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The Importance of Ballet Training - Insights from Seasoned Educators · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_05: Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the table at a dance competition?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly what are the judges looking for anyway?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_05: This is Making the Impact, a dance competition podcast.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_05: Each week we'll cover a different topic related to the world of competitive dance, from the perspective of the judges behind the table.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_05: You hear us talk about it all the time.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_05: Ballet and how important it is.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_05: Today on Making the Impact, two seasoned ballet educators join us to discuss all things ballet, from the relevance of a dress code to what they think is missing in the ballet training of competitive dancers.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Hey y'all, welcome to this week's episode of Making the Impact.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Courtney Ortiz, and I'm here with my co-host, Leslie Mueller.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_05: Courtney, we are talking all about ballet today, and I can't wait.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've talked about ballet a handful of times on the podcast in future seasons, but I I feel like we need to talk about it more often.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's such an important part of a lot of dancers' training.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_05: It is.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, as we keep thinking about ballet and remembering how important ballet is, I'm reminded that there is a ballet studio like three blocks from my new house in Montclair, New Jersey, that offers adult ballet classes.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_05: And I should really just go.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like I could go, I could do my tondus, could not be bothered, and just do my tondus and get some ballet back in my life.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_05: I gotta do it.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I definitely would love to get into like a full-blown ballet class.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I say that often.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: I should be taking it more often, but ballet is hard, y'all.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I wanna commit, I do, but whoo, man, my body.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I can get through a whole ballet.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: I could probably get through a bar.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I could get to the center these days.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_05: And all of that to say, dancers, don't stop taking ballet, because when you stop, it becomes hard to go back because ballet is hard and your body is accustomed to it while you're doing it, but it's not like riding a bike.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that is true.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_05: Especially when we get to Petita Allegro.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_05: So Yep.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, we will get into more ballet topics, ballet conversation shortly.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: But first, we need to share our recent Making the Impact Award winners.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: As everyone has heard throughout the podcast this season, we at Impact Dance Adjudicators and Making the Impact Podcast sponsor an award called the Making the Impact Judge's Choice Award.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: This goes to one dance at every IDA affiliated competition event with at least one IDA judge on the panel who picks that one dance that they just cannot stop thinking about by the end of the weekend.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: And they want to recognize you for making an impact in the competitive dance world.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the perks of winning this award is you get a shout-out on the podcast.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, Leslie, let's hear from our first winner.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_05: All right, from Positive Vibes Dance Competition in Godfrey, Illinois, congrats to You Dance Studio of High Ridge, Missouri for their small group, Crowded Table.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: From Diva Dance Competitions event in Ashland, Massachusetts, congrats to Patty Eisenhower Dance Center from Franklin, Massachusetts for their small group, Bob in the Rain.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: And from Star Talent Productions Event in High Point, North Carolina.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_05: Congrats to Precision Dance Center for their production, Ghost.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Congrats to all of our Making the Impact Award winners.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And stay tuned to hear more throughout the rest of our season five.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_05: Alright, before we jump in, let's hear from our sponsors.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_05: Our season five premiere sponsor, Francisco Gela Danceworks, will be hosting a unique seven-day intensive this summer in Miami, Florida.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_05: Ballet Plus is an in-depth intensive leading students towards developing a strong technical foundation in ballet, modern, and jazz with a highly refined and authentic artistic voice.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_05: Intermediate and advanced dancers ages 10 through 22 are able to attend this exciting week-long event with over 60 hours of dancing from an exceptional faculty, including Francisco Gella, Yusha Marie Sorzano, and even Making the Impact's own Courtney Ortiz.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_05: Dancers will take a variety of different classes like ballet, point, musical theater, modern dance with live percussion, Horton, Contemporary, Conditioning, Pilates, Repertoire, and so much more.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_05: Parents will even have a chance to sit in and watch certain classes throughout the week, and all dancers are eligible for scholarships to future Francisco Gela Dance Works events.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_05: Mark your calendars to attend Ballet Plus from June 9th through 15th, 2024, and register now to receive$75 off tuition with our exclusive podcast promo code.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: Use the code MAKINGTHEIMPATINGAL CAPS when registering for the Ballet Plus Intensive at FranciscogelaDance.com.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Alright, Dance World! We're here this week on Making the Impact, and we're talking about a very important genre of dance.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Ballet.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: We love it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Some of you may love it more than others.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: I know that it took me a long time to find the appreciation for a ballet.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: It took me a very long time.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: I was a ballet taker, obviously, but I eventually started to fall in love with it in my later years towards the end of my time at my competitive studio.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm so glad that my studio made me take lots and lots of ballet classes because it made me the dancer that I am today and was able to walk into the professional dance world feeling very prepared.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure we're going to talk all about that today on this week's episode, all about ballet.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: We knew we needed to cover it.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a while since we've talked ballet, Leslie.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a little bit.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_05: It has.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, we we talk about it a lot, just it gets peppered into conversations.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_05: Namely, the studio spotlight episodes, where we ask people every time how much ballet do your kids take.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_05: And the answer is usually a lot.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_05: But yeah, a dedicated episode is always a good thing.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_05: So we're excited to have two amazing guests today.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to introduce our two brand new guests who are joining us on Making the Impact for the very first time.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And this has been a long time coming.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: We have been trying to get this one scheduled with all of us all here at the same time for months.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's taken us months to get us here, but we have arrived, and I can't wait to welcome our very first guest on the podcast.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: We go very far back to our senior year in high school, is where I met him at Young Arts Week in Miami in 2007.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, we go so far back.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it was such a joy to watch this dancer at Young Arts Week.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then I've just continued to follow their journey throughout their entire career.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you may even know them from the dance convention circuit.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: You may even know them from So You Think You Can Dance.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: But they've they've also been a professional ballet dancer and previously a competitive dancer.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to welcome Jim Noakowski to the podcast.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Jim.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hello.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so like honored to be here and I'm part of your podcast.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's really exciting.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, my gosh, 2007.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like what?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, over like a 15 years ago, I it's crazy to think that's how long it's been, but we have to give a shout out to Young Arts.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's how brought that's how it brought us together.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: And like, fun fact, they actually sponsor our podcast as well, which is so cool.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're one of our podcast sponsors, and they always support the alum.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm so glad that brought us together and that we've stayed connected through all these years.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Jim, please share with the world more about you, where you grew up, what your early dance training was like, what you've gone on to do in your beautiful career, and what you're currently doing now.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, my trajectory is pretty a little bit interesting.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in upstate New York in Rochester, and I started dancing because my older sister was dancing at the time, kind of that generic younger brother follows, wants to do whatever the older sister does, kind of thing.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that my parents saw some talent in me and would just ask me every year, like, do I want to continue?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say yes.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I started at like two and a half, which is what creative movement class is, I guess.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And at age 10, 11, I knew I wanted to be a little bit more serious.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I needed better training.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to a formal ballet school, the Draper Center for Dance Education, which is the official school of the Rochester City Ballet.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't want to be a ballet dancer, I just wanted better training.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: But then I fell in love with it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: We had a live orchestra, we brought in dancers and guests from ABT, it was a whole new world that I wasn't even aware of.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I had some really incredible mentors say, like, this can be your future.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you're short and you're Asian and all these things, but if you work hard and work smart, like you can make it happen.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got a job at um Houston Ballet, uh core contract when I was 18.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I was there for eight years, was needing a break, was really injured, took two years off, did So You Think You Can Dance, did LA for two years.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: This ballet went back into the ballet world.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I joined Ballet Met under Edward Liang for five seasons.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then in between that time, I met a partner who is now my husband and decided to leave that professional ballet world, but continue to get into dance education.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm currently on Ash Dance Dance Convention and competition.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I teach at the Rock Center for Dance in Las Vegas.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_04: Amazing in a nutshell.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, it was so exciting for me as a friend to watch you go and say you think you can dance.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh my gosh.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: I always knew it was meant for you.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: You messaged me, I remember, and you were like, I heard that you auditioned, or someone told me you were there and I'm so proud and you're gonna kill it, or something like so random.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, Corney, like it's so nice.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if Jim Nowakowski won the gold at uh Young Arts Week when we were only 17 years old, he's gonna go far on so you think you can dance.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like I knew it was meant to be for you, and obviously in your professional career, but you know, when you were on, it's like the the that was the time, like so you think was booming and so big when you did the show.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it was so exciting to see that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was the last season that they had the full airtime and the full like top 20.
• 9:58
  unknown: Yeah.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And after that, everything kind of got shortened.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so it was really cool.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Jim, thank you for being here and joining us on this today.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Our next very special guest is someone that goes even further back in my childhood, actually, before I met Jim.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was taking dance class from this amazing ballet teacher.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: She was my ballet teacher for the majority of my time at my studio uh throughout my entire childhood.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I could be wrong, Leslie.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure, but this might be the very first time that we've ever had my one of my dance teachers on the podcast, possibly, which is pretty cool.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we've had one of mine who happens to be my mother, and she came on in the capacity of my mother, but you this is the first time that you have had your dance teacher on, so that is pretty cool.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I hope to have so many more of my dance teachers join us on future podcast episodes.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to welcome Deborah Ingerman to the podcast.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Miss Deb.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi there, Courtney and everybody, Leslie and Jim.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited and so honored.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's really a pleasure for me to s now talk to you as a full grown adult.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Even though you still call me Miss Depp or Miss Debra.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I can't help it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's just ingrained in me.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's just how I know you as Miss Deb.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's just Miss Deb.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that's okay.
• 11:20
  unknown: That's okay.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: You're not you're not the only one.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's so funny that these full grown adults, you know, still call me Miss Deb or Miss Debra.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's okay.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, Miss Dev, I'm so happy that you were able to join us today.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew we had to have you on the podcast at some point.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: It was just waiting for that ballet episode to come back around, and here it is.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for being here.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: And same thing.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you could tell us more about you, how you started dance, how you got into dance education, and what you're currently working on.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I never thought at all as a child that I would become a ballet teacher, anything in the dance world.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: I did start very young.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: I started taking classes when I was five.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: My mom put me in class because I was very flexible, and the doctor told her that I would be good at dance and gymnastics.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how it started, and I always did it, but I didn't come from a world where people worked in the arts.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everybody was doctors and lawyers, and I assumed that that was what I was meant to do, and that was basically my trajectory as far as I thought.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I loved ballet though.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: That was my true love.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just, it didn't even ever enter my consciousness that I could make a living doing anything like it.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I was never really like skinny or thin.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I was really never had the body type.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: It just never, so it never entered my mind that I would do this.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I also thought, if you had asked me when I was 14, I would have told you there's no way I'm ever becoming a teacher.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: So one of Life's little jokes.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because I can't imagine myself as anything else now.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: But so I took class and then I I went on to college and I have a degree in international policy management.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I I continued dancing while I was, you know, in school.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I continued taking ballet four or five days a week because it was always my love.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then um after college, I did quit dancing for a year or two and went into what I thought was going to be my grown-up life.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's what everybody, you know, I just I wasn't the kind of kid who was going to question every at that point.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was just, you know, I was a good girl and everybody said you're supposed to do these things, and I did.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had a few tragedies around my life that made me really question things.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I quit my job, my regular person, corporate kind of job and went back and got a degree in dance education at Townsend University.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't get the full degree because I already had an undergraduate degree, but I did the dance classes.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't, I was really just taking all the dance courses so that I could, I thought at the time, go ahead.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted, I thought I wanted to be a professor and teach at the university level.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought I was going to go to graduate school and get some kind of terminal degree in dance.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And as it turned out, being that I was in Maryland, uh, Maryland does not offer graduate degrees.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like there are no schools in Maryland that have graduate degrees in dance.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I would have to go out of state, which was very expensive.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: So in the meantime, while I was trying to save money and I was going to have to declare residency elsewhere, I started teaching kids.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not really super young kids.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I did teach young kids for like one year and I was not good at it.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: But kids, you know, nine and ten and up.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized really quickly, oh, this is what I want to do.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't even I taught adults occasionally and it's it wasn't I thought that I had previously thought I wanted to teach adults, but as I taught, you know, the I don't know, junior high, middle school, high school kids, I realized that's really for me that's where I can connect with the people the most is that at that age and help them the most.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what brought me a lot of joy.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, why am I gonna go to school and move away and you know be in debt forever to do this when I don't I think I'm going to be much happier teaching young kids.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I that's what I continued doing.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that is how I met Courtney, whom I remember very clearly as a student.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I know, no, no, no.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was I I I'll say this.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: I knew you you didn't want to be a ballet dancer.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: You weren't in love with ballet, but we had a school where we were very, you know, you took ballet many days a week and everybody was required to, regardless of your eventual path.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And even though you were not it was clear you didn't absolutely love ballet, it was also clear that you appreciated what it did for you.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you also, and I'll say this, you never brought drama into the classroom.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: You just showed up and did the work.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so did the work, you know, I've never been the teacher who needs every single person I teach to want to be a ballerina.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I am, however, uh somebody who wants to I pr want to teach people who love to dance and do not bring other drama into the classroom regularly.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was very happy teaching.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, you know, I have no complaints.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so then I, you know, I just continue teaching and I luckily have had a lot of students who like you who are very successful in the dance world, some in ballet.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I've had, you know, many c students go on to ballet companies, some in contemporary dance, some in musical theater, even some in more like of the commercial dance.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's all, you know, all different areas.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've just continued doing it.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: It is my love.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I did, I wrote a book that I was published last year.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, anyway, and I'm really proud of that.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's about teaching ballet.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: What's it called?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's it's called Let's Talk About Fifth.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the subtitle is Teaching Ballet in the Twenty First Century, but it is called Let's Talk About Fifth.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had originally wanted to call it Let's Talk About Fifth Baby.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: However, I had an I had an editor say that that would be only understood by people of a certain age and often I should let go.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: He said, No, you cannot do that.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just let's talk about fifth.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's not it's not a dictionary of ballet, it covers a lot of topics, but it's geared towards ballet and all dance teachers and also students over the age of like 10 or 11.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's got a lot of conditioning in it and information about ballet.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I did that, and now I continue to teach and coach ballet.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: I choreograph a little.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an okay choreographer, I'm not the best.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: So great.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I am now.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you've done so much.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: And we um congrats on the book.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's really huge.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: We'll definitely make sure that all of our listeners out there, if you want to check out Miss Deb's book and buy Miss Deb's book, where can they buy it?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: It is available everywhere that books are available online, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, even Target.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen online.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can order it on Target.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: I had to check out all the places.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can actually, although it's not stocked in most local bookstores.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: However, if you want to get it from your local bookstore, you can go into your bookstore and they should be able to order it for you.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Cool.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And have it come in.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you can do that however you want.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll definitely link to that in our show notes as well.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, and I'm excited to hear a little bit more about that because that's sort of a lead-in into my first question for both of you in terms of teaching ballet in the 21st century.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_05: Because ballet, as we know, has been around for a very long time and techniques and methods and interest, you know, have changed and varied over the years.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_05: And specifically, since we're talking about, you know, our our sort of niche is the competitive dance world, but not necessarily the ballet competition world, two very different worlds.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_05: And Jim, you're teaching on convention, Miss Deb, you teach at studios.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_05: I want to hear from both of you what do you feel like in this day and age is missing from the ballet training that you're seeing in competitive dancers?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's first of all, navigating my demographic, whether it's a formal ballet school that I go up to back home, or if it's just a more competitive dance school, or if it's a more dance team, or if it's the rock center in Vegas, which I consider that more just a training school or a convention setting.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: But in general, I think, and this is another topic, just the etiquette of it, just making sure we are wearing the correct attire.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can have our hair back if we're in a convention center.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: A convention setting, I I don't mind I give an easy pass if their hair is slicked back in the pony.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And but can we have ballet shoes, things like that?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we're not even respecting where what we're doing, and it that's maybe um sounding very so old school, um, respect the art.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: But um, if we're not even recognizing what we're doing and what we're what our goal is and training with the specific genre, respecting that, how can we even be um kind of evolving that way?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: But also just I the near and dear basics is that like turned in or turned out?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Can we shape our feet?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is the leg above our knee?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: But these are also things that I think kids just aren't aware of or they don't know because maybe they're not being taught.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if I can't tell by watching, they probably also don't have an understanding on their body where the placement needs to be.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So honestly, for me, I would just say general basics of the foundation.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not even talking about artistry and the apalmall and the details, just the basics.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_05: Where is your placement?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's in front.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, the pathway of the arm, you know.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was just going over a Shandra Ma arm through first, open the second.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone likes to do those like red arms.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: But again, just I just see basics missing and from all levels.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and that's I really like what you just said about if if I can't see it as a teacher or as a judge, what it is even supposed to be, I don't think you know because it's not clear.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_05: And that we experience that all the time as judges, where you know, you're trying to comment on something, but uh you can't even really make a correction because you're confused about what is actually happening, which means they don't actually know what's happening.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want to, I have I have so many thoughts.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I always have we love so many thoughts.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Give us all that.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: I want I I I want to, I can kind of divide it in half that there's the technical.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I originally was thinking along the technical lines, but first I want to piggyback a little bit off of what Jim said that just the basics, the etiquette, and all these things.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of it is in the education.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: What I find sometimes at the competitive schools that are solely competitive schools are that people study ballet as though it is an Strictly a tool or an instrument, like literally a screwdriver, to make you better and win more awards at the competition.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so when they're young, they're not nobody instills in them or helps them bring the love of ballet and the love of dancing.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: When they're seven and eight and nine and ten and talks about the history and how beautiful it is and shows them videos.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And even if you're not going to become a ballet dancer, it's this it's this wonderful tradition, traditional ceremonial art form.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's you can't spend all a ballet class all the time coming to that, but you can come into the classroom and share some of that as a teacher, but also just bring that love with you and not I sometimes feel like I think you were mentioning that right you understand, Leslie, that it's you what you don't see is because the teachers aren't teaching that and that or they haven't, you know, maybe the teachers don't know aren't teaching that, but some of that is just are the teachers sharing the love and the respect of ballet beyond it being solely a tool so that you can win a competition.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's part of the problem because then when you don't have the full understanding of ballet as an art form, then you're missing all these basics that Jim was referring to because all you're thinking about is how can I use a ballet to make my leg higher or my knee straighter or me turn more times as opposed to understanding it fully as an art form, which in and of itself will actually bring about a much better dancer with all those details.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what originally I was thinking technically, what I see missing is these little details, like all the transitional movement.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Are you using your feet?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: What is your relationship between your feet and the floor?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Which to me, that tells me everything I need to know about a dancer.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like how you use your feet on the floor.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Ballet or not, that is you're either trained, you know, and how you're using your lower leg.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to have a deep understanding of ballet to understand to learn how to make these little transitions um appropriate and how to use your arms, like Jim says, not to just throw them somewhere, but what is the pathway from through first to open second or whatever.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're all doing the thing.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: But to do that.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that that comes from there's like I what I see overall is this not again, I can't say in every studio that competes, but in a lot of places, ballet is really it's not that it's not valued at all, but it's really valued in a very reciprocal sense.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, I take the class only because it gives me this.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Not because I'm trying to learn an art form.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then it shows up in all these technical problems.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, a hundred percent.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, all oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: All of this, I love this question to kick it off.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: I completely agree.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: I love the etiquette mention, Jim.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's really important.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that there's a lot of things that I notice that I I'm sometimes shocked when I see dan how dancers arrive at class or like how relaxed it is in some studios, even with certain dress code or how d what what they're wearing on their feet.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've seen p dancers like go like studio photos like posted on Instagram, like in ballet class, like with turners on.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, what's going on?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, where is the ballet shoe?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it and just the etiquette.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Miss Deborah would never in a million years let me walk into ballet class with with anything except a ballet shoe on my foot and my and my tights and my hair pulled back in a proper bun that wasn't a didn't have a donut, it was a proper ballet bun.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, and it that's not like that's the end all be all.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: I just think it is respect and and respecting the teacher and coming to class prepared.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's going to make you do class better.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: You have you're coming in with that mindset that this is serious, that we're you know, we're taking this next hour, hour and a half very seriously.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I came prepared as the dancer, and that's the expectation from the teacher.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's getting lost a little bit.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's not only, I think you're right.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just superficial how you look, it does create a mindset.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: It also helps the teacher be able to see the physicality that they need to correct.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think it all feeds into being accustomed to or preparing yourself a certain way because this after is, after all, a performance art.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're a ballet dancer, a modern dancer, a contemporary dancer, or a dancer in music videos or on in Vegas, like it's a performance art.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so you are paid as a professional to dress yourself a certain way in a costume, to wear your hair a certain way, or to do your makeup a certain way.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're being you should be trained as a as a student, not only in the technique of it all, but also just in the costume of presenting yourself a certain way because you are studying a performance art.
• 27:15
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• 27:17
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• 27:23
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• 27:26
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• 27:32
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• 27:38
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• 27:45
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• 27:59
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• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and to jump off of that too, like it's hard as professionals because now we feel a certain type of like we deserve to wear the baggy pants or you know, we paid our dues.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I actually had a teacher when we came back to Rochester and we took class in the summer program or during the year as professionals when we wore junk and we were in class with the the school, we they did not like that.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we got lectured about that.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand because we're also set in the preceding and we're role models now.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she would say to us, Would you go to church in your slippers and like a bathrobe and your pajamas?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, so I think that also I try to hold myself accountable when I take class with the upper level sometimes of the school at the rock, to not wear to wear tights or shorts, wear ballet shoes, um, look LaPart, and not coming with a hoodie, even though I'm in my mid-30s and just want to get warm and take a class.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's a really good point.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I think it's too that we keep saying the word respect, like it is an art form.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_05: It is a historic an historic art form.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_05: It is something that, you know, I don't want to say it's a dying art because everybody, you know, people take ballet still, but the the seriousness of it, I think, in certain circles gets lost because the respect just isn't there.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_05: Probably because, like you said, Miss Deb, people are just using it as a tool instead of an entity of itself to do what it does, you know.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm glad you mentioned like the feet as well, Miss Deb.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like I feel like that is so it's so clear.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like a dancer hasn't even done anything for me as a judge on stage.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: The way they walk on stage.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: You haven't even danced yet.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Your music hasn't even started yet.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I can already tell if you know how to articulate through your feet.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: And where do you properly learn how to do that?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: From the from the ballet bar and just drilling the feet articulation forever.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then also understanding how to not only properly point your foot, but then the sculpting the foot, like you mentioned, Jim, winging the foot properly, but still have a fully articulated foot with a fully pulled up lengthened leg to create the leg line.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's so much emphasis on like the hypermobility and you have to be uh overly flexible.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm still thinking about how you stepped flat footed on your walk.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not like, you know, I need to see you articulate toe ball heel through your feet.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's I think it's not only just can you have you learned to point your foot, but have you use learned to use your foot or feet in all the things.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Do you understand that it all starts with your feet?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you understand that you jump from your feet?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, everything else gets involved.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: But do you understand not that you just jump and then you point your feet, but that you and you understand that it is the actual motion of articulating your foot with that right energy that creates a pointing foot and sends you in the air.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't just happen after you jump.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of thing comes from and all the things.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's just one example.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: But right.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I kind of agree more.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to chime in with something that I feel, and Leslie, you can also share something that if there's anything that comes to mind that you feel that you don't see that you feel is missing in in some of the training or what we witness at that.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: I know for me, like as as a judge and also convention teacher and guest teacher, and something that I really, really, really miss, and this was the question that you had the question on earlier, Miss Deb, is I wish I saw more proper use of turnout from dancers.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like there's a disconnect in other genres.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously in ballet, you're turned out.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: You're turned out, you're turned out.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: If you enter in a ballet dance at competition, which rarely happens these days, I'm always excited when it happens.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: You better be turned out the whole time.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, unless it's a contemporary ballet uh of some sort, majority of it, 90% 95% of that dance better be turned out.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: And still there's those in-between steps that I see dancers stepping turned in or accidentally moved through parallel or aren't maintaining their rotation.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: But then even so, using ballet as the tool, when we see that category of contemporary dance or we see that category of lyrical dance at competition, there is not enough turnout being utilized and jazz too, a lot of genres.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: The lack of turnout and the understanding of how to find that and and when we should be using it across multiple genres of dance, knowing when we should be parallel versus when this step or move or skill should be turned out.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think a lot of dancers really understand.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then it and then it I rewind back and I'm like, well, maybe they don't, maybe they're not actually turning out at ballet class.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right, exactly.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how is how are you getting through a ballet class without using your turnout?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just, you know, so why isn't it translating over?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I I don't know.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts, Jim, when you when you s what you see at convention?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's such a good point because the amount of times I see a turned in preparation, a deliberate turned in preparation within a turned-out pirouette.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: That confuses me.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I also I'm someone that I'm I really do want to progress with the time, so maybe that's a new thing.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I also see some questionable stances preparations where I'm like, that should be turned out, or that deliberately should be a nice turned in preparation.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it does come down to who's rehearsing a little bit um when they come when they cling, but also I think the teacher and really being able to put a lot of emphasis on that, especially at that age of that middle age of uh mini junior age seven to ten, because as soon as you get to 15, 16 and no one was telling you how to articulate through the calf coming forward and always on you with your transitions or just being up bar leading with the heel, it's hard to then go backwards.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really the teacher.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think I don't like to say drilling, but putting a lot of emphasis on the details of leading with the heel, calf coming forward, toes lead to the back, tombe, palabra, fists slide through fourth, stop, let's work it down again.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Tombei you know what I mean?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that it registers at a young age, so as they get to that teenage most teenage years, it's like second nature to them because it's been kind of enforced in them at such that middle age range.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I also like to do floor bar a lot with my kids um because that helps them not use the traction of the floor to force their turnout.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and I wonder too, with that, like not seeing the turnout in other genres where it's like, oh, you could have done that turned out and had more access to your length or your more access to that position that you ended up in, but you got there in a parallel, somehow you got there via parallel.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_05: I just wonder if they're not drilling it because they want to go so quickly to get to the cool thing.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_05: Like, here's my leg extension.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, well, it's turned out up there, but you got there in this very convoluted way that's somehow you ended up turned out, and your bottom leg is parallel, but like where's the devla pay?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_05: That's something I say almost, I mean, you know, everybody's trying to do a devil pay into a tilt, except they're not coming through passe, and you're like, how did your leg just get up there?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_05: Literally just went.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_05: But I think they're not drilling it.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's because it's easier.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing, really, really briefly about yell stressing about the arms and the portabraw.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't we do that all the time?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: And why are we marking our arms?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's easier.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: If we did our portabraw full out, it's like tired.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like our laps are arms.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: So why would we, you know, pay attention to those details and do things from a rotated, you know, fit because it's it's a lot harder.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right, that's true.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think that sometimes it's even some of it's not something like just to go back what you said, Leslie, with the devle pay.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually easier to get your leg higher if you go through a devle pay problem.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not hard.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is harder to turn out, and that's as but to actually get the leg up, it's just it's physics.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's easier to do it if you come through the correct pathway and hit the benchmarks along the way.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah, I just wanted to add that in that sometimes people actually make it harder on themselves.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I will say that I don't see as much competitive dance or as many competitive dancers as you all do.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not at these competitions so much.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like I'm not you're like you see the turnout in your car.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 36:45
  unknown: Right.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not qualified to answer why, but I can say that it is a matter of the training that they're getting, like Jim said, drilling, or we can just think of it as repetition.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Repetition.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning it again, it's physics.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: You literally have to do something a certain way, a certain amount of times in order to develop the neurological pathways to make that second nature.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if you it's one, you know, if you're only taking valet once or twice a week, there is literally no way that you can do that often enough.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: For your pathways, to make that second nature.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you have not only that, you have to be doing it at the best that your body can along that, you know, that you can that way.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to repeat it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And even if you work the most that you can, those once or twice twice a week, it won't be enough.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the the the other side of that is true as well.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you're in ballet five days a week and you're not working the right way, you still won't develop the right neurological pathways.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: It just won't work.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_05: So one of the things that I I see all the time, just to finish this conversation off, it's the same as the shaping the foot conversation, and it's the shaping of the hands.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_05: I know if you take ballet, if you have a beautifully shaped hand that doesn't have curly finger syndrome, is what I always reference it as, is your fingers are like magnetized into the palm of your hand and they're not extending the line or hamburger hands.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I actually see fewer hamburger hands now.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_05: I see fingers that do this.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and they're just yeah, it's like what is that?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_05: And so I comment on that all the time because I know like if you're in ballet and you're literally just breathing in to prepare your arms to come down to start your first bar exercises, if you're doing that, your fingers should be involved.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_05: And if they're not, then somebody hasn't noticed that and told you because in your lyrical dance, in your contemporary dance, in your jazz dance, you're doing an arabesque line and your fingers are just like hanging out.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's an extension of your, you know, of your whole arm and the energy.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that never stops.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and you'll understand when they just have nothing happening at the end of their wrist.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they're and they're reaching.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: And they're reaching somehow.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like I don't believe.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: I do not believe your reach at all.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: I always say, like, I use the example of like you would never not point your toe.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like your toes are a part of your foot line as we're going to be able to do it.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we don't want to crunch our toes, we want to lengthen our our feet when we're pointing our feet.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: But if you forget about pointing your toes, then we have a Barbie foot.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it's almost like we want to make sure that like our fingers are the same equivalent to how we approach how we work through our feet.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: We have to finish through our fingers as well.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I try to because I feel like there's just so much emphasis all the time on like the lower half of our body in dance that we forget about the upper, the arms, the fingers, the the hands.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I I love that as well, Leslie.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I see I can I see tons of I I'm a big stickler for thumbs.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want the thumbs sticking out anywhere.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I always call it out whenever I see thumbs.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: And even for me as a jazz dancer now and a jazz teacher, like thumbs are just out.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm like, tuck your thumbs away.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's the same interesting.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same thing as like how I would use my arm my fingers and how I place my hands in, unless it's a jazz hand, right?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: Or but even like if we flex our wrist, everyone's thumbs just stick out.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they just that's like the go-to, like where like if I want like a clean flex, they go.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_05: There was that like time period though that I remember I was in like middle school and high school, and it was like you wanted that like very it felt like LA like flexy thumb.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that because I remember watching dancers.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was like they were I called them light bulb hands.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because like they were screwing in a light bulb all the time.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, people were trying to be flexible.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Why are people doing that?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I haven't seen that as much lately.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_05: I I see curly finger syndrome and like flat Stanley hand where it's like it's just a contemporary hand that does nothing at all and just kind of looks dead.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth of the matter is it's very it is difficult to find the place where your fingers are lengthened and energized without being what you call the Stanley hand.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's another reason that you have to study ballet enough the proper way, because you can't just it's great what you just said, and that we're all having this d discussion, but there's nobody who can just hear this discussion and then fix it.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: No matter how much you think, you have to do it and you have to do it repetitively repetitively.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's true.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell my dancers on the side too, if you're standing on the side, especially at conventions, and you don't have the portebra, then do the arms full out.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the only way you're going to be able to separate the lower half of your body, which is strong and energized, with the softness of your upper body at the same time doing what the ballet instructor is asking for different portebras that you may not be used to.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like kind of patting your head and rubbing, you know, your stomach kind of thing.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I especially stress on the kids at the rock.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you guys shouldn't I should never see you in class just on the side, not doing arms full out, especially if you're someone that needs to, or you don't have the the full combo and the full portabras with the legs.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that translates into, you know, again, referencing other styles, since you know, uh a lot of dancers seem to think that it's that is just the the tool for other genres, but like the droopy elbows, and that's like a perfect example of like why you should be doing your porta bras full out because the elbows start drooping, and then we see that in a chasse pâte bureau preparation with the double pirouette and jazz with the droopy elbows not supported in first position.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, I can tell that you probably have droopy elbows at the ballet bar if that's what your first position ballet arms look like for your jazz pirouette.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it it it kind of we definitely pull from other genres to help, you know, make all of our styles better for all genres of dance.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: They're all influenced, but I think that's where the repetition for ballet is so uh strongly enforced.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: And very much could be the same for lyrical and jazz and all the things, but like the most important thing is that you're training properly because you could be like, like you said, Ms.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: Dev, you're not putting the work in if you're going five days a week and you're just drilling or training this step incorrectly, that muscle memory that you're developing is actually going to hurt you down the road because no one corrected you, and now you have the sickled foot every time you point because no one fixed your foot, or you know, whatever, whatever it is.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, like to have and and then it comes back to the dancers coming with the work ethic and coming to class motivated, ready to learn.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think like even looking back for me, like as much as I I was so stubborn and I just went to ballet like the three days a week that I was required to, but like I made the most of those ballet classes, and I remember I did.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like I knew that I was like, if if I don't want to have to come five days a week, I better make these three days a week really, really Good.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I would put in the work and self-correct myself and learn from my teachers because the I think that's something that's missing too in just training across the board for young dancers is not understanding how to self-correct themselves because a teacher is only one person in a room of potentially twice possibly 20 dancers.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: They can't be on you correcting you every single second.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's not it's not a private lesson.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: You have to learn how to correct yourself properly, or you are just phoning it in, just doing the step wrong.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like, do you want to see progress or or not?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I wish I saw that more from dancers.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: You really have to be learn how to become your own teacher because you have to internalize the corrections.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm still there are some corrections that are very easy, like the thumb.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't take you that long to fix your thumb.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: However, there are other corrections like how to use your full arms the right way or how to turn out or how to develop the foot articulation that take a long time.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm still correcting you on your thumb six months, six months later, then you are not internalizing that correction.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: You have to learn to internalize and teach yourself with the things that that you hear so that then your teacher can go on to you know more other issues.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: We my mentor would say um you only improve as fast as you get your corrections.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was like the model of like the ballet school.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: That is so real.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: Leslie, where do you think we should go?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: I know I want to want to get to point.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_05: What if we what if we talk about?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_05: I just feel like you know, there's plenty of things that we do in ballet that have always been done.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_05: We will always do them.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_05: There will be no change.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_05: We will start with plas, the end.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_05: But there are other things that maybe you have, you know, changed over the years in terms of your teaching methods that, you know, have maybe garnered some different results from the past.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want to quickly say I was just talking to again my upper level.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I like have full-on conversations with the upper level school.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just talking about how one of the things that I love about ballet is how humbling it is.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't matter if you're an intermediate beginner, professional at Paris Opera, principal at New York City Ballet, you always start with plie and stretch and press, and and that's so cool that it's just that same structure, and it's so humbling after you do this big performance.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: You just you go back to the bar the next day and everyone's kind of like on the same page.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: With that said, I think that people talk about sprucing and spicing things up.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm someone that I don't ever use pop music, but I will maybe use something that's instrumental, and I do think that it is important at this time of where we're at to get kids off the bar.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't allowed to get off the bar until I was probably like 12.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'll do is if I do a longer bar one week, the next maybe week I will do a little piece of a variation or a combo, but then we have to talk about everything that applies to what we're doing because kids need to know how to balance it, they need to know how to tell me pile beret.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: But now let's talk about reach through the feet, reach through the legs, arms, the same arms that we did at the bar.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times I'll structure my bar to make sense for the center, so it's like the same thing, so that at a young age they are thinking exactly what we just did at the bar and now translating that to the center.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: So every time as they get older, they're able to just do that.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, the technique in the bar is important, but what really counts is the dancing.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're not translating and applying anything that you're doing after we just did a ballet class for two hours, then what are we doing?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: But at a young age, I think it's important to move a little bit.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I do make them kind of raise their hand and talk about okay, let's talk about this phrase.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand, what things that bar is uh making sense and make sense that helps us and benefits us for this little menage or this diagonal or this last little petile agro section.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: So then they have to kind of think about how to connect the dots.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one way I I try to make it a little bit more um interesting and fun.
• 48:13
  unknown: That's awesome.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: I do it's funny that you say that, Jim, although in a different thing, I definitely tell me discuss with my students the connection between the bar work and their center work because it's the bar where they learn to do that.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's funny that that I I do that as well in a different fashion, but I talk about that and they can almost always tell what you know the center work is gonna be by what I'm focusing on in the bar.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: They can they know, oh, we're gonna do, you know, grandchete entrelacé or whatever we're gonna oh, because Miss Debra's doing this, we're gonna work on this in the center.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: And they know.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: As far as being innovative, I'm probably not the most innovative teacher in the whole entire world because I'm a little old.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: So no, I just, you know, I I do, I won't use pop music at all at all, but I will occasionally, especially like on Friday nights, you know, my students who show up Friday nights, I will do the like instrumental versions because there are a lot of ballet class albums now that use that.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm more willing to do that.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: I still don't love it, but I understand eight o'clock on Friday night when you have been in school all week.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Is it's you know, I really I have a lot of respect for these these kids who are there in class at that time.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to do something to make it a little b lighter.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: I also incorporate every single ballet class, just about every maybe 95%, five to seven minutes of conditioning at the beginning to work on.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I start off on the floor doing a little turnout exercise, foot articulation, core work or arm, you know, arabesque exercise, whatever that I start at.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's really totally innovative, but I didn't get that.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I wish that I had had that.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then I also, this is something I never did.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know I never did this with you, Courtney.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: I won't do this every single class, but I will take anywhere from like 15 seconds to a few minutes of doing or offering them something for mindset.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it just be a whole discussion about like that, you know, it's okay to have these certain feelings, even if they're not the most positive, but you know, trying to help them understand you don't need to beat yourself up over it, or if something's hard, or because something's hard, or you don't need to feel bad, and what are other ways we can deal with these emotions?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or if it's just a moment of saying at the beginning of class, okay, take a moment, you know, let yourself settle what kind of person, what do you want to bring mentally and emotion to class and emotionally to class today?
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that'll only take 30 to 45 seconds, but I give them a chance what are two or three words that you would like to describe you today?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: And everything else that went on today, you don't have to leave it at the door, but it doesn't have to define you in class.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I talk about, you know, so I never used to do that, but I will take, you know, sometimes it's very quick, sometimes it's a little mini lecture, you know, who knows?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's so great that you're so aware of that.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to be a teenager.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so I is as as strict as I am, I do remember, and I'm like, yeah, you know, maybe they I wish that somebody had helped me sometimes realize that all these uh negative feelings, even the ones I have today as an adult, they're not gonna last forever.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you and that they can pass and that you can have certain feelings and you can have multiple feelings at the same time, that kind of thing.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna say, I think setting the tone for a class like that is really beneficial and really incredible because I can tell when my kids some so the oldest level sometimes will have class, the very last class, the fourth class, which it it needs to change, but it's um hour and 45, two hours at the very end of the day, and I can kind of just see them.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I and sometimes I'm like, Are we okay?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: What do we need today?
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't like asking the students what they need because at the end of the day, like they'll probably be like, We just need to sit.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like um and talk about and talk about our feelings.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm aware of it now as uh a a younger former dancer, and also I always come in with a plan, but that that plan can change because sometimes I'm like, Oh, they just need to get on their life today.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're so back, even though I had these crazy, another crazy pirouette plans.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's great that you kind of feel that energy and you you take in consideration like the dancers and their emotions sometimes.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and my mindset shift is is helpful.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_05: We know you're coming into something that you know a lot of people, yeah, plenty of people love ballet, but a lot of people were kind of like Courtney, who were like, I ha I need to be here, I know I have to be here, I'm gonna power through, I'm gonna do my three days.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_05: And even something as simple as a little mindset shift at the beginning can take that person from I have to be here to, oh, I like being here.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_05: And that that's a game changer, you know?
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_05: And it might just take a little moment of, you know, of changing the gears in your head.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_05: So I think that's great.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: Before we jump into the point chat, the brief point chat, which I think we're gonna have to have an entire episode on point because I'm sure that could be a very long one.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: But do you have any tips that you'd like to share as per as teachers when it comes to teaching a certain skill or a certain part of bar work or things that could help the teachers out there or dancers to better achieve some of the progress at the bar?
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was gonna say, I did I was thinking my first reaction when I my very first reaction when I saw that is there are no tricks to make anything better.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just show up and do it all the time.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: But there are there are certain there are certain things that can definitely help.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of it I can't say, I can't get into it in a podcast.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'd have to be in the studio and showing, but I do, you know, this conditioning that I do with my students.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my students know how to turn out, they know how to access those muscles.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you don't have to have the ballet body with all the, you know, flexible hips, etc., in order to know how to use your muscles.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm, you know, it's all in my book, if you know.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: But apart from that, you can, but it's not, you know, there are some turnout exercises there.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can learn what these exercises are to conditioning, and then as a teacher, discuss this what, you know, have your students stop for a moment in the middle of a conditioning exercise and ask them, do you feel what you're doing right now?
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to remind students that doesn't mean it hurt, it has to hurt.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just because it's not hurting doesn't mean you're not doing anything.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned I have to say that to students, but pay attention to what you're doing.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'll say to them, pay attention, what does it feel like?
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: What muscles are you using?
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: What is activated?
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: You need to recall that moment and these muscles as you do XYZ.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's, I guess it's a sort of trick that I use.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm working on a conditioning error exercise for arabesques, I'll sort of have them pause in the middle of a maybe uncomfortable moment and ask them, you know, to on their own bookmark that moment.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: What do you feel?
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then in when we do Arabesques in the center or at the bar when we're standing up, ask them to recall that moment.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's one thing that I do.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it works across the board for anything where you can have a conditioning moment that can relate to a step.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the only other thing I do is for pirouettes, the most and I'm not, I will not put myself in like the top tier of ballet teachers who teach pirouettes.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not but I have personally had the most success.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm just not but I have a lot, I've had a lot of success lately with reminding dancers that spotting is not just a concept and that you have to literally use your eyesight and your eyeballs to do it.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because we can get so automated and go just go on autopilot and be like, yeah, I'm spotting.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you sort of see, but if you make yourself stop yourself in your track, so to speak, but you know, remind them it involves your eyesight and your actual eyeballs, and they have to be a really active part partner in the turning.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: Great advice.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't agree more.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think we do um at our school a lot of we do stretching training, obviously ballet classes, and then we have elements, which is basically conditioning, and then we have lab rats.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I really believe that all of the conditioning, or maybe you want to call it cross-training, is really beneficial on top of the um just ballet.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you just do jazz and you just do a technique jazz class, that's that's great.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: You need to move, you need to do progressions, same thing for for ballet.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that a stretch and strength conditioning class on top of that, especially for our older dancers, but also for the younger ones.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that what the younger dancers need is different than the older ones because we develop differently, our bodies are different, um, is really important.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that you have to have some type of cross-training and not just say, oh, we have a ballet class and we have a jazz technique class, and that's all that they get.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: They need some other things, as Miss Deb was saying, um, to kind of be able to shift their mind and just for their their anatomy of their body and everything and for it to make sense.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: If your dancer has a passion for ballet and classical training and wants to attend a unique seven-day summer intensive, then join us at Francisco Gela Dance Works, Ballet Plus Intensive.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: Taking place in sunny Miami, Florida this June 9th through the 15th, 2024.
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• 58:02
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• 58:13
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• 58:15
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• 58:20
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• 58:26
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• 58:34
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• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: Hope to see you in Miami this summer.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_05: When we had um we had I think we had a cross-training episode last year, right?
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_05: Where we had a few different people on and the demands of dance now are just so much higher than they have ever been.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, it it did used to be that you could take your ballet and you could take your jazz and you got your little bit of core in your jazz class and you know, all this stuff, and it was enough.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_05: But I think, you know, just based on the last 10 years of looking at dancers and and the highest level dancers, you need that extra cross-training to be able to support the other work that you're doing.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_05: And I think so so many places now have incorporated, you know, if not only some little part of their ballet class like Deb does, but maybe a full-on class separate to be able to support you know the higher level stuff that everybody's doing.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: We've made it to the very brief point discussion.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: And we wanted to throw this in here as a little bit of a teaser for maybe what's to come in season six.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: We'll do a full-blown point episode.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: But point is such a hot topic, I think.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of uh dancers of all skill levels, of all ages, recreational even, all the way up to pre-pro, want to achieve points, want to make it to point at some point.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I love the like prestige and the like the goal setting of point for a lot of dancers.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's really exciting that everyone ha is wanting to reach that goal.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I also think that there's a lot of dancers that may be going on point before they're technically ready to go on point.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: Anything you want to add to that?
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have um, Miss Deb, you can go first because of this question.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure as a as a male I answered it correctly or answered it well, and I have some some some things I was gonna point out, but you can go ahead.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, are you okay?
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that you're just as qualified to answer it, but uh okay.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: Courtney, I I concur there are many students who are on point before they should be on point.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, point shoes are not toys, they are instruments of our art form, and it's not a game.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: People get injured.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I have been called elitist because I'm very strict that if you're not in ballet class three times a week and haven't been in training like that for at least a few years, you should not be on point.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: However, that's fine.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone can call me elitist.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: Far above that, I want to make sure that as much as I can control it, the people in my classroom are safe.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: That means you can call me all the names in the book.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: Safety has to come first.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't control every moment of every part of every safety element of dance because it's physical and we are athletes.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I can control are you doing all the underlying work to make sure that you're as safe as possible to do the point work.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: So absolutely, I see all this.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I also want to say that yes, so every of so many dancers, many dancers, most dancers have the goal of going on point, whether or not they want to be professional ballet dancers.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: However, you do not need to be on point to be a professional dancer, you need to be on point to be a professional ballet dancer and even contemporary ballet dancer.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: However, I just want to assure the world, and I'm saying this as a ballet teacher, there are many professional dancers in the world who do not dance on point.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: Me.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would rather see right.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I would rather see my students be healthy and not injured and have a long-term, have the possibility of a long-term career than go on point so that they're happy.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then get injured in the moment, in the short term.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that is my that's me on my soapbox.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'll get off now.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I'll tell you right now, I was not ready for points.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_05: I was 10 and I had teeny weeny feet, and somehow Capizio.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was in the Capezio Pavlova.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_05: I still have them.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_05: They're wee bitty tiny shoes.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_05: They're they are flat as a par, like just straight, straight up and down.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't weigh enough to like articulate through anything.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_05: We bored a little bit, like that was it.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, tw point was not for me.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_05: Even once I got, you know, into high school and I was, you know, doing a little bit more ballet.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_05: I just, it's not for me.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_05: And it's hard as a dancer to, you know, recognize that and be okay with it.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's the problem, is that it's such it's always been this benchmark of like you're successful, you're a real dancer.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like, like even you said, Courtney, recreational dancers, people who don't even want to be ballet dancers, but point, point, point, point, point, point.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_05: And that's the reason I stuck with it.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I, you know, stopped after high school because I was like, I don't want to do anything that involves point.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_05: There's no point in me doing that.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_05: I did work professionally without point.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_05: However, there are some jobs out there that I absolutely could have gotten and might have had I had at least some basic point skills that I was willing to put on a pair of shoes in an audition.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_05: And that's where I feel, you know, a little bit sad that I didn't at least do it through college or feel more comfortable with it because American in Paris, they hired some short people to do to do point work.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, you know, Phantom of the Opera.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_05: Phantom of the Opera.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_05: The Rocket Ensemble.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_05: Like all those roles I absolutely could have done with my training and my height and my ability, but I don't do point.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_05: So it's it is it's a really a hard thing to not do point.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_05: But if you're it's not for you, it's not for you.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_05: So stick with that.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: My okay.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I was very specific with this because I just didn't know what we were, but that's so just take it with a grain of salt.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also going to preface this by saying that I do teach a point class once a week and I have experience in point shoes taking point classes because my old company, I had to do a role in point shoes.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna approach this as if like their 11-year-old kid comes up to me and says, like, hey, do you think they're ready for point?
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna probably first ask how many hours or days a week do they train in ballet and how serious, and then ask them about the the quality of training like that Miss Dev has talked about, we've all talked about versus the quantity, because if you say that you've been training, you do ballet classes five days a week, they're only an hour, and there's 35 kids in the class.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we all know that I can give a class or I can teach a class.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll probably ask them about their injuries, just like if they have had any previous injuries, or if they it did if they deal with injuries, if they're like, oh well, their ankle is always this, or their knees, then it will maybe have a red flag there.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then I like to kind of kind of just see their feet, and it should have a 90-degree or more angle when they at least extend their foot.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they have five things that I like to, and I just wanted to remember them, that's why I I wrote them down.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: The one is just on one foot, close your eyes 30 seconds, and then the other foot.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: If they can hold it for a good with their core, their hip stability, 20 seconds, maybe they fall over, give them another chance.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: But obviously, if the kid is three seconds, then they're just there's nothing happening, they can't hold that position.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_00: It raises some concerns for me.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: I like to just oh no.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to do you mean unrel just that's I thought that's what you meant.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: Just standing flat with your eyes closed.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: Eyes closed.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 1:06:07
  unknown: That's awesome.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I like to also, you don't have to do the um teacher.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just like to see them do a regular again, they're 11 years old, maybe 10, 12, just a plank on their elbows, hold for 30 seconds just to see if they can even properly in the correct lining stay strong.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: Simple for them, great.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then I do the holding.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is so simple, but in parallel and turned out, just holding on relevant five seconds.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: One, two, three, four, five.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: Relax.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if they're golding and they're in proper lining, obviously nice friendly point, everything.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I do the single raises on one foot.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: They should be able to do, I like to say 15 to 20 without feeling like they're giving up or really tired.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I like to do single leg jumps, turned in, turned out.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maximum of I like to I like to do 10 with their arms here, so it can really feel their back.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then my other question probably is to the instructor, like what type of class taker are they?
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: And how mature are they?
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because are they the dancer that you know they're gonna be fooling around in their point shoes?
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: Are they ones that are they the dancer that can't pick up a combination?
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're not remembering or being able to remember a combination, you're not working on anything, you're just trying to look around the room as to what comes next.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, are are they just like mature enough?
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_00: If I turn turn my back and work on a dancer for 30 seconds, are they gonna be then just like hanging on the bar or again, like forgiving what comes next?
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are they mature enough to handle that, even if they are 11 or 12 or have the facility?
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then my last point with that was making sure that we parents trust the instructors because I think that we do see a lot of what goes on in the class.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if an instructor doesn't think that a kid is ready, there's no reason, like Miss Deb was talking about, to put someone on point and it's just it's going to create injuries and be really dangerous and it's not worth it.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then for any young educator out there who is on the fence about it or feel pressure from a parent to put them on point, is I would just say wait another six to eight months or a year if they're on the fence, because again, it's like they can use that pre-point work and just still being flat and um get a lot out of it.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my spiel, and I'm done.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean, those are those are all really good like markers for does this does this dancer have the strength, the uh facility, the alignment, the maturity.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_05: Because listen, the point shoes hurt.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_05: I don't care which toe pads you have, they are not comfortable.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_05: And that's comes in with your maturity too.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_05: Of are you are you the 12-year-old kid who's gonna complain about this the whole time?
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_05: My mom always says, when when you when you're allowed to be on point for Miss Brenda, you don't get to complain.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_05: Anytime you want to complain, you say thank you, Miss Brenda, for letting me be on point.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_05: Because that just if you if you can't hack it, you can't be here.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_05: That's not like if you're not ready, that's a big marker too, is are you ready to deal with whatever kind of discomfort that does come with being on point?
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it's not supposed to be, it's not gonna kill you, but it's not gonna be a walk in the park either.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think every it's not easy.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, every dancer is a little bit different and it it's a little bit situational.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, Miss Deb, you could maybe elaborate on this too.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe a kid or a dancer is a little behind on some of the things that I might have recommended, but they're a very serious and great committed dancer.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then the parent might say, Well, they'll take pre-point, they'll do the two-point classes with this with the class, and then can they do uh privates with you twice a week?
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_00: That also may be a little bit different because you're focusing all your energy for an hour or 45 minutes on that specific kid to try to then get them to where they need to be.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that for parents who are like, oh, they deserve to be on point, but I don't want to do privates, and you're like, well, they're not ready, maybe let's do some privates.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_00: But then they're also only taking class like three days a week for maybe like an hour and 15, and they're like kind of one of the not the best class takers.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like all these things just don't add up.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that I don't know.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're right.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it yeah, I think that it's situational.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's not only situational, but it is such a an individual decision.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a specific to each dancer, maybe not individual, it's specific to each dancer because you can have one class, right?
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they can all come to class the same amount of time.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: But like you said, they will approach a class differently, have different levels of maturity.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And some also are willing to do work outside of class.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have students to whom the most dedicated will come to me and say, Miss Deborah, what can I do at home to help myself?
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I will give them additional, because again, I can't, you know, I spend a few moments at the beginning of class on conditioning or I'll give them additional things that are specifically ankle and feet relevant related or whatever they need.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really apparent in a few weeks which kids actually do these at home and which don't.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to take the individual, I agree, the individual situation into account.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's no, it's not super cut and dry.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I think you have to be really sure.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's better to err on the side of of caution than the other way.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, yes, most injuries are quickly recovered from, and that's great.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not worth it because some injuries are not quickly recovered from and have long-term repercussions.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_05: Like once once you sprain your ankle, you're more prone to sprain that ankle again.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_05: So, like, you know, it it has the same.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_05: The the thing that happens to you once is gonna kick you in the butt on down the line.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_05: So that's very true.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_02: This was such a great chat, and I knew that we would just have so much to cover and so much to talk about, and I think that it was really informative and exactly what our podcast needed for our latest ballet-focused episode.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, we did our little point teaser for everyone.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So if you want to hear more about point, join us on season six.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_02: We'll do a full episode over there.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_02: But we knew we needed to have both of you on our ballet episode uh for this season, and I'm so glad you were able to join us.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you so much for having us.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having both of us.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was really, it was really great and great fun.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how all of our guests lead us out on making the impact is with one final thought.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, whatever you want to say, you can speak to whoever you'd like.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_02: You can talk to dancers, you can talk to studios, you can talk to parents, you can talk to other ballet teachers.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_02: A final thought on ballet and the competitive dance and beautiful dance world.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have two.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_00: My first thing is some advice is just to remember to work really smart.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a difference between working hard and working smart.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this a lot.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Quality versus versus quantity.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say smart as well, it's listening to your body.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've dealt with a lot of injuries in my past and then been maybe pressured to start a little sooner than I knew I was ready for, but I wasn't listening to my intuition, and then I was hurting myself in the long run.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you are overly exhausted, it's okay to say, you know, I'm I need a second and I'm tired.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we know our bodies better than anyone.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So working smart versus always thinking I have to work hard.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have one more, which is a little harsh reality, but it's to my younger self, which is, you know, you may be doing everything that everything correct and everything right, but no matter what you do, the front of the room or whoever you're trying to seek that validation from, you won't get and not everyone's gonna like you, and that's okay.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_00: But out of that situation, always try to find a positive, and there's always some type of silver lining in that experience, whether it's just watching the other dancers or just being around other great artists or just getting the opportunity to learn something new.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it's okay, then we have to accept the fact that not everyone's gonna like our dancing and like our personal aesthetic, and that's just kind of the beauty of the dance world, everything's subjective, but also the harsh reality.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_00: But you really can find some type of positive, beneficial element to it and take that with you.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_01: I have um it's one, but it can be divided into two parts.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll say this the one thing that I would say this to my students if dance is what you love and being a dancer is what you want out of life, you should give yourself full permission to go for it and go do that and you know, go at it hard and full force and yes, work smart, like Jim said, but don't hold yourself back by the convention that I just think about my childhood, the convention that you know it's it's maybe it's hard to make a living as a dancer or artist suffer.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if this is what you really love and what you really want and what really fills your soul, then that is what you should go eat up for life.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_01: That is what you should do.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then as a corollary to that, I would also say, parents, if this is who your child is and this is what they want and tell you what they want, please support them.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let them live the life that they choose to because in the end, you wake up with yourself and you have to look at yourself in the mirror.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, let's support them in doing that.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_02: We hope you enjoyed our latest episode all about ballet for competitive dancers.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Don't forget to follow our guests on Instagram.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_02: You can find Jim at Jim Noah County and Deborah at Deborah Ingerman underscore ballet teacher.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And if you'd like to purchase Deborah Ingerman's book, Let's Talk About Fit, teaching ballet in the 21st century, you can buy now on Amazon or click the link in our show notes.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_05: Don't forget to follow Making the Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcast, and pretty much everywhere you listen to podcasts.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_05: And if you want more exclusive episodes, support our podcast by joining our Platinum Premium membership for only$5 a month.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_05: Subscribers receive free Making the Impact stickers, shout-outs live on the air, ad-free listening, and exclusive access to our QA episodes for members only.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_05: Join now at Impact Dance Adjudicators.com/slash Platinum Premium or click the link in our show notes.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Attention all dancers! Looking for some outside expertise to fine-tune your dance before hitting the competition stage this season?
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Then check out IDA's Online Judges Critiques.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Our seasoned judges will provide you with the video critique of your routine, just like you'd receive at competition.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_02: But with IDA's online judges critiques, we take it one step further with our post-critique additional feedback.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_02: Your judge will go through your routine again, pausing the video to give you even more detailed and personalized feedback.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_02: You can even request a judge that specializes in your style of dance.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_02: This game-changing service has helped countless dancers prepare for the competitive stage, and it's available year round.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_02: With critiques starting at only$35, what are you waiting for?
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Click the link in our show notes or visit our website at Impact DanceEducators.com slash one line critique to learn more and submit your dance today.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_05: Coming up next on Making the Impact, look forward to episodes on transitioning from competitive dancer to professional dancer, our final studio spotlight episode of season five, and in house choreography versus guest choreography.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_02: We hope you're enjoying season five of Making the Impact.
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for tuning in week after week.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you next week.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Until then, keep dancing.