I posted a video on tiktok, it ended up getting reposted to @ballet_igs on Instagram and blew up with almost 800k views. I got a lot of comments from non dancers who said it looked fine, and criticism that wasn’t specific. Mainly people relating to me saying my dancing isn’t great. I know I need to work on confidence and fluidity. Hating on myself isn’t helpful, but I’m really insecure on my lack of improvement after dancing for years. So, I would like to bring the video here and see what other dancers think about my technique. Any advice on how to improve would be amazing.
hard to critique when it’s more so contemporary ballet. just work on softening your movement quality and cleaning transitions. Let your passion for dance shine and people won’t be able to look away.
This is mainly what I saw, working on the transitions would really help OP! I see several moments where you are thinking “What is the next step?” and there is almost a shudder or a quick pause that brings down the quality of the movements.
This is the big one, I spent 10 years at a studio that wasn’t training me correctly and gained most of the technique I have now after I turned 17 from like 3 years at a studio with smart and experienced teachers
This. It’s pretty clear from the video that you have training, but it’s the fundamental details like pointing your feet while moving through steps and not rolling up/down through your shoes, that are really holding you back.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that much of what you show in the video is not classical ballet. I'm not sure what genre you're trying to dance here. Your arms do move fluidly, but again, not in a ballet specific manner.
Your hips and shoulders are moving all over the place, and your back is not straight and supportive. You appear to need a fair amount of core strengthening exercises to help.
I think before you try to increase the "fluidity" of your dancing, you need to work on basics and technique. You shouldn't be popping up onto pointe, which you are clearly doing in the échappé. If you want to be able to do this exercise, I suggest breaking it into its component parts and working on your technique for each before stringing them together.
There's no reason to be insecure about it, really. I have found that in different geographic locations, there are different levels of acceptance for what I would call certain poor skills. This is amplified based on studio/instructor tolerance. The fact that you're reaching out tells me that you are aware there is room for improvement, and that's fantastic because it is all fixable.
You also don't mention what kind of studio/classes you take or how long you've been en pointe or whether some of your 15 years was spent self-taught or taking online classes. I've been involved in dance for literally 40 years, but I still have bad habits and areas I need to improve. Please don't be ashamed to ask for advice! I just hope someone can give you better direction than I can!
So I’ve been dancing at different ballet studios for 15 years, when I was in highschool I was in the “advanced” ballet class at my studio, this was maybe when I was 15. I’ve been doing pointe for 3 years now. I took a break at 17 and came back in my 20s to be a dance major at a community college, where I was also placed in the most advanced class they offered. At the community college, I was considered the best dancer there and was encouraged to audition for more advanced programs when I graduated with my associates degree. This was really discouraging because when I would try to join an actually competitive dance program or dance in a local ballet, I was always rejected. As a dance major, I was dancing 5 times a week and you see how I look… so what they had my doing speaks for itself.
You’re lacking strength, especially through the legs and core. Also, your connections between need more attention. At moment you can see the “first I do this move, then I do that move” thoughts running through your head. Dance is transition.
You dance beautifully. If you love it, keep it up. There are always people who have different training and experience. You also have training and experience and offer so much. Keep go8ng, miles and miles to go.
Hi!! I commented on the reel that blew up on IG about how you dance beautifully, it's just the confidence/that you can see yourself thinking while dancing. Sometimes lack of confidence/anxiety/hesitation is because you can tell you don't have the specific skill you need/want, but you can't figure out exactly what it is. You've gotten good comments here on technique, finding better teachers, etc - maybe having better teaching would drill those technique details in so they become automatic and you feel more confident. Rooting for you then and rooting for you now!!
PS: Sorry to hear you got worse comments! I saw it really early on when it was still mostly positive.
We’re in kind of a similar place where I’ve been dancing for about as long as you and also not satisfied with where I was/am (though as a male). My observation is that you could probably benefit from some more dedicated strength work in your feet and hips.
Rolling through the pointe shoe would elevate the quality in a variation like this, especially through your échappé and the retiré. If you can work through the foot more it should help achieve a feeling of really being tall over your body (extending high through the back from the hips) and give more contrast in movement. I personally pre-pointe work isn’t really something people should give up regardless of how much pointe experience they have because it’s just so essential for confidence in working through the floor.
Tied to your foot strength is that it looks a little like your hips aren’t stable enough in your pliés and arabesque. It looks to me like you take shallow steps with an occasional stutter when coming out of the retiré and the turns under yourself from 5th. You drop the back leg almost instantly landing the tour jeté when I think you should land in a strong arabesque and get a feeling of reaching out with a variation at this speed. Try some exercises that emphasis deep plié from jumps. A classic is the three changements and then holding the deep demi plié on the fourth count to work a stretch and sense of stability.
Can go into more detail if you’d like. Otherwise I think you have a nice quality, just a ground-zero issue that will overshadow a lot when you watch yourself.
In this clip, something specific I wanted to identify was this:
That should not be heel-toe like a track runner, but toe-heel like a dancer.
Your arms, hands, shoulders, and head show a lot of passion. Your arms and hands in particular are very soft and fluid but still show some indication of purpose. This is a key distinction for me because a lot of people think soft and fluid means their arms are just floating or swinging around without any musicality or defined poses. You don’t have that problem. You seem to have rhythm (it’s a little hard to tell because I don’t think the music in the clip is the music you were dancing to..?).
As a few others have said, you have been hindered by bad teachers, or at least inexperienced ones or perhaps worse, ones that simply never cared. You seem to lack execution/extension. Your movements lack strength and sharpness. However, if you weren’t in pointe shoes, I believe your dancing would be significantly better. This is much more modern/contemporary/lyrical performed in pointe shoes, not really ballet. If you want to excel in ballet specifically, you have some work to do. If you want to switch your focus away from ballet, you have a lot less work to do.
I’m sorry some keyboard warriors picked on you over this. I’m glad you came here for follow up and I hope it helps. 💚
in this photo too, you can see that your pelvis is tilted forward and your weight is in your heels , your shoulders are behind you compensating. Engage your abdominals and make sure your shoulders are in the center of your base of support.
I agree you could find a better teacher (as someone who also grew up in “serious” dance training but not “good” dance training, if that makes sense). It’s hard to tell with this choreo since it’s hard to know what it’s supposed to look like, but you have a good facility for dance and some technique, some coordination. But a better teacher, someone who really knows ballet technique and how to develop it in dancers, will make a big difference.
Some specific details since you asked:
1) you finish your echappés in a very turned in 5th position, the second time you finish the echappé it’s worse and more obvious, but the first one is still slightly turned in which forces you to thrust your pelvis forward to get up into the next echappé.
2) there are lot of moments where I feel like you could be in 5th but you’re not.
3) you push up over your shoe en pointe instead of bringing the toes under you, which creates and awkward weight shift while en pointe.
4) you’re hands pass through a lot of weird positions but I can’t tell if that’s the choreography.
5) you go into the entralacé heel first instead of toe first.
it’s all about her pelvic alignment and having her weight a bit too far back in her heels making her shoulder move back and her arms rotate in weird ways that feel awkward as she transfers her weight.
Honestly, this is why I don't post my music/dancing/art/whatever online, even on my private social media like Facebook (which is only for family/friends). I already know what all my flaws are and beat myself up about them well worse than anyone else could, so I don't need other people pointing them out to me as well (or, if there are some I don't know about, the list of the ones I do know about is long enough that there's no need to add to it). It's okay to do a thing just for yourself.
I just want to say after getting so much criticism you came here for advice and that is incredibly brave. You are a strong person and that alone will help you succeed!
There’s a disconnect between your core and pelvis, and an overall lack of strength. I’d recommend taking some Pilates classes. Do a barre warmup and floor warmup 6 days a week at home. I’d also recommend going to PT who specializes in working with dancers. There’s something restricted in either your lower spine or pelvis. PT will help you strengthen the weak muscles and undo the restriction. Has to be a dance PT though, otherwise it won’t be helpful.
Plenty of people dance for the length of time you have and get to a certain level, and are perhaps even the best in their school, but very few are exceptional enough to take it to professional career level in a company, and at each ‘gate’ below that level, more and more people get filtered out as they start to compete with dancers from different schools and areas, particularly if they’ve been dancing at a more chill school vs the best schools in the area/state/country who have excellent teachers that really push their students on all facets of their dancing. Remember that some of the people who have been dancing the same length of time as you have been in class multiple times a week from the age of 4, training flexibility daily, summer intensives every year, then attended pre pro schools where they danced several hours a day every day for many years. So be kind to yourself - the 15 years of training you are probably comparing yourself to is not the same as 15 years of going to a standard class a few times a week. That difference in the quality of training across the board is kind of what I see here - one thing that really stood out for me is that it kinda looks like you are almost still marking the steps vs really dancing them, and there is a feeling that you’re not really fully inhabiting the dance, if that makes sense? And there are some specific issues with your transitions between steps not being clean and fluid, as a few other people picked up. That’s not to say you can’t improve though - what are your goals with dance? How is your flexibility? (It doesn’t seem like you’re using your full extensions here). What about musicality?
1) I am now an armchair dancer and haven't done ballet for years.
2) second the praise about seeking constructive criticism from internet strangers! I wouldn't be that brave.
3) Asking advice in a ballet framework is hard because I don't see you doing standard ballet vocabulary. I don't know what style those port de bras come from but I wouldn't recommend it for ballet. If you want your ballet technique to be assessed I would show the material you would audition on - plie warmups, tendu/ developpe basics that show your lines, simple center and pirouette exercises that show your posture and balance.
You need better training. Its the little details you are lacking. But you have great potential. But the details of technique. Also you are lacking fluidity, specifically transitional fluidity — i.e. seamless transition from one movement to the next.
— Dancer for over 20 years, pre-pro dance teacher for 10 years.
First, your movement is beautiful, and I want you to be proud of it.
You look more of a Jazz or Lyrical dancer to me. Your center and torso are quite expressive… and that’s why peeps are calling you “funny.”
As you know with ballet the torso is held a bit more rigid. “Like a corset” I’m sure you’ve heard. I bet if, for fun, you actually wore a corset you’ll get that Corps look you’re going for.
That being said I like your movement. Focus on holding your center vertically for ballet, but loosen up a bit for other styles. You’ll be a real standout. <3
I think the problem IS either the posture or the shorts. I dont know why but It looks like your ass sticks out a lot more than expected. It can be the shorts fault as they are quite baggy or It could be your hips tilted.
A lot of people said the same thing😭 it’s a mixture of the shorts being baggy and my butt is just really big. So it looks like my spine is arched back.
If you have hyperlordosis, the bum will naturally stick out further. Either way, you have to think about the tailbone going down and lifting up in the front of the hips to counter it.
Side comment: your dancing would look cleaner if you were more precise in your positions. Is it a sutanu? Is it a sous sous into burré around? Think about if you were to teach the movement. Do you know 100% if you are landing parallel or turned out? If parallel on 2 feet are your feet together or hip width? Do you know if it’s a plie releve or a pique? When I watch people improve, it’s because the precision of the step looks more intentional. They know how the step starts, how it finishes, and how it moves into the next thing. A bobble into a move looks like you started to do one thing but changed your mind mid step to do something else.
Don’t be ashamed to have a juicy booty in ballet! Tbh tutus literally cover them the majority of the time (except for a platter tutu, but there are literally so many other styles)
The thing you really want to look at for pelvic tilts is the front of your hip crease. That will give you a much better way to gauge a neutral pelvic line.
Personally, I like to think about my hips driving forwards in every movement. Definitely not to the point of tucking under though!! Anyway, I find that really helps me feel more grounded and engaged through the rotation spiraling down my legs.
You’re really not in a bad place at all. Although, for your technical growth, I believe you would most benefit from exploring the strength and articulation of your feet through transition steps, finding more drive through your rotation and minding the hyper extension in your elbows.
Beautiful artistry and passion I see, happy dancing! <3
I'm in the same boat where I have a larger butt, but also naturally tend to stand with lordosis going on in the spine. I work on really stretching out the front of my hips since those muscles get really tight and make it hard to keep the front of my hips flat. I also try to focus on the strength of my core very low down on my abdomen so that my core can essentially pull my hips forward.
Having hips be slightly out will throw off all your dancing. Once I started working on the posture in my lower abdomen, my dancing got so much better. The big difference is that i went from a studio that didn't really focus on posture and placement to one that will correct me on it all day long.
Yes but if you watch the movement her shoulders lag behind her center in each of her weight transfers. She has a BEAUTIFUL movement quality and is clearly very strong- once she connects the dots with her alignment and her weight transfers, the awkward movement quality will disappear:). She has a really enagaging way of moving. I am excited to see how she improves- I would love the opportunity to work with her!
I don't think her shoulder lags her center. The shoulder and arms should often be behind. A lot of jumps use the "naruto run" arms for takeoff. You won't see that advice in any textbook but it's what the most elite dancers in the world do. Most of the famous books on ballet movement faked the takeoff with stationary poses that pose as in-motion poses and misled generations of teachers. Take this book vs actual dancing from Sarafanov.
yes but look at how his feet are engaging with the floor vs hers, his weight is in the center and his pelvis is in neutral while her weight is in her heel and her pelvis looks slightly anteriorly tilted. His hip flexors are flexing- hers are extending. His lumbar is long, hers is compressed. I maintain this is an alignment issue stemming from where she is holding her weight/transferring it on the floor. Quite easily fixable with some somatic awareness!
"Engaging" is one of those generic filler words in ballet pedagogy that is overused and too vague to be meaningful.
His weight is far behind his lead foot and his shoulders and arms are back. Your analysis about her shoulder being behind her center is invalid. You are not looking at the right thing, and you're not identifying the right problem for her to be focused on fixing.
What word would you use to talk about where a dancer is placing their weight. Her weight is too far back- it in her heels that is why she is stepping heel toe. Her pelvis is tilted forward which is causing her lumbar to compress and her shoulders are moving backwards to find balance, her arms are rotating forward to counter this and she is engaging her shoulders and neck to carry her port de bras instead of depressing her shoulder blades because of this rotation. The disconnection between her upper and lower body is causing her audience to perceive this awkward movement quality.
She looks like her acetabellum might be very deep which is inhibiting her ability to access much turn out- which is also compounding her misalignment and probably causing the anterior tilt and lumbar compression. This is an alignment issue and probably also an issue of having a ballet teacher not teaching to her body but to a classic Balanchine aesthetic/body type.
I have found that correcting allignment from the floor up has been quite effective when working with adults with habitual movement patterns which is why I feel so strongly about her starting there.
I don't agree her weight is too far back for what she's doing. It's intentionally back when going into a running jump to avoid traveling too much and not getting high enough. You can have your weight back and still roll through the toe-ball-heel.
I agree about the arms- we use this in modern quite often- it helps you find the weightless suspension at the top of a pendulum swing. If shoulders aren’t properly connected to the core, it will bring the upper body out of coordination with the lower which is what is happening a bit with OP because she is inwardly rotating her shoulders and they are disconnecting from her serratus and lats.
You are not holding your weight in the center of your base of support- it is in your heels so your shoulders are behind you to compensate and your arms are rotating through weird pathways. Think of your foot like a tripod- soften in your hip flexors and engage your rectus abdominus to lengthen your low spine. The lack of core engagement could be causing you to keep your weight too far back. I’d suggest a Laban/Bartinieff class or dance PT.
My first thought is that your shorts are ruining your lines. I can't tell what's happening in your center and it's making everything look sloppy. My second thought is that your technique needs sharpening. You need to take those classes where someone fixes your shoulders a thousand times or complains about your posture or your turn out or fixes your feet every thirty seconds, you need that. A good lesson is a solid hour and a half to two hours, and you should spend most of it repeating the same thing until it's perfect. You're just lacking precision.
I don’t think you are to blame. So so many years like this, I think it’s whoever you learn from who has not taught correctly. Is this supposed to be some modern dance style on pointe? Definitely not ballet unfortunately.
I find so sad that studios/teachers can do such thing to students.
You have lovely control of your upper body. Your arms and shoulders are very coordinated. I would suggest you work on knowing what your feet are doing and making sure you can find 5th as a home base. You have really beautiful movement quality and port de bras . Remember dance is hard and it's hard to see progress. Don't let comparison be the thief of your joy. You are in a very normal and okay place in your dancing
seems like we're on the same boat as someone who has learned for 12 years and spent majority of her life in a studio with 30 kids whose parents wanna find alone time and a teacher who ignores mistakes that are difficult to correct
You have the fundamentals! What I’m missing is the control with the quality of movement - as some others have pointed out like rolling through your feet, thinking toe ball heel. Staying ‘lifted’ meaning engaging the inner thighs to encourage softer landings but also faster leg to foot work. Your plie is your best friend and engaging the full body within it will help the next step. I hope you enjoy dancing - that’s the most important part!
Your eyes and the eye ball in your chin (just another way to visualize) could follow your fingers a bit. They don’t have to the whole time but it would be nice ❤️
I'm pretty much a begginer, but what I notice in classical ballet is that the dancers do have fluidity but they are also stiff, I think you should focus on that. Like, your back moves a lot and is not "on place" and your legs and pelvis doesn't seem to be activated, I guess is just lacking a bit of technique to put all that strenght to work, but you do not dance as bad as you think you do!
Don't hate on yourself, I had shit teachers too, then did a dance minor (well, almost) and shit changed QUICK and was on corps before I even fucking knew it with my two pairs of free shoes per season. I was especially good in RAD but gottdam if I didn't have good Cecchetti pickups!!! I trained under a RAD dancer in college and it was life-changing. Fuck these randos we all get in the burbs. They're dicks. Anyway, I'm an old, 40-something now and don't dance, but that's the nice thing about ballet: it doesn't change, just the gizmos and gadgets do (boy, do y'all have a lot of em now! wow.) So hopefully these few notes help.
good hands, good port de bras overall. nice grace. VERY impressive spirit; I know you're a dancer cos you didn't stop, girl! FUCK YES! ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!
head is just as important as the rest of the body in dance and yours, my dear, although a very beautiful head that you should thank your parents for every day, is taking its sweet time to spot or have any awareness of the choreography. get that head where it needs to go; put your eyes where they need to be looking. I've seen plenty of girls with less than average turnout absolutely crush ballet because they use their face/head. master it... you have the rest of the upper body, so just master the head. at this point, you seem like you're dilly dallying because that head is just lolling around and doing whatever.
Point those toesssssssss. Everyone pointed out the heel-toe faux-pas but in general, you need to point your toes... there are a few spots where your feet look flat.
Turn out. Now this might just be where you are. Genetics are what they are and some people just can't go much further. So if that's you, then that's you. Again, I've known plenty of girls on corps where there's like one of the following they just don't have... one is arches, another is turn out... like it's possible to make it to corps with one of those missing, but you can't have both missing. So either work on your point ot work on your turnout. No matter what, if you can have a swayback knee and pointed toes, it really can overcome a lack of turnout.
Overall, you're good and the things that aren't are either genetics of fixable in a matter of weeks. Fucking haters are haters. Everyone GETS good at ballet, they don't START good. Some of us have a slightly longer learning curve. You're almost there, don't you dare give up!
I think you are referring to the lack of ballon (spelling?), the light, floaty quality that is characteristic of ballet. Remember, ballet lifts…the perception of floating is characteristic of ballet. Your movements appear heavy, imprecise , and there is a” heavy “ quality about the movements
The biggest criticism that I see is you're not hitting your positions super tightly. You don't fully close to fifth in your soutenu, and then right after that your feet are just a little sloppy. But your arms are beautiful and fluid, just work a little more on tightening up your feet positions!
Also literally on every video with anyone ever doing any type of dance there are always a ton of people giving them mean criticism. It feels like the commenters are like trying to showcase that they know more about dance than everyone else. Its really sad. You're a beautiful dancer and it looks like you have passion, dont let those people get to you. Everyone always has somewhere they need to improve but that does not make you any less of a dancer.
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u/zlryan Jun 19 '25
hard to critique when it’s more so contemporary ballet. just work on softening your movement quality and cleaning transitions. Let your passion for dance shine and people won’t be able to look away.
and don’t step heel first before a jump lol