind). Like pas de bourée on fully bent knees bad. But still they are maybe 2 individuals out of the 15-20 people I know that dance en pointe between the two places that I dance at. Out of the two cases that I highlight, one has already been taken off of pointe last year (and actually hasn't been back), the second one ( who is notorious for pas de bourée on bent knees) I'm not sure if that teacher will say something but I hope they do.
I saw some of what vspass notes in the livestream but the main issue is really just building the strength to do one legged movements confidently in centre but we don't know how long the participants have been en pointe nor what the state of their pointe shoes are. At the barre everyone was much more stable. At some point though you have to practice in centre and learn to go for it even if it isn't pretty. I didn't listen to all of the corrections but Mr. Du himself was constantly reminding everyone to pull up, straighten knees, push your heel over etc. if he was the instructor. I always felt like Ducon is a very ethical organization and doesn't just let anyone do whatever.
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u/vpsass Vaganova Girl Dec 09 '24
It took my adult students 6 months to do piqués with straight knees (and not climb up). We started at the barre and moved to the centre about 4 months into the process. They all knew they weren’t supposed to climb up, they told me it was more of a mental block - case in pointe, they would be telling me “I know it’s supposed to look like this” and then do a perfectly pique easy and breezy and with a totally straight leading leg. But with the music some of them would just kind of forget.
Often times experienced dancers take for granted the coordination between the body and the mind. Learning ballet technique is not easy, but it’s not that hard, my mom knows what good ballet technique is, but she cannot dance ballet. There’s a big difference between knowing right from wrong, and dancing right instead of wrong. And the only way to bridge that gap is practice. Which people will be discouraged to do if everyone is always coming at their neck for not being perfect.
If I had filmed my students working on their piqués in that 6 month window I’m sure y’all would be like “wtf that’s so dangerous” too, at least for some of my dancers some of the time. But they had the barre to help them, we went slow, it was a controlled environment with no surprises. Eventually their body caught up with their mind and now everyone is happy.
Good technique is very very important for safety, no one can disagree with that. But we can’t forget why and how. Going up into a piqué in the Tchaikovsky PDD variation with a bent knee is 100 times more dangerous then going up with a bent knee when en face to the mirror, super slow, practicing just piqués. We need to give our students space to learn, make mistakes, and connect their body to their brain.
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u/Playmakeup Dec 09 '24
What do you mean by climbing up onto pointe?
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u/vpsass Vaganova Girl Dec 09 '24
Climbing up onto pointe is anytime you bend your knee to get the platform of your shoe on the floor and then stretch your knee so that your standing en pointe. It’s dangerous because your foot is fully extended (en pointe) but the knee is bent which makes you every unstable. Any time a dancer is dancing en pointe with intentionally bend knees the foot is intentionally “cashewed” or “pulled back” for safety.
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u/Playmakeup Dec 09 '24
Oh ok so instead of the leg staying stretched during the pique, it’s bent and then stretched when they’re up?
The big thing pointe work taught me was that I was not using my plié right at all. It was kind of disconnected and felt like sort of going through the motions, but then I was like “oh shit I actually need that momentum” when I got on pointe.
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u/firebirdleap Dec 09 '24
Many times, when people first get to center they sometimes start doing weird stuff they wouldn't normally do on flat, or even at the barre, like going up on a bent knee or sickling. For many people it's basically a combination of nerves and strength building. Eventually it gets better for most people.
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u/elindranyth Dec 09 '24
"at some point you have to practice in center" < this, very much so. I have decent technique in flat, I do fine at the barre in my pointe shoes, but there are some things I struggle with in center, and many of these things are things which frankly I don't have a ton of practice with. Like, I watched one of the intensives and one part where I saw people struggling was doing posés. I know I sometimes struggle with them, not because I'm not strong enough to be in pointe shoes but because in center I sometimes struggle to find my correct weight placement. Figuring out how to get all the way up without going over or falling backwards are things that take time, and even if you can do it at the barre, its different when doing it in center. There's a balance between "don't do that, you're gonna hurt yourself" and "how can you do the hard thing if you never try the hard thing"
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Dec 09 '24
You should take a look at 12 year old pointe class. It’s much the same not any different. Try making 12 year old understand how to exactly turn out from the hip and watch them zone out as you explain the anatomy. I see bent knees in 13 year olds all the time. By 15 or 16 those issues mostly go away but by that point they have consistent 3+years of training on pointe.
So why would adults be any different?
FYI edit: I have not watched this live stream. I am not advocating pointe work for people not ready for it. But at the same time no beginner on pointe is going to look “ready” if you know what i mean. I am sure some people there should not be on pointe. But at the same time a lot of them if they train consistently probably will overcome those issues.
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u/No-retinas Dec 09 '24
I think the difference in this example by OP is that these adults are being told it's ok to climb up to pointe and have bent knees (for example) by allowing them to take part in centre exercises which would not be allowed for a class of 12 or 13 year olds.
You are correct in saying that adults are no different when it comes to safety on pointe.
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u/witchincamaro Dec 09 '24
Oh yes I do totally agree with that! Sorry should have clarified my thoughts, center working doing these things I don’t think the kids at our place doing anything like that - I hope not !
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u/vpsass Vaganova Girl Dec 10 '24
I guarantee you Mr. Du is not telling his student its okay to climb up onto pointe.
It’s likely a combination of students in the learning process/getting over a mental block (as I witnessed with my own students) and the students pushing for more pointe class despite not being ready (someone else commented that this was there experience at ducon).
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u/No-retinas Dec 10 '24
Oh no I don't think he is actively telling them that it's ok, but, by allowing it to happen, and then posting the footage on sm, he could be seen as slightly negligent. I like Mr. Du in general and I do think he is an excellent teacher. However, I think one must be extra careful and diligent about what one shares when one has such a big platform to speak from 🙏
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u/witchincamaro Dec 09 '24
I find this interesting as I always hear the same, and looked in at some 12 or 13 year olds at barre the other day at my studio, one of the best in our town with a company as well.
Many of the students were doing things far worse than what I would have assumed. I would guess they were new ofc and it will all get cleaned up. It doesn’t seem adults are given this thought process. I know many school of thought don’t allow this at all probably, but clearly some do!
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u/JohnlockedDancer Dec 09 '24
My teacher was really thoughtful of us and if some of us needed to stay at the barre for the time being, she told us to do so.
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u/TemporaryCucumber353 Dec 09 '24
Everyone has to learn somehow and no one is going to be perfect, they are students for a reason. I'm sure you've had days where your technique isn't flawless and 99% of people aren't going to have perfect Zakharova banana feet. People online like to judge and shame people who are learning and it bothers me because who are you to judge? It happens a LOT to adults, as if they're somehow going to be better than kids beginning pointe.
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u/Appropriate_Ly Dec 09 '24
Ppl have to start somewhere. But yes, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to ensure they don’t get hurt.
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u/ShiningRainbow2 Dec 09 '24
This teacher has a pretty good reputation. I’m wondering if the video opportunity encouraged some dancers to try more than they were ready for.
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u/LadyNemesiss Dec 09 '24
Or maybe OP is exaggerating and believes the whole "you should magically wake up being perfect on pointe and otherwise you're not ready" myth.
Learners make mistakes, that's just human nature.
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u/Vernichtungsschmerz Vaganova Adult Beginner Dec 09 '24
I can say as an adult dancer when I went en pointe it was a dream fulfilled. It was incredibly hard to realise my extreme hypermobility meant that I didn't have the strength I needed. I was trying to engage muscles and tendons that were floppy and lax and were never active.
I'm in long-term physio (it took me 8 months to squat with everything engaged and in the right place).
I will say I didn't drop pointe because of a teacher. I came to the resolution myself. It wasn't a teacher despite multiple teachers.
I'm still devastated and hoping to get up there properly one day
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u/No-retinas Dec 09 '24
I think it is incredibly irresponsible for a teacher to ok pointe work in adults who have these kinds of VERY CLEAR technique and strength issues. These problems are very obvious and easy to spot, and my only assumption is that the studios that allow this just want their students' money and, in turn, to give these adults what they want to keep the dollars flowing - their childhood dream of dancing on their toes. My 2 cents.