Latest / Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast / Throwback! - S5 EP 176 – Mini Dancers Who Peak Too Early

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Throwback! - S5 EP 176 – Mini Dancers Who Peak Too Early · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_04: Hey witnessers, it's your host, Call Your Speeds on Making M Cast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: And today we're throwing it back to a very real and very relevant conversation.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: Tiny too early.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_04: We need all two dances.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_04: And outperform dancers twice the radio.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_04: But what happens when a dancer becomes so advanced, so yellow, that there's nowhere left to grow?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_04: In this episode, we dig into the pros and cons of alter-skilled media.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_04: You'll hear from two IDA judges and dance educators, Christian Danielle and Keith DMAT.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: And trust me, this discussion goes deeper than just talented kids.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_04: We're talking long-term development, safety, mindset, and how to keep kids loving dance well beyond.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_04: If you've ever watched a mini on stage and thought, how are they doing that?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_04: And is it good for them?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: This throwback is one you'll want to stick around for.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: So let's jump into our throwback episode all the way from season five, episode 176.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: Enjoy!
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: Hey Dance World, welcome to this week's episode of Making the Impact.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: I am your host, Courtney Ortiz, and I'm here with my co-host, Leslie Mueller.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_07: Courtney, how did we get so lucky to have an extra day of the year?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_07: That is also a podcast date.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_07: Happy leap year 2024.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_07: 2024, a whole extra day.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_07: It's like some people's birthdays and they never have birthdays.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_07: So it's February 15th, your birthday.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_07: It's February 29th.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_07: Very cool.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so cool.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: I love a leap year moment.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: And uh the end of our birthday month.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: Sad about it.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_07: Sad about it, but older and wiser, and moving on to actually a really cool conversation today that I'm excited for everyone to hear.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: Jumping into Minis Who Peak Too Early.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: What does that exactly mean?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm sure we've all seen them at competition.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: Those fantastic minis and juniors, and even the little tiny five-year-olds who are doing things that are so beyond their years.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: They're just uh extremely high-level pre-professional or overly advanced tiny dancers.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: And they've just done it all at such a young age already.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's I I've always said I want to be a fly in the wall at that dance studio to learn and know how the dance teachers are getting tiny dancers like that doing flips and double leg catch turns and triple pirouettes nice and clean.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's very, very impressive.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: But also, there could be some disadvantages to peeking too early as a mini.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: And we are going to talk all about that today on this week's episode with two brand new guests on Making the Impact.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: The first guest that I'm excited to welcome is a brand new judge to the IDA roster this season.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to get to know her.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: She's also a New Yorker, so yay for NYC judges.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to welcome Kate Burnett to the podcast.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Kate.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_09: Thank you so much, Courtney.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_09: It's so great to be here.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_09: I can't wait to dive into the conversation.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_09: Kate, have our paths ever crossed in the city?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_09: They must have.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_09: I've been here for so long.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, because I saw on your submission, you said you've been here for 15 years.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, but I've been here for 15 years.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, how so have I?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so has Leslie.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_09: Where have we all been with each other?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_09: Are you very tall?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_09: I'm not very tall.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_09: Maybe that's why.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_09: I'm not very tall.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_09: I'm like kind of in the middle.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_09: So I can do all sorts of different things, but you know, I'm I might have seen your faces around.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_09: Leslie, your face looks very familiar.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_09: Okay.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: We have definitely all been in an ECC holding room at the same time at some point in the place if you're 1000% yes.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: 1000% yes.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very pleased to have you on the roster this season, and I'm excited to hear all that you want to contribute to this very interesting topic today on the podcast.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks for being here and joining us on Making the Impact.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Of course.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: And if you wouldn't mind telling the world more about you, where you grew up, uh, your early dance training, any career credits, and what you're currently working on.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_09: I grew up in South Suburban Denver, uh dancing competitively in that area.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_09: I grew up dancing adjacent to Kayla Rodomsky and Jenea French and Missy Morelli, you know, of so you think you can dance fame, right?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_09: They were all in my age category competing.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_09: Wow.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_09: And so it was a really fun time, like trying to see like what everybody was gonna do and the different kinds of fierce lines and emotions these amazing dancers who have gone on to have amazing professional careers would bring to the table.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_09: I took the opposite track.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_09: Uh, everybody moved to LA from Colorado.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_09: I moved to New York.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_09: I went to Wagner College on Staten Island.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_09: I got my degree in theater at Wagner, and I've stayed ever since.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_09: And I have loved every minute of the audition community, the fierce dance community here in New York.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_09: I made my off-graduate debut last summer in a brand new work called Mistress Lover.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_09: It's a two-person play, which was terrifying.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_09: Well, because you know, as a dancer, we're always so used to like having music and choreography to kind of, I don't want to say hide behind, but like use those tools to tell our stories.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_09: I only had words.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_09: There was no music, there was no singing, there was no dancing, it was just words.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: And there were only two of you.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_09: Yep.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_09: The entire time.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: Sounds like my worst nightmare.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_09: It wound up for you.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_09: Thank you.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_09: It wound up being significantly more fun than I thought it was going to be.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and it was a really good challenge and a really good stretch.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_09: Over the past few years, I've been working with a bunch of different dance competitions, and I'm really excited to be with Impact to, you know, kind of spread my wings with different competitions.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_09: I love, love, love teaching masterclasses and going to intensives and teaching at intensives because I grew up with such a strong technical background.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_09: And now that I have all of this really amazing storytelling training through all of my time in New York City, it's really fun to help dancers flex their storytelling muscles, especially from a studio setting.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_09: Because I feel like, at least as far as my dance training was concerned, we weren't as focused on telling the story.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_09: We were more focused on, all right, like let's do all of the turns and set like 32 fuetes on the left, 32 fuetes on the right, 64, 64, like the whole nine.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_09: So I got here and I could turn like crazy and I could jump like crazy, but I didn't know how to tell stories in a meaningful way.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_09: And so that's been really fun in New York learning how to integrate storytelling into that quality of movement, which is awesome.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_09: So and I dance with the honey taps, and I love dancing with the honey taps.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_09: We have a great time.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: Very cool.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: I love that you said that about storytelling because I feel like that is really, really true.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: And especially specific to New York City professionals who then go into teaching.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like I feel like my mindset as to even judging, even teaching, like, what's the story?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: What's the intention?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: What are you dancing about?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like that is always the question.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I never really learned that until I was in as a professional dancer, telling those stories in productions and in theater and in musicals.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: So it it does really shift your perspective a lot.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_09: And being a strong technician is like the baseline, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_09: You want to know that you can hit those turns, that you can jump as high as you can jump and do it correctly physiologically without hurting yourself.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_09: But then like that extra flavor of story, that extra flavor of intention, like it just makes it so juicy.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_09: So if you see me on your roster of judges at any of the competitions, just know that's what I'm gonna be looking for.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: You better be turning that story on, y'all.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome, Kate.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we're excited to have you here on the pod.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much for joining, of course.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: All right, and our next special guest who is joining us is someone who I'm just now meeting, but I've actually had the pleasure of watching her in my jazz class recently at the Streets Dance Convention.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: She was hanging out in the back, absolutely killing it in my jazz class.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, oh, she is so fierce.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: I have to have her on the podcast.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: She's also going to be bringing the Florida dance scene side of things to this discussion because I think that there's something in the water down there in Florida, because those minis are fierce down there in Florida.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I can't wait to hear from her.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to welcome Kristen Danielle to the podcast.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Kristen.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, thank you for having me.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm super excited to be talking about this because I I feel like I'm uh a little bit at fault for what like that.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, yeah, I'm I'm super excited about talking about this and and and bringing my kind of take.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've been teaching in the area now for 18 years, and uh really I would say my I kind of got into teaching uh very young.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I did go off to college, but then I became a young mom.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that was more of my focus.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I still took class, I still trained and went to conventions and things, but I took the the fact that I became a young mom and this experience and kind of being on the outskirts of like the competition scene at that time and what I was learning and in conjunction sort of figured out how to teach through that and became uh I spent about four or five years as a young children's director, so I had a lot of heavy focus teaching two-year-olds, three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: That was they were like my main group for a really long time, so I had a huge focus with that, and then now over the years, it's developed into where I kind of mainly focus on ballet and then generalized technique where we're working, you know, parallel, working turnout most of the time.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I do work with a lot of littles, and I mean it is crazy how many littles I wind up working with.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the biggest things for me is if I can, if I can give you basic good training that you can understand at your age level, then we can totally go on the opposite spectrum and try to, you know, do the fun things and do the hard tricks and the then everything else, as long as I'm still giving you this other foundation as well.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I've kind of just developed that over the years and and had some partnerships with uh I had one with Tapala Performance for a little while when we were talking about body physics, uh, this concept that I come up with with if you're mindful about how you how you move and how you step into uh class and your body and your understanding of how it moves and through space, then you can become a better dancer, not just physically, but also mentally.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that that is really strong in in promoting in what I do.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's that's kind of me in a nutshell.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not no, not in a nutshell, I wouldn't say.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I started uh adjudicating about three or this is my third season um coming into it.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got a few competitions that I'm sure people see my face at.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really my biggest thing about it is that I love to share how you your performance can be better for the next time because we can't always be perfect every single time that we're stepping on the stage, especially when we're talking about children.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you know, can I can I give them something that they're actually gonna walk away with knowing when I go into the studio, I can work on this.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: This can actually become better because of what was said to me.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And even if it's the same thing we hear in the studio, maybe I'm seeing it differently, but then also coupling it with like, okay, this is what you did well, this is what we did great.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that you're constantly feeling this sense of it's worth what I heard.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to bring that not just in a private lesson or when I'm teaching class, but especially when I'm behind the table, that when you're listening, it's worth hearing.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's very important to to drive, especially in that Florida dance community with so much of the tricks and the everything going around.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's you kind of have to find your little bitty niche.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that I focus a lot on foundation with kids, in addition to throwing them the tricks and the hard things, is really what's made, at least for me, a successful career over the last especially over the last five years.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: But definitely, I mean, I've been here for 18.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So nice.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's all about that foundation.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we talk about all the time on the pod.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I can't wait.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait to dive into this.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: So let's do it.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, let's dive in.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_07: Well, it's so hard to know where to start because I just feel like there's so much we can cover.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_07: And this is really just sort of, I guess, a exploratory episode.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_07: You know, we're we have a lot to talk about from a lot of perspectives.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_07: But I guess my first question for y'all is when when did we start noticing minis start to be so good?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_07: Like, I don't remember, I was never this phenomenal child who could do a million turns.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_07: No, I don't know a lot of people who were.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_07: We didn't have those kids at my studio.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_07: Like, when when do y'all remember this start to happen?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_09: We had a few minis at my studio who were just like over the top amazing, but only when I was like 11 or 12.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_09: Like we didn't get any of those awesome minis.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_09: And then I really think that the explosion of excellent minis started happening with the advent of dance moms and Instagram.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_09: I think you know, Instagram dance and dance moms and like all of the social media stuff really enabled a lot of parents and teachers to think, oh, let's have these tinies be super well trained and have a bunch of really incredible technique and dance beyond their years.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Never go to school.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_09: Never go to school.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_09: Somehow, not have a balanced life in any way.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_09: But I mean, listen, as somebody who like grew up at the studio, lived and breathed it, would dance 40 hours a week.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_09: I begged my mom to homeschool me.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_09: I begged my mom to give me that kind of a life.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_09: And she was like, no, no, no, you're gonna go to school.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_09: And like, you know, that so I don't know.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_09: Kristen, what do you what are you when did you start noticing the teenies?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: For me growing up, I mean, I'm I'm a little older than I looked, but there was it was never like this massive sense of it it's everywhere.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: There was maybe like one girl that literally every competition we went to, she always won first, she always had four solos, they always, you know, kind of sort of had the same things in them.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't matter, but she could put her leg behind her head and do three triple leg turns, you know, like whatever it was.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it's now it's like everywhere you go, everybody can do that.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I really think that that that dance mom's era had something to strongly to strongly do with that because you're watching this kid that you know is is super talented.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's not just a a talent thing, and I I feel like I might get you know hit a little bit, but it's also an affluency um thing too that I think is coupled with it because you saw these these parents who had the ability to send their kids every single day, and not just every single day, but across state lines to compete.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a huge factor that we really didn't see before.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't a big thing.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like you, if you traveled, you traveled within your state, and if you did travel out of state, it was the like once a year for nationals.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: We went to Myrtle Beach, right?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's what you know, that's what we did, and now it's a constant like these kids are every single weekend or every other weekend, they're traveling they fly to an entirely other coast to do a dance.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the same, and it's the dance is done 20 different times and everything else.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think those things coupled together when you're watching this on TV and the success of these kids, because if you're being trained this much and you go in to an area where the kids are not trained as much as you are, and you clean sweep everything and you do it repeatedly all the time, you build this sense of like this is what it takes to be a winner.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and and really a lot of us didn't grow up like that.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us are really good dancers.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: These kids look up to us, they tell us that we're good dancers, they want to dance like us.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: But we did not have that same upbringing.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, we didn't have the the same thing.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think those two things together have really have really like pushed and and and made a very uh harsh competitive realm for for these kids.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So even even if they're talented, they they still have to like you still gotta get the private lesson.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: You still gotta, you know, show up for every class, you still gotta do this, you still have to do that.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're not going to this competition, like you need to go to this one.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a it's it's a lot.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_07: It is a lot.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_07: I think it's it's funny that you mentioned, like, you know, if if the girl who's sweeping the competitions and trains every day happens to go to an area where they're not doing that, it's like, well, then that the one girl from that area who danced three days a week at a reasonable level and was the one, she ain't the one anymore.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_07: Like it's it's kind of crazy because like that kid was probably excellent.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_07: But then here comes the kid who takes six days a week every single day.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_07: And it's like, oh, oh, this is hard.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_07: It's hard for my brain to comprehend.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: Because people are like, no, I can't compete against someone who trains six six days a week when my kid only trains three days a week.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, that's that's exactly why that that started to come about.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_09: I mean, when I was growing up competing, like like you said, we wouldn't cross state lines until nationals.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_09: Like we would compete at all of our regionals.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_09: And growing up in Denver, we were very lucky.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_09: There were lots of really awesome competitions that would come through, and we felt like there was a good like amount of competition that we didn't need to go to anywhere else.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_09: But some people did start doing it when I was a sophomore or a junior in high school.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_09: There were a couple of girls who'd be like, Oh yeah, I'm going to Oklahoma so that I can just go like win.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_09: And it was like, oh, so your mom is gonna go and buy you winning a competition, essentially.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_09: That because it's it's socioeconomic driven too.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_09: Like Kristen brings up an amazing point.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_09: Like the socioeconomics of dance is really difficult to wrap your head around when it's free to move your body, but the education of it is expensive, right?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_09: The passing down of that knowledge is expensive.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_09: Very much so.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_09: Very much so.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_07: What a that's a great, y'all gotta pull that out and put that somewhere.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: Upcoming podcast episode.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_07: Like for the cost of dance in the life.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_07: The cost of dance.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_07: It's free to move your body.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, it is.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_07: And, you know, so I I think too, on that line of thinking, you know, so we we saw the advent of the social media and people realizing, oh, these kids can do all these things.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_07: And the studios ran with it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, yeah.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_07: Because it's, you know, and that's that's the thing that's interesting too.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_07: It's and obviously everything's a business.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_07: And if there's somebody that's gonna pay money for my priv my child, my seven-year-old, to come do private lessons every single day.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_09: And to potentially be famous.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_09: I guess I'm gonna potentially, yeah.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_09: To like, because fame doesn't really have a price.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_09: And how many parents are living vicariously through their kids in giving them this training so that they can have this sense of accomplishment that their kid is accomplishing something.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_09: And their kid probably wants it too.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_09: Their kid is like, yeah, this is really cool.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_09: It's glamorous.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_09: Look at all those likes these people are getting on Instagram.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_09: Look at how famous they're getting.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_09: They're getting jobs, like, how cool, how cool, how cool, without any like kind of concept of like all of the consequences, all of the very related consequences of what it is to be internet famous, of what it is to like be pulled out of school all the time for dance.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_09: Like you have to, you have to really want it.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_09: And that kind of goes to one of the points of the of your guys' questions of like, do they burn out too early when they're this good?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_09: Like, I don't know.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_09: I'm sorry to like jump ahead.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_07: But no, that's no, that's fine.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_07: Well, my have I want to ask Kristen, because Kristen, you're in a studio regularly, yeah.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_07: What are your like, do you and here's another question?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_07: Do you have advanced minis at your studio?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_07: What's their schedule look like?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_07: How often are they dancing?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_07: What what are they doing in class?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_07: They're not doing a jazz square and a pivot turn.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, no, no.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: We so I would say, given like any Monday through a Thursday, depending on what time they get out of school, they probably have maybe anywhere from one to two private lessons that they start the day with.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then they have class, maybe three classes, sometimes four classes, depending on what it is for that day.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And class can be ballet, they can have like a jazz contemporary because they kind of split the two depending on the teacher.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: They'll have tap, they also We'll do, you know, acro class, depending on which studio that I'm at, because I kind of teach a a few different ones.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some of them do aerial and some of them are you know a little more musical theater driven.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: So they're also in other, you know, programs where they're doing plays and things like that.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it can get to where you're seeing, okay, the other studio from I don't know, 3 30 in the afternoon till 8 30 at night.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_07: And we're talking like a seven-year-old.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_07: Crazy.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, depending.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, depending, you know, or you'll have them, you know, three maybe three thirty, seven thirty again, depending on on the day, but uh anywhere from four to five hours in that Monday through Thursday.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then they might have one of those nights that's like their later evening, and then a little bit earlier on the other night.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then a lot of them will take another private lesson on Friday, another private lesson on a Saturday.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then we've got you know, team rehearsals on Saturdays that are anywhere from depending on which group they're in, two hours or four hours, and what they've got going on.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then if they feel like it, they'll do another private lesson on Sundays because that's what that's what they do.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then and and depend, you know, depending on the family.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Some families they're hard, like, no, we don't do Sundays, or we don't do Fridays, or you know, they'll cut a line somewhere, or but a lot of it is a very much like you go, and once we're at the studio, you're there, we pack our lunch, you're dropped off.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I go home, I pick your brother up.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: At this spot, I come back, I drop this off for you, or your dad's picking you up because I gotta do this, and you know, you're seeing the kid all day, every day, you know, week in after week out.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like you see them more than your own family because they're there just as much as you are.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, do you sleep?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're describing sleep.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_09: I mean, you're literally describing what my childhood was like, like from when I was, yeah, that that was my life as well.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_09: Like I would start at four, we'd go until eight or nine, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesdays was my late night.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_09: I would be at the studio until 10 or 10:30.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_09: Oh my goodness.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, oh yeah.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_09: And then Friday I'd have like solo rehearsals, and then Saturday we'd start at like seven in the morning and go until about five in the afternoon, just depending on like how many dances you were in and which dances were rehearsing when.
• 24:26
  unknown: Wow.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_09: And yeah, Sundays were usually off for sure.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_09: Unless we had like a special rehearsal for like a competition and none of us were like prepared at all.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_09: We always rehearsed on Martin Luther King Day.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_09: That was like always like our one last ditch, like cleaning.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_09: We have this one day.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_09: Yep, yep, we've got this day.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_09: Don't plan for it to be off.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_09: Don't go skiing.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_09: Like you're you're gonna be at the studio all day long.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we did that too when I was younger.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Martin Luther King day.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, we got this random day.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's throw it in.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_06: Last ditch effort.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, do you feel like that was like that was also like you did the all the private lessons every single time I didn't do privates every day.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_09: No, we had four like four or five group classes every day.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_09: Like I never did privates during the week unless it was like a solo rehearsal on a Wednesday night, like after lyrical class.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_09: That's when I would be at the studio until 10:30.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_09: Lyrical classic.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_09: Which is ridiculous.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_09: I know, right?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_09: Lyrical.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_09: Gosh, I know that's like a secret blast from the past.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm here for it.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: That that sounds similar to what I had, where it's like, but I mean, we weren't at the studio as long on the weekends for practices, but like, you know, you got there, and I mean Monday through Thursday, we were there for you know, four to five hours, but we're taking classes and then you know, and then we have our one little time for for rehearsals for the groups, and then whatever little 30 minutes came after again after lyrical class, right?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: After lyrical.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, that's what it was, but it was still a very it felt like a very heavy schedule, probably.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like in you know, you're you're pulling a full day, like your parents are pulling a full day.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_09: Oh yeah, possibly and like we we would count it out, we would count it out every year, and it was 40 hours a week at the studio.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_09: Wow, and as an adult, I can barely get through 40 hours a week of a working job, like much less the 40 hours of school plus then the 40 hours of dance, like two full-time jobs.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_09: I but like hilariously enough, because I wanted it so much, I would go back and do it all again in a heartbeat.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_09: I would go back and like, you know, studio politics aside and social struggles that I had aside, like I all I want to do as an adult is dance 40 hours a week.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_07: I love it.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_07: I love it.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_07: Well, and listen up, anybody listening, as an adult, you don't get the opportunity to dance 40 hours a week.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_07: You have to go work a job and then maybe afford a dance class twice a week.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_07: Maybe, maybe.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_07: Or you're teaching, which means you're not really dancing for yourself anyway.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_07: So enjoy the 40 hours while you have them.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Enjoy those free dance classes.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: And with that being said, and we kind of hinted at it already, that like luckily, Kate, in your scenario, you you know, so many years later, after growing up in your studio and dancing 40 hours a week, you still love it.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: You knew this was what you wanted to do, you still love it.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: That might not be the case for every dancer.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: Those dancers who are training 30 hours a week at age eight might not even make it to age 13 because they might be so burnt out from this crazy schedule that they signed up for at such a young age.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so their parents signed them up for.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: I guess it, yep.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, that's true.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, that's true.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_09: Like I only consented to it because I was so excited for it, right?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_09: My pa my mom would ask me every year at the beginning of the year, do you want to take this class?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_09: Are you sure you want to take this class?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_09: You'll be there every week.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_09: We're gonna like we had real conversations.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_09: Like, this is what this means to make a commitment.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_09: This is what this means.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_09: And I would beg her because I would always want to be in like the cool small group or like the special guest choreography.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_09: And I knew that the more I trained and the more I was in class, the better opportunities I would have for company auditions the next year and which group placements I was going to be in the following year.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_09: Like I was always striving for more.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_09: And yes, we did do private lessons, like as I started getting older.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_09: Like, I think when I turned like 10 or 11, like my mom really made sure that I wanted it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_09: Because she was like, she and my dad were like, we would have pulled you out.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_09: Like, we didn't want you to do it.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_09: Like, all my mom wanted me to be able to do was be on the palms team in high school.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_09: That was it.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_09: Like that was her goal.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_09: She was like, cool, mission accomplished.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_09: She got to be on the dance team, score.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_09: Meanwhile, she like totally got me into this amazing life passion that I like never, ever, ever want to stop doing.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_09: Like, I'm obsessed with dance.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_09: I love dancing.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_09: I love moving my body.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_09: I love the freedom.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_09: I love when I hit that perfect quad and like hold it like those really awesome like turns in second or a really incredible like jump.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_09: Like, I just I love dancing.
• 29:26
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• 29:27
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• 29:32
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• 29:40
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• 29:43
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• 29:49
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• 29:56
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• 30:04
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• 30:22
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• 30:26
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• 30:30
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• 30:41
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• 30:49
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• 31:01
  SPEAKER_07: And that's what I hope for the for all the minis who dance is I hope they still feel like that after at age seven, you can pull a perfect quad.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_07: But then when you're 15, how much, how much joy does that bring you when you could do it when you were seven?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_07: Like that's my question about, you know, the progression of children who are phenomenal at such an early age.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_07: Where else is there for you to go?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_07: I feel like there's there's the world in which you are a mini and you're phenomenal.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_07: Your technique is on point.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_07: Your somehow your emotional expression is just like mature adults, all these things are amazing.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_07: And then what?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_07: Because then you have like this chunk of time of like that middle school era of okay, well, how much better am I gonna get when I just grew a foot and I'm getting boobs and my hips have my center has shifted?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_07: Am I still that good?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_07: And then do I care about other things more because I'm growing up?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_07: Like has anybody ever experienced that with any students that you've had?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_07: Oh to like they were amazing and then they were like, I'm still amazing, but I don't care anymore.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_07: Uh-huh.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they they they become cheerleaders.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: They be that is exactly what they're doing.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: No shade to the cheerleaders.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I cheered myself and in high school and did a year of it in college and got, you know, thrown up two people high and all the fun stuff.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I also have really bad knees now from that and some back issues from being dropped in stunts and things like that.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: So there are some some uh you know physical aspects of that that can come that I don't think when you make that trade, or if you're doing both, that you're like, oh, this is gonna happen too.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I've had the kid that's like super, super talented, and then but then you see them kind of uh start to diminish in performance, and you're then you start begging them over and over again, oh my god, just just make a face, just make a face.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: You used to make a face, you used to love it, you used to do it, you know, and then you're trying to remind them and and give them scenarios to to help bring their uh awareness back to their movement and their and how much they love it, and and and that so that can reflect when they're on stage, and then eventually it just fizzles to where I don't even want to do this anymore.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to quit and I'm gonna do something that is I still want to move, I still want to have this connection too, but it doesn't, I don't, I they don't feel the pressure of the same.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there that it becomes a okay, now I'm doing this.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've had kids that have left for cheerleading, I've had kids that have left for lacrosse, I've had kids that have left uh just period and stopped completely at, you know, at all.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it it just kind of it really just boils down to kind of you know what I was saying with what I do with if I can give you foundation and I can help you appreciate your foundation from a young age, then you're a little more aware every time you go into those settings for competing, that even if you do get in an overall, you do get a choreo award or a special award from a judge, that there's still something that you're missing, and there's still something that you need to work on, and you did not achieve this level of perfection that now you don't have to try anymore.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: It still has to be fostered.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of the time I see that it's not.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_07: Well, and the I feel like just having heard a little bit about, you know, the way you work with kids and thinking about somehow, Kate, you were, I don't know if you were phenomenal, I'm sure you're fabulous, but like you loved dance until day from day one until day now.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_07: And but I guarantee you, when you walk into a class, you enjoy the jazz square just as much as you enjoy the quad the quad.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_07: Because at some point, somebody like Kristen taught you to enjoy the basics and the foundation and the gift that it is to move.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_07: Because you're not always gonna have that quad.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_07: Nope.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_07: Your back is gonna give out, your knees are gonna give out, you know, your body just disintegrate.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_07: Like it just happens.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_07: But at age 65, you're gonna be able to walk into a jazz class and still appreciate, oh, look at me, I can do this stylized chasse and love what I do.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_07: That's what I think those minis from you, Kristen, are getting that like even if they disappear off the face of the earth and decide I don't ever want to be in a dance class again.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_07: If that foundation was still there, they can still go to a dance performance and something might stir their soul, you know?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_09: So I do have a hope for, I do have a tiny confession.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_07: Tell me, are you were you phenomenal?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_09: I wasn't phenomenal in the way that we see all of our tinies now.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_09: But when you're growing up with Kayla Rodomsky in your age category, you have to be really good.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_10: Right?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_09: Think about that.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_09: So, and and I did like hit top five often.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_09: I did like, you know, get into those higher adjudications and things like that.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_09: But it was for me socially, I did burn out when I turned 16.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_09: I like the studio politics kind of destroyed a lot of love that I had for it because I was being passed over, not because I wasn't good enough and not because I wasn't working hard enough, and not because I wasn't just on the same level, but because socially I wasn't in the popular kids pack and I had had enough.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_09: I had been bullied enough, I had been, you know, given enough grief that I needed to take a step back.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_09: And I think in taking that step back, I was then able to run into New York and run into the dance scene in New York with so much more ferocity because I knew how important dancing was.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_09: Because even in that step back, even though I know, like even in hindsight, I knew I needed it, but like at the time I knew I needed it, like I just I needed a break.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_09: And so I did wind up missing my senior season because I just I couldn't do it.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_09: I couldn't emotionally put myself through the torture of being where I was and being around those people who were so just cruel.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_09: Like, cause I would in the year before I left my studio, I would go to class kind of sporadically because I just couldn't handle the bullying.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_09: And when I would go sporadically, I was still throwing triple leg turns.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_09: I was still perfectly on my leg.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_09: I was still like just as on top of all of my technique as I as if I had never taken any like sporadic breaks.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_09: But like the break, the step back, and then I found theater, but the step back gave me more energy to continue as an adult and as a professional.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_09: So I think that breaks can be useful.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_09: I think that breaks can be very valuable for your soul and for your brain and for your body too, right?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_09: Like yeah, even for little ones.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_09: Yep.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_09: Yep.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_09: But I think that especially since the age of dance moms, we've all gotten into this mentality of it has to be all or nothing.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_09: You either do it 100% or you don't do it at all.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_09: And these tinies, as and and they jump into it, right?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_09: They're just there, they're having a good time.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_09: They're gonna keep doing it if they love it.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_09: It's when they stop loving it that they start stepping back.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_09: It's when they stop loving it and stop being fully invested in all of the stuff and you know, reaching new heights that they're like, I'm good, I'd rather hang out with these friends.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_09: And it is hard to say no to going to birthday parties every single weekend.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_09: It is hard to say no when you've got Girl Scouts and you're not selling as many cookies as the rest of the girls in your troop, and you're like, Well, I just wanted to win the cool turtle stuffed animal.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_09: Like, why can't I sell enough boxes of cookies?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_09: Well, because you have dance, like, and that's and that's a valid choice.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_09: But I think kids aren't I think, especially today, kids are much more focused on being together, especially after the pandemic.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_09: Like, I can't imagine being in social situations as a kid now, and you know, having been separated from my friends for as long as I was, and then you have this opportunity to be together, especially like, you know, they know how precious this time is, but then they also don't know how to interact with each other.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_09: So it's just like kind of this weird thing.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_09: And the minis had a lot of time to focus on dance.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, a lot of time that's true to just be in the studio.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_07: So I think in me hearing this, and then I think parents also hearing this.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_07: So, in order to be one of these crazy, fierce minis, quad turns, you know, crazy leaps, I mean, all the things.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_07: It sounds like you have to dance a lot.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_07: We're talking 30, 40 hours a week, we're talking privates, all the things.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_07: In y'all's experience, because I I just got here's the preface for why I'm asking this question.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_07: I went to my niece's gymnastics class.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_07: She's almost three.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_07: She comes from a family of dancers.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_07: My mother's a dance teacher, my sister was a dancer, was on the, you know, college dance team, like awesome dancer.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_07: I'm a dancer.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_07: Maddie Rose, not a phenomenal, you know, gymnast, no stretchingist.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_07: She's not flexible.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_07: She follows directions really well, but like not, it's, you know, it's like you're gonna have your cute little pre-ballet class next year with with, you know, Miss Brenda, grandma, and that's gonna be it.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_07: It's gonna be fine.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_07: Do you think it's more nature or nurture when we talk about a mini who, you know, you've seen these four and five-year-olds who have a beautiful, perfect, poised posse.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_07: We see them on social media, we see them everywhere.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_07: Is that natural talent, or did somebody do that?
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_07: And can a kid, like Bless Her Heart, Maddie Rose, come from not being able to touch her toes to being this phenomenal dancer?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, both.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_07: Both.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, both.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, both.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I both exist.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely seen the like they are the combo baby, they only come one day a week.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: The first day of class, we're sitting in our pike, legs are straight, feet point to the ground, sitting straight up, arms are out, like everything I say, we are collecting it in, and in my mind I'm going, Oh my god, you're totally, you're totally gonna be it.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And now we are 10, 11 years old and we are doing circles around people, like triple leg turns, five and six pirouettes, like you know, and still loves it as much as when they were four and only came one time a week.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then I've had the kid that like really just didn't have a feet, didn't have the coordination.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was harder for them, it took them long, but they just they loved it.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: They love being in class.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: They just wanted to they just wanted to work hard.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think it could definitely and then and now you've got both of those, like they they're the same.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're you know, you could put them in a duet and they'll look exactly the same, and nobody's gonna go, oh well that one, you know.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: It it can definitely, definitely be both.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_07: And what matters is that they want it.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that is a very defining factor.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you want it, it you it's sky the limit for the teacher that you've got.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think that the kids need to want it, but also I think it's a true testament to the actual studio training and the foundational training that is happening at that age for those minis, because in that scenario, if it was at a different studio that maybe didn't have as high of caliber of teachers or of or understand how to properly teach this young age, which is very crucial if you want them to get great quick, if that is your goal at the studio, if that's not like if you just want them to progress as what is generally expected.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we're talking about the minis that are doing things that teenagers are doing right now.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: We're not talking about just minis being good.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like we're talking about those very high-level minis.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, how did you even get to that point?
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: But if you have a teacher that understands how to get them to that point and is offering the quality training, then I do think that you can teach it to anybody.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: If you know, I do think it's teachable.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe that one dancer that wasn't as didn't have the natural facility as the other one sitting next to them might have to come to a few extra more classes.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_03: And if that's what that dancer wants and loves it, and if that's what mom and dad can afford, then by the time they are 10, guess what?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: They are at the same level.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: Because maybe the other dancer that was more of a quote unquote natural and had the feed and had the flexibility didn't have to come as much, but they were still getting the same training.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_03: It was just a it's a matter of how much work they were they were wanting to and willing to and financially could put in to achieve those results.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that, you know, sometimes when we see really great minis, like and kind of like even how we talked about at the beginning, a lot of us kind of knew of those just naturally gifted minis that existed when we were young.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: They were just, you know, this is everyone's getting trained, but there's that one dancer that's always just a little bit better than everybody else.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: But we're all getting trained the same, but like they just had something special.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: Versus now we're seeing entire studios filled with minis that are at the same level or very close to The same levels.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: You can tell there's some standouts in that group, but even overall, the weakest links in that mini group is still beyond another studio's mini, if you get what I'm saying.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_09: So beyond the adults that have been like practicing and trying and doing like yeah, better than the seniors, right?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_09: At studios.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_09: Exactly.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_09: At many studios.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a true like test to the training at the end of the day.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually the training.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_09: What I do worry about though with those tinies and all of that really intense training is how safe it is for their bodies and how much strength is behind all of that flexibility.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_09: Because one of the really amazing things about being so tiny is that you your legaments are stretchy and your joints aren't fully developed yet.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_09: And like that's a big reason why ballet teachers and ballet masters will not put you in point shoes until the growth plates in your feet have sealed so that they don't, or at least the ones that have morals and ethics and standards, sorry, I didn't mean to like just totally blanket something with that one.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_09: But like you're you're doing harm to a child's body if you put them in point shoes before their bodies are ready for it.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_09: And like that is what I worry about with a lot of this like flexibility training.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_09: Training.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_09: I I'm gonna put that in loose quotes because you know, unless these kids have the strength behind all of that ooy gooey bendiness, they're just opening themselves up for massive hip problems, massive knee problems, massive back problems that they won't be able to solve as an adult.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_07: Like and or they'll have to solve it when they're 21 and it, you know, the surgery is X amount of money and like it's crazy.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_09: A hip replacement.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_09: Like, yeah.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_09: And I mean, I'm I that I do worry about that, especially because they're just torquing their hips like wide open, like just using their arms and like and granted, I don't know what's going on in these studios.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_09: Kristen knows better about what's going on in these studios than I do because I'm not teaching minis.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_09: I'm judging them, right?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_09: Um, but I'm not watching them work through their core.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_09: I'm I'm watching them not protect their backs when they're doing all of these really amazing acro tricks.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_09: I'm watching them just kind of fling themselves around.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_09: And there are natural and related consequences to all of this.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_09: And I I also wonder like how much of this is being driven by their parents and what kind of you know, I don't want to say this is gonna sound harsh, but what kind of delusions of grandeur these parents have for these kids?
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_09: Have like I want I want to know like if these kids want it because if they're just biting the apple because they know they're supposed to and kicking their leg up and holding it because they know they're supposed to, that's not the same as, mommy, I really want this.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_09: Mommy, I'm really excited about this.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_09: Like I think that, and like that's kind of one of the weird things about this whole conversation is that it's very parent-led in a lot of ways.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and in a lot of ways, we can't control what's going on in those families.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_07: But and we've never had a seven-year-old on our podcast, but like we could ask them, you know.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to want they've got dance rooms in their house.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, you know, it's right.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, so yeah, you've got one of those moms, yeah, mom coaches, and you know, they they they pop into the the lesson and they hear a little bit of what you've said, and they, you know, try to understand what it is that you're doing, but not fully.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: So then they, you know, comment on what it is that you're doing when you're just a kid practicing at home.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: I really I'm so glad that my mom recognized my talent and ability for dancing at a young age, but then just let my teachers do their thing and and let me be when I was at home.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I would play my music and I would dance, and it didn't matter the song.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: I would just change every single time, and I just did whatever, and she would just, yay, Kristen, and you know, move about life.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think how much harder and how much more stress I'm would have been placed on me had I had been in those private lessons or been in those classes with my mom sitting there being like, oh no.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I remember the one time I did compete and and she watched me do uh, you know, Alice A C hone turns, and like she's like, every time you keep hitting your knee, you keep hitting your knee.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, mom, you do not know what you're talking about.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: Please, I I like my teacher will tell me if I if I'm doing it wrong, but like that was the one time that she said something, but it was also the one time that literally in the video, there I am hitting my knee every single time with my hand.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: So she was right.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, okay, for the one time you're right, but like still overall, she had a very like, I'm putting you in this and I'm trusting the people that are training you.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: So uh if I'm seeing you practice and enjoy it at home, I don't need to do more than just watch you and enjoy you.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's difficult being in that front as the coach or as the in you know educator, and to say, like sometimes it's it's even to the parents too.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like they're okay.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: We we're following them, not you trying to drive what's going on.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: It amazes me how much we, you know, because I'm I'm a mom, so I like I recognize that sense of you know, we are totally okay if our kid is one and isn't walking yet.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're totally okay if they are four and they haven't fully started reading yet.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're not okay when they're six and they can't do a split.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're not okay when they can't do the double churn.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it has the same growth connotation, like they're going, it's gonna come to them when they're ready for it.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: And when they're and not just with their bodies are ready for it, but when their minds are ready for it too.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to look at that developmental aspect.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, going back to, you know, Kate, what you were saying about like are their bodies ready?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Are they throwing it, you know, uh uh up in the back?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just we don't have to worry about trying to force that when we're at home.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: It will come naturally.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna go to class, they're gonna stretch, they're gonna hear what they're supposed to do.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if they want to try to use their brains to replicate that when they're at home, then you don't have to, as the parent, redrive that in because I can see that as a factor towards that burnout later on in life.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of it can come down to, well, I quit dance because of how my mom or how my dad or how my grandparents or whoever put me in dance, you know, pushed me in this way.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, you know, it wasn't my instructors, it was, you know, the people that paid for it, the people that brought me every week.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a hard thing for for I think a lot of parents to to see.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like you gotta go back to walking and reading, like it's that same factor.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: We can wait for them to be okay and wait for them to be ready.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_09: And relatedly to that, if you are a parent and you are not trained in how to teach these children how to move their bodies in a specific way, be it a split, be it a scorpion, be it turns, be it whatever, and you give them bad information, that could hurt them.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_09: You need to trust the teachers to give them the information to keep their bodies safe.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_09: And you can watch and you can, you know, be in or adjacent to the room that these teachers are doing.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_07: Well, and absorb the good information because of course we want we want you to like know, like if you absorb the good information, we want that.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, of course.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_07: But but you know, that's that's where the hard part is.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_09: But giving your kid instruction outside of the dance classroom opens yourself to risk of hurting your child inadvertently.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_09: No parent wants to hurt their kid.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_09: My mom would yell would not yell, but she would remind me very kindly to connect my posse when I was turning because she was like, I'm paying for the solo twice.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_09: This is like a lot of money.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_09: I'm investing a lot of money for you to have a lot of fun, but I want you to work on your technique while you're doing it.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_09: Connect your passe.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_09: And I'd get annoyed with her.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_09: As all kids do.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_09: As all kids do, but she was right.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_09: And you're welcome, mom.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_09: You were right.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_09: But like, you know, on a fundamental level, if you want your tiny human, your three, four, five, six-year-old, to be really excellent at what at this dance thing, and if they're driving it too, you're doing them a disservice by trying to instruct them by yourself without the professional there.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_09: And that's another big safety concern.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_03: Especially with social media right now, and how you they everyone thinks you can just learn things on the internet.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like there's, oh, we can just watch this Instagram account and they'll teach me how to do my turns better, and they'll teach me how to do my splits better, and they'll teach me how to do my scorpion better.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, uh, I mean, and and I have a love hate with all of that content in general.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, personally, like I I feel like there's a lot of things like that that I could contribute to the world, but at the same time, I'm like, I'm not even gonna go through it because I can open up like that.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to be liable for that.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to be that person that's watching how to do a peer what better.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: And like, I just I don't know.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: Just too much misinformation out there that it's all at our fingertips that people can just click and watch and think that's right when there's a lot of people that unfortunately are teaching incorrect technique on a lot of these social media platforms.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_03: So you cannot trust them.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like you have you are paying for your teachers at your studios to teach you these skills.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_03: Do not rush ahead.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_03: Do not think that that you have to have this to be competitive.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's truly a huge problem with social media that is leading to all of this pressure from not just the parents, but also a lot of studios.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of dance studios who don't know how to train some of these skills properly, and then they're teaching them to dancers incorrectly, even if they're quote unquote ready for them, but then even worse, teaching them before they're ready for them.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_03: And like that's a whole nother podcast episode for sure, because it's a huge issue in our industry.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, I'm I'm really glad, Kate, you brought up the safety issue.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_03: I've I I remember specifically, I saw a studio last year, I think.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_03: I was judging.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_03: And they had out of this world minis, I mean, uh just even the way they held their body, the where the way they carried themselves, their posture, their focus.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_03: They had like six pack abs.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like you could see every muscle in these little tiny baby dancers' body.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_03: And they were like six years old.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_03: And they were doing some of the most unbelievable acro and things that I mean, I wish I could do.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_03: But but it got to a point where I actually couldn't even enjoy it because I was really scared for them.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_03: And granted, they were doing it well and they were landing fine.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like the but then there were a lot of things that they were like almost pulling their hip out of their socket and like their they were going so into their hypermobility that it made me cringe in my seat.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't enjoyable.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_03: And they're six or seven.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just like, I can't believe that no one else feels the way that I feel when I watch this.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like, are you just impressed by this?
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_03: Or are you feeling about their longevity?
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_03: Are we just taking this in for this moment and like, wow, that is a very talented six-year-old?
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or what what where is a six-year-old gonna be when they're 11?
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's that that's still very young.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_03: And like, I don't know if their body is going to even be able to support dance by the time they're 11 because of how hard they're training right now and how much they're ta honestly abusing their body, even though they're carrying themselves well well and they they look strong and they are executing things in a safe way, it's still very damaging to the body and the ligaments and the joint joints and the growth plates and all the things that you know.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a doctor, but like I can only imagine, right?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_09: Like well, and I think I think we've equated hypertrophy in um musculature, like seeing a six-pack, seeing all of those like really nice intricate muscles.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_09: We've mistaken that for strength because just because you have a six, everybody has a six-pack underneath all of that nice belly fat, right?
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_09: Everybody has one.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_09: It's just a matter of showing it.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_09: How it's developed too.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_09: And how it's developed.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_09: That doesn't necessarily mean that they're strong.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_09: It means that they're just hypertrophy, you can see the musculature.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_09: So, like, and that's even more, that's even scarier, right?
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_09: Because like you're saying, like, yeah, you can see their six-pack, you can see all of their muscles, but like, does that mean that they're training them?
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_09: Does it mean that they're developing them?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_09: Are they doing planks?
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_09: Because that's like a really nice, safe way to develop all that nice core strength.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_09: Then, you know, try are they are they uh are they doing the thing that I did for a very long time, which was stabilizing with my back?
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_09: I was stabilizing with my back instead of my core.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_09: And that turned into a huge issue where my back was spasming and I had to have it PT for six months because I couldn't figure out how to knit my ribs together and pull up my TA and pull my belly button to the back of my spine because I was using my back instead of my core.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_09: Like what we don't know what these kids are doing, and we don't know the safety of what these kids are doing.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_09: And like at least dance teachers are trying to teach in a way that they were taught, right?
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_09: And like that's all that's all that dance teachers are doing.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_09: There's no like certification, which is unfortunate.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_07: But like there's plenty of them, but it's not required that anybody do them.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_07: You know what I mean?
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_07: Like plenty of people have certification.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is you know what you need to have or or be able to teach or even show that you can teach, right?
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: To be able to teach kids.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_09: All you need is a business license to open a studio.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_09: The end.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_07: And that's why it's really important for, you know, once once you're, I think, looking for a studio when your child is small, you know, I feel like when they're they're a little bitty and they just want to have a fun time, do go wherever.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_07: Just you know, we're skipping, we're using scarves, we're having a nice time and imagining, you know, whatever.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_07: But when you want your kid to start being a little more serious, that's when you really have to do the research on the people that are teaching your kids because there's plenty of people out there who, like you said, don't have any certification, but are doing it right.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_07: And then there's people who are doing it wrong who do have certifications.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_07: Like we just you have to go, you have to physically be there, you have to watch a class, go watch the recital, go watch the YouTube video, like really see what's happening.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_07: Find a friend.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_07: Here we are.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_07: Hello, we have many people on this podcast that you could email.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_07: Reach out to you, please check this studio out because I don't know if this is safe.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_07: Like this feels, you know, whatever.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_07: You've there's resources to figure this out because that's like the worst thing I think that could happen is that your kid is being trained improperly, and then 10 years down the line, you're like, oh crap, well, this is because she did this when she was six, like you know.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean finding out who who is at the studio the longest for those parents, like when you're searching, you know, like, okay, I was a dancer and now I have a daughter and I want her to be a dancer and now she's five, like I want her to compete and do all of these things.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, when you're looking, if you're start asking questions, like if the studio has been around for a while, you know, go later in the evenings when it is those advanced classes.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: Start asking around to the parents who's been here the longest?
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: How long have they trained here?
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: Who was here since they were a little kid?
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: What do you like about it?
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what what are what are things that make you stay?
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it, you know, what are what are some things that you maybe you don't like?
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: How have they improved over the years?
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: You you don't you don't want to get into the habit of thinking like, okay, I've just come to a studio just because I see that they win all the time, and then you get there, and then you don't like how things are are operating, you know, versus saying, you know, I've had studios where they've been around for almost 30 years and are and people don't even know that they've that they've been around.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: They've been in that area just because of how they have operated and kept themselves really small and they compete, but they only go to a few little competitions, but they focus more on training.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when they go to compete, they blow kids out of the water because of how they've done things.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: So those are questions to really be asking for those parents that you know they're they have young kids and they want to see them progress, you know, all the way through from being three or five and and and go on to be 18 and and above and still keep dancing.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good important question to to be asking, and not of the studio owner or the teachers or like the woman that sits behind the desk because you know it could be somebody's mom or something.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like literally ask the parents who who's been here and and what is it like?
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's worth knowing so that if you get somewhere, it's you don't want to feel like if your kid is is is advanced and wind up being one of those uh advanced manies, that down the road you've got to jump ships somewhere else because you can't get full training from start to finish.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very difficult, difficult start to finish training.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_03: I like that.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a big thing to like help prevent that lack of burnout and the you know getting what you want and knowing that the kid still loves it and they still want to be there.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you, you know, if you find yourself like, oh, every couple of years we gotta hop to somewhere else, like it's gonna be not saying that they won't be successful, it's not saying that they won't have a love for it, but there's gonna be some gaps in training, there's gonna be some lack of understanding in certain places that they wouldn't have had.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna find themselves in a class where they're being taught something that they missed because they jumped shit from somewhere else and they didn't, you know, take the time to really, you know, focus on that training or that that learning.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a time where you are aware that where you're at isn't servicing your child, and you do have to leave.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I can respect that too, and then say, okay, now I've left and I see a hundred times more growth in what is going on in my kids.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I do see both, but a a being aware of start to finish training is really important.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_09: I think that's great.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_09: This is such a fascinating conversation because it's like there is no right or wrong.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_09: There's things to look out for, there's things to, you know, be aware of, but at the end of the day, like a a super intuitive mom is going to push their kid harder.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_09: And the kid and I mean the super talented, excited mini, like I think they I think that they want to do well.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_09: Like, I think they want to do well in however that works in their brain, whether it's I want to make my mommy happy, I want to make my teacher happy, this dance stuff makes me happy.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_09: Like it's one of those three things, usually, right?
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_09: Because and it's I I guess it's trying to identify which one of those three things it is so that you can prevent burnout.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_09: Because if it doesn't make the kid happy, then and like it it can't be I'm making my mommy happy, so that makes me happy.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_09: It can't be I'm making my dance teacher happy that that's what makes me happy.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_09: Like it can't be those two things because then you're definitely gonna get burned out.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_09: But I mean, I just I'm I'm also thinking about all of the other kids who aren't incredible, right?
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_09: Who are dancing alongside these incredible minis because you can only throw a mini in a much more advanced class for so long until they're like, I don't know how to interact with people my own age.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_07: Well, and then the you know middle schooler dancing with a seven-year-old, like they don't want to be in class with that's demeaning and doesn't feel great either for the 12-year-old.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_03: Other mini parents are gonna get mad because the one mini is dancing up a level because they're more advanced, they're not dancing with their age division, and you know, it's just gonna cause chaos at the studio.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, then the parents like, well, should I leave and should I go to a higher level studio that can give me the training that I'm that I'm needing?
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_03: But then maybe that mini, like you talked about, and my point is kind of coming back now, Kristen, where you were saying like the start to finish training and the gaps in the training if you jump ship from studios, and that's gotta be true, and it's gotta be happening.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_03: And you're either playing catch-up or you're too far beyond, or whatever it may be.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_03: But something else that that comes to mind too with these amazing minis and what they're sh demonstrating to us on stage as dance competition judges is I mean, if you're seven and you're able to do all these crazy things that a teen should be doing, I mean, the the amount of times I've said on the critique, wow, you are just beyond your years.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_03: You're dancing like you're 15 years old and you're eight.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like this is, you know, I mean, in a way, I don't really feel like I should be saying that on a critique, to be completely honest.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's like absolutely a compliment, but it's also kind of bizarre and crazy.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like, oh, I can't believe I'm saying that to an eight-year-old, but here we are, and that's just the dance world that we're living in.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_03: But do they really know the basics or are they just disguising it all and have provided a very well-reased, uh well-rehearsed routine that they're presenting at competition?
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_03: Are they able to do all of the foundational skills that have led them to that point?
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_03: Or are they just jumping over those skills?
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_03: Because let's be real, if you're already eight years old being able to do some of these things, I don't know if there is enough time.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_09: I mean, maybe I think they're jumping.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_09: I don't think oh, you're definitely jumping.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_09: I I think they're jumping and I actually say this in a lot of my critiques.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_09: First not a lot.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_09: I I say this in critiques when it's warranted.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_09: If you aren't on your leg in your turns in second, we need to go all the way back to our out prepare for holds.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_09: We need to be developing that muscular strength on our standing leg doing plie relevaes.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_09: We need to be like going back to basics and you need to learn the basics because you cannot run before you walk.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_09: You cannot walk before you crawl.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_09: All of these things are very developmentally critical to having a solid foundation of technique.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_09: If you're just throwing turns in second and you have no idea where your front is or where your center is, or if like your shoulders are stacked on top of your hips, that's not impressive to me.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_09: That's a sporting lane turned in.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_07: Just because you rotated three times doesn't mean you did a triple.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_07: You rotated three times.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_07: That's all you did.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_07: That's not a triple pirouette.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: I tell the kid, I tell them when they're little like that, I said, Oh, look, you just spun like a top just then.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: I said there's no control.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: I said, We I said you're a dancer.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: I said we pirouette.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: I said, and a pirouette means we have control.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_01: I said, but she didn't have any control.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we just spun around with our eyeballs spinning around in our head.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, they they they hear that and then they're like, okay.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, a lot of control work is very important when they're that little.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I say that on critiques, like, don't don't throw a double turn just because they can do it really fast and then drop down into their straddle.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I want to see the double and a two-count hold at the end because you did a double, and then I want to see you nice and controlled slide down into a straddle, if that's what it is.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_01: But don't don't just give me anything because I can tell by their eyeballs that we didn't even learn how to spot yet.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're taking these kids to the competitions and they're getting technical critiques on things at their age, like keeping your knees straight, pointing your toes, and stretching your fingers for you know, many's.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like those are the three main, like, we learn these first.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: Combo baby, we learn this first.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: Straight knees, point toes, stretch my fingers.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if I'm that's something that I'm having to say over and over again, like, we don't need to worry about trying to get a back walk over.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need to worry about trying to to get the the double turn.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need to worry about a needle, we need to worry about just trying to hold a posk on a flat foot, right?
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then a releve, and then we'll go from there.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_07: And maybe maybe we'll go from there, which is so much more impressive.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_07: Like, and I just I feel like we're all yelling the same thing and nobody's hearing us.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to see a little four or five that like does their little solo and they give me a clean prep and then a nice clean balance, a balance.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: Just about balance.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have to show me that they could turn, but they show me that they could balance, and they showed me that they had foundation and preparation and that they were proud of that balance.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh- I'm gonna like that a lot more than you know the sloppy double that went to the sling around.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_03: But even still, like, I mean, I feel like that those there's those minis though that we see that like they blow and and like as a convention teacher, and I say this all the time, I mean, they blow me away in in their solo.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely out.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_03: I I don't know how in the world a teacher got them to do that.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_03: How did they do those skills?
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_03: How were they connecting to the music?
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_03: They were finding contractions and articulated feats and high passes and all these things that like I'm just blown away.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they're getting like insane scores and probably winning top three.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then they get to class and all of that's thrown out the window.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost like that that dance was drilled so strong in just that three-minute dance that they only know how to context of the dance.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_03: They only know how to apply those foundational skills to just that aura, and they're not translating it because even probably part of what we've talked about developmentally, that maybe they just aren't there yet to understand that I'm doing a passe in in my solo in a different context.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_03: And the same thing's happening in my lyrical class.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't understand.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's not the same thing.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's that's my passe from my solo.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_03: I do that in my solo.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, you do, and it looks great in your solo, but I want it to look equally as great right now in your in your dance class as well.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_03: So pull that passe up and find a high releve.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's not translating because it's the same.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_03: Some of the things might be going over their head.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_03: And then that just tells me that they've just really perfected and drilled a routine versus actually having that solid foundation that we keep going back to and those basics that we keep going back to.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that's another big issue when it comes to what we're seeing on stage of competition.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it actually could be deceiving and not exactly what you think when it comes to like the quality training that like they've done a lot of hard work and they've put a lot of time into that solo, but have they put a lot of hard work and time into their training?
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_03: And there's probably I'm pretty certain that for being eight, they probab they might not have had enough time to get the basic that that that they needed in their lifetime to be really good that yet.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_09: They hardly aren't good yet.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_09: I mean, there's something to be said for um the neural pathways that are created in the practice of muscle memory.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_09: So the Vaganava technique, very famously, you stand there and you hold those poses for a very long time so that you're until you're shaking, because that ingrains it into your musculature and it ingrains it in your brain.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_09: And the more you do it, the thicker those neural pathways get, and the easier it is to go straight to the correct thing, right?
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_09: Like those kids, they they need that time, they need that time in class to be doing repetition over and over and over and over again.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's slow for a reason.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_01: You do the same thing over and over for a reason.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_09: It's yeah to develop the idea that when you get into that pique passe, you're not sickling your foot and you're not gonna step down exactly.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_07: There's no reason you would ever do it because it will always be right because you spent so much time perfecting it.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_09: Like I don't think I even know how to sickle my foot anymore as an adult because it doesn't it doesn't work like it just doesn't occur to your body.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_09: It's hard to break that muscle memory.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_09: And I have right, I have to think about it.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_09: And, you know, I point my foot before I step up onto the PK because I've been doing PK turns for forever.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_09: And that just goes back to the fact of like, you know, these minis are being put in situations, I think, that their bodies are not ready for.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_09: They're being trained, like Courtney very eloquently said, in context only for the routine, so that the routine wins.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_09: And all of these people are putting I I don't want to say all of these people, I'm sure that there are lots of that I'm sure that there are plenty of people who really love training minis, who are able to push them to the limits very safely, and all of the wonderful good things that we're hoping everybody's doing.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_09: But a lot of people, I'm painting with a broad brush stroke, are just wanting the result and wanting the clout and wanting to chase the fame.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_07: And that's the 21st century.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, that's just every across the board, everybody, everywhere, you know, every every context, every sport, every, you know, the freaking famous people who cheated on the history or whatever.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_07: Like that's just literally everyone just wants the result and doesn't want to do the work.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_09: And it's just true.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_09: And it hurts me because how many kids are we hurting in the process?
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_09: How many lights are we dimming in the dance world?
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_09: And, you know, how many injuries are we creating for these children who don't know what the related consequences are for all of the amazing technique that they are executing with no foundational knowledge?
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, right.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, walking walking around with a cane at 25 is not gonna be fun or not a good look.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that goes back to if I if I see you do doing this beautiful bot mod that like is to your eyeball, but then notice that you don't condue and degree on the way up, I don't care anymore that you botmoded to your face.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_01: It it's it's it's lost on me because then I know that from a technical standpoint, your your your ballet technique is not there.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're not gonna give me a clean petite allegro one day.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna give me, you know, you're gonna give me biscuit feet, you're gonna give me the, you know, um flat feet when you step through transitions, you're not gonna extend through your ankle anymore.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_01: These are very important things that like it have to still be driven.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're it's it's fun to give the trick.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, I tell them that all the time, like, I don't care about this being up here.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_01: If what's happening on the bottom is crazy and and wild.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I look at supporting legs all the time and I talk about it all the time.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the hugest way of for me showing if a if a mini is is lacking in that training, is if that supporting leg is not supporting them.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and it's it's a hard thing to have to to say to an instructor through the critique afterwards, after you've watched, you know, so many minis from say a particular studio, like we need to go back and just talk about standing on the floor with a straight leg and in posse, and that's okay.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of teachers are we're so wrapped in this, like, what's happening with you know, the social media and these super advanced manis that they're it's like we're afraid to say no, we're not gonna do that.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I I haven't been afraid to say it, and it's gotten me a so many kids that that come virtually from other studios, from my own, you know, studios that I work for.
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why is that impossible to say it's it's all right to just be basic?
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_07: Right?
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_07: Be basic.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_07: And I think something else for the for the parents out there who are like, man, my kids, my kids just kind of normal.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_07: A lot of those normal kids are gonna go on to dance professionally and be hired because those exceptional minis are so tired and burned out and broken at age 21 that they just they they don't anymore.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_07: And not to mention, half of the professional work around here, anywhere, around here in New York specifically, though, doesn't require literally anything that an advanced mini can do.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_07: I was shocked when I moved to New York.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_09: Like I was literally, it was culture shock because I I'm overtrained.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_09: I know I'm overtrained.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_09: Nobody has any need to have to do 64 for this on each side ever.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_07: No need.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_07: We did it.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_07: Except for maybe the one prima ballerina somewhere.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_09: We did it, but the one, right, the singular one, and she's doing black swan, and she's really only doing 32, right?
• 1:17:38
  SPEAKER_09: Like nobody nobody needs to do it on the right and the left.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_09: Nobody needs a quad.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_09: I've never professionally done four pirouettes ever in my whole existence.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_09: You know what I've done a whole lot of time steps.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_09: You know what I've done a whole lot of?
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_09: The shimshang.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_09: You know what I've done a whole with a big old smile on your face.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_09: Correct.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_09: Correct.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_09: All of these competitions are now so inflated skills-wise, that that's what people feel like they need to be able to do in order to be competitive in a meaningful way.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you said that because I say that to my little kids so much when they get upset about the thing.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, I can't get my aerial, I can't get my aerial.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know what?
• 1:18:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's totally fine that you can't do this aerial right now.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it'll come one day.
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_01: I can get it, I'll do mine.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's cool.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, these, like, you know, that'll be your reward.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_01: But like, can we work on on this passe they hold?
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, right.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can you get that right for basics, yeah.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_01: We worry about the other stuff.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, that's good.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of kids, they they they need to hear that.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_01: They say right now, I want to be a dancer, I want to be a dancer, and they think that they're all these things that they're doing, the photo shoots, the wearing the expensive designer dance clothes, and and being the ambassador and doing, you know, all of these things.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like a lot of that really isn't what being a professional dancer is like.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the time you're taking class, a lot of the time you're auditioning.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you don't get this cute time to like, you know, go pay.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_01: You you can't afford Tiger Friday.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can't afford these like, you know, expensive uh designer things.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like you are scraping guys.
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_01: So focus on the things that are way more important.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's good as a message to to hear, like, no, I'm a dancer that's in New York.
• 1:19:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here, I'm doing it.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was just trained, you know, as much as everybody else.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and now here, like, this is the reality of at least now.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on that end of saying, like, no, this is this is what you're gonna be doing.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Can we worry about this instead of this?
• 1:19:49
  SPEAKER_09: We want longevity in a dancer's life.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_09: And I feel like being mindful of not, you know, pulling our hips out of our sockets or even pulling our shoulders out of our sockets.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_09: Like, every time you do that, it causes damage to the ligaments every single time, unless you're doing it safely.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't remember that being a thing for like everyone did it.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like everyone needed to have that.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_01: That was a very specific, like, if you had the back flexibility naturally for that, then the teacher would would push that for you individually.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_01: But it was something in your in your private lesson, right?
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or like everyone's doing a split, and it's like, okay, the one girl that can actually do the split and then go back, like maybe she's helping her a little bit extra.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_01: But where now it's this need to like, I see this, and then I have to have this extra.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: I have to get my this, I have to get my yeah, and it's it's these little and I and I see it where their body is not naturally predisposed to that.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_01: But because they are young and they're super malleable, that they just get kind of, you know, oh week or you know, week after week after week, kind of pushed into that that shape to where now I have it.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I worked for it.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Look what I did.
• 1:21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to feel like it's great because they are understanding that sense of like I didn't have something and I worked towards it and I wanted it and now I do have it.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a good thing.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I never want to take that away from a kid from saying that okay, you did want something and you worked for it and now you have it.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, like when they hit puberty, their bodies change or they get taller, like especially the ones that they they are going to be very, very tall later on, and they shoot up and they're the that happens, then they're they're not that flexible.
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_01: That flexibility doesn't stay with them for forever, and then now they can't do this this needle anymore, they can't do this other, you know, trick or whatever anymore.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_01: My hips don't operate in this way anymore, and then but they still keep trying to achieve that, and then it puts more wear and tear on the body, so it's a sense of I don't like to push kids that aren't don't have that that that super flexibility already naturally.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_01: If they are like I you know, I get all I want to work on flexibility, I want to work on flexibility.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, are do you have your right and your left slit?
• 1:22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, okay.
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you really don't need to work on your flexibility, you just need to work on your strength.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like you need to learn how to hold the flexibility that you have.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you know, mentally trying to coach them and have them understand that it's not just about putting my leg to my head.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Your leg probably already goes to your head, but because you see that so-and-so over here can do it and then let it go, or do it and then grab it behind their head, you think that you need to do that too.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really not the case because this Barbie leg over here is not gonna be able to walk later on, but you're still gonna be able to hold a beautiful uh devil pay, you know, to to the Alistair comb later on, because of this understanding that like I don't have to do this, I can train my body in a way that's safe and that's helpful, and I can get better without this extremity of flexibility.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_09: And I think it's important to say this out loud as a professional, but most professional situations do not include soloists.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_09: Most professional dance situations are ensemble.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_09: So if you're if you're a superstar and you're always the front and you're always centered and you're always soloist, that's really cool.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_09: I'm really happy for you.
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_09: That's like a super self-esteem builder.
• 1:23:45
  SPEAKER_09: Keep going, keep doing that.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_09: I had plenty of solos, I had plenty of situations where I was front and center.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_09: It was awesome.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_09: I loved it.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_09: I loved every minute of it.
• 1:23:53
  SPEAKER_09: It was for me.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_09: But as a professional, you're dancing behind the singer.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_09: Dance, especially in professional settings, is much more ensemble work than anything else.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_03: And honestly, when you become a pro, you realize that it doesn't matter where you're standing on stage because you're getting paid the same amount as everybody else.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_03: And you probably don't want to be that front center because you don't want that feature anymore because it's gonna hurt your body to do that eight times a week when you're dancing in the show.
• 1:24:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like you shift your perspective very quickly.
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh unlike how we are when we're young, we have a different mentality.
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_03: And why didn't I get front?
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_03: And why didn't why didn't I get that feature?
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I worked hard, I deserve this, and all of those things.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like, sure, you feel that as an adult and a professional too, but your perver your perspective shifts when it, you know, you start getting paid and you realize, oh, oh, I'm not getting I'm not getting paid any different to do that.
• 1:24:47
  SPEAKER_03: So why am I doing quadruple the amount of work as the person next to me that's doing a step touch and a kickball change?
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know, right?
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_03: It changes very quickly.
• 1:24:57
  SPEAKER_09: And like, you know, having the foundation is what's gonna get you those jobs.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_09: It's not gonna be the tricks.
• 1:25:03
  SPEAKER_09: It's gonna be, can you tell a story?
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_09: Can you have a nice high releve?
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_09: Can you do a clean time step?
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_07: Can you And can you do it eight shows a week and not get hurt and then have to call in a replacement?
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_07: And that's you know where I was saying you're you're normal dancer parents, you're you're run of the mill.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_07: I'm a pretty I'm a middle row dancer.
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_07: Those dancers get hired and they're safe and they're they have longevity because they didn't overextend themselves when they were children.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_07: So on that note, y'all, this was such a great conversation.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_09: So great.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_09: Thank you for facilitating it.
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_09: This was so fun.
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we always have a good time over here on the podcast and uh always chatting off things, dance, and it's it's so great to have you both here joining us and sharing everything.
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, some super insightful uh moments.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_07: I can't wait to hear this whole thing.
• 1:25:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and how we always have our guests lead us out.
• 1:25:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's with just one final thought.
• 1:25:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Stay uh as as as a parent, just you know, don't don't get too ahead of where your where your kid is.
• 1:26:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, follow them.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_01: If they are if they're wanting more and doing more, you know, stick stick behind them and and be supportive and don't try to drive them.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let they'll show you what it is that they that they really want, especially when they're that young.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if they say they need a break, let them have a break.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_01: If they don't want to do it, don't get mad.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Don't tell them we paid for this solo, just go home.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, show them that their their feelings and their mental is important and their bodies are important.
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if they're saying things hurt, then take a day off.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's not it it will not hurt you at that age to to miss class and to stay home and and to be that that kid.
• 1:26:44
  SPEAKER_01: When you start getting older, it matters.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, right now when you're young, enjoy playing outside, enjoy you know, doing those, you know, fun cross activities and and just listen to your teachers, trust those instructors that they're giving your kid what they need.
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's hard to follow.
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_10: Because that's like no, but that's like so perfect.
• 1:27:06
  SPEAKER_09: But I guess I guess what I'll say to the minis directly is if you love dance with all of your heart and soul, do not let anybody dim that light for you, regardless of how much they want it for you.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_09: You have to want it for yourself too.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_09: And that is the most important thing, and that's what's gonna keep your love for dance alive is that it's for you and not for anybody else.