I learned to trust myself a little better.....

[Guest vivifan]

My daughter was taking ballet from a very formidable ballet school from age 5 to age 11. I understood little about Ballet but could observe from the very beginning that she had a little something special that most of the others' in the class didn't show. She had grace, strength, coordination and alot of heart. Off we went to the big ballet school in the city each week so that she could "be all that she could be". Mom became the #1 volunteer; stage mom, costume mom, help move the whole studio mom, fundraiser mom etc....with never a thank you from anyone. I did it all for the love of my daughter. It was expensive and $ was tight but my daughter was going to fufill her wishes if it killed me first. When I was allowed to watch at the only two observation weeks each year I enjoyed every second.....the only performance opportunity was a year end demonstration and a 10 second presence in The Nutcracker each year.

 

Like I said, I am not a trained eye but when I was allowed to observe class i saw what amounted to a glorified exercise class to classical music. In the seven years I never saw a Pirrouette, harly a leap and never a combination. All I saw was 15 minuts of barre, lots of stretching and some Saute's at the end. I kept wanting to keep the faith as I had observed the excellence of the Professional Division and thought that the school was the conduit to this level. I started paying attention to "who's Who" and realized that the Professional Division dancers were mostly recruits from other schools and not graduates of their "renowned" ballet school. I realized that there were no certified teachers; a Principal Dancer back from ABT that taught with her tounge pierced, tatoos and belly button earring sticking out of her cropped shirt etc....all this for 3x the cost of other studio's. When I asked for a meeting with the Artistic director and/or instructor they "had no time".

 

I knew i had to search for something better to fufill my daughters passion. Today, four month after a stressful departure from "The Best Ballet School" my daughter has tranformed into a formidable ballet student. She has learned more and achieved more in four month's than 7 years at the other school. They corrected all her bad positions and habits, is teaching her terminology, musicality, and all the things that you would expect would develpoe a ballerina. (the other school didn't even know what a correct 5th position was)

 

 

I go to sleep at night knowing that I did not get "sucked" all the way into being the $$$ train for the success of The Professioal Division and have a happy daughter that is now getting the excellent attention that I feel she deserved at the "other school".

Thank You for letting me vent a little!

Moral of the story....I will trust my gut a bit sooner next time!

[Victoria Leigh]

Hello Vivifan, welcome to Ballet Talk for Dancers, and especially the Moms and Dads forum!

 

Thank you for sharing your story, and we are very glad you have learned to trust yourself more, and sooner! It would be great if everyone could do that, especially in terms of recognizing poor training. But the important thing is that you have now found good training for your daughter, and we applaud that! Hope you will enjoy our forums and join in the discussions on lots of different topics!