The Ballet Bible

[luvsmusicluvs2dance]

Has anyone tried this and if so, how were the results? I think the most useful part of the program would be part 4 where you can watch demonstrations of various movements. But then again, I have some Youtube videos that I transferred to my ipod for this purpose.

 

I am just curious to see if The Ballet Bible is worth the $47.

 

 

Thanks!

[Pirou]

I don't know, but after I visited and closed their website, an advertising "Chat" window kept popping up and continuing to advertise to me:

 

Rachel Says: Hey wait! We hate to see you go. So just this once we'd like to make you a special offer of $10 OFF for making your purchase today! CLICK HERE to get started!

 

Rachel Says: Just type 'HI' or 'Hello' in the space below to let me know you are there.

 

Rachel Says: Would it benefit you if I could show you how to dramatically increase your ballet skill in the shortest time possible? Well if so, you've come to the right place!

 

Rachel Says: Whenever you are ready, just type 'HI' or 'HELLO' and we can get started...

 

Rachel Says:CLICK HERE to take advantage of this amazing offer.

 

Rachel Says: Please type 'HI' or 'HELLO' in the space below...

 

Rachel Says: Okay, I'll be moving on now... Last chance... Just type 'HI.'

 

 

That was a little scary. That's quite a bit beyond a tracking cookie.

[luvsmusicluvs2dance]

Pirou,

 

I saw the same chat box and identical messages! Weird. I haven't purchased it but am a little curious about it.

[~ Mimi ~]

I bought it some time ago - I'll try to make some time tomorrow to gather my thoughts about it into a post that might help you decide if you want to try it or not.

Not now though, it's sleepy-time over here...

[Pirou]

Please, just type Hi or Hello.

 

Just kidding.

[~ Mimi ~]

^ LOL Pirou, nightmares are made of stuff like that you know!

 

 

Anyway, we discussed the Ballet Bible on DDN some time ago - or actually: what we'd expect of it, because as it turned out the pushy sales techniques were actually exactly what put everybody there off from buying it.

 

I didn't want to post the link to that thread here though, because it was about specific things from the Ballet Bible website back then. So I figured: it's been a while, the author actually read those messages, so presumably things have changed by now.

But apparently certain things haven't...

Well, the author herself replied on DDN that she uses this way of marketing her product simply because it works, and:

"The complete ballet bible package comes with a 100% no-risk guarantee. I'm not trying to scam anyone or make a quick buck. If you don't like the guide or didn't get any benefit from it than you don't pay a cent. "

Fair enough, I suppose.

 

So, when it was temporarily offered for a lower price (I think I paid $27), I figured there was no risk in satiating my curiousity (the 'cheap' dollar also helped! ).

 

The package at that time consisted of:

 

- An e-book called "The 3 Simple Rules of a Prima Ballerina"

- 75 "Video demonstrations" (to be navigated with the included Ballet Bible Video Player)

- "Audio Terms & Definitions Software"

- 24 "1 on 1 video lessons", each ranging from about 30 seconds to a few minutes.

 

The "1 on 1 video lessons" are by far my favourite part of the package, or more precisely the first 20 are: Ms. Leembruggen has a cute way of teaching stuff, and in these lessons she demonstrates basic moves while pointing out what you should be feeling: which muscles should be working, and other things you need to pay attention to. In that, it's far more effective than most similar videos that really only teach you what it should look like, instead of what it should feel like.

You can see one of these Video Lessons on the Ballet Bible site, so if you like that one, you'll probably like the other 19 as well.

The last 4 Video Lessons don't contain any demonstrations, but (in my opinion rather common-sense) advice on preventing injuries, not ignoring an injury once you have one, getting involved for the parents of dancing children, and starting late.

 

The Video demonstrations (.flv files that for some reason won't play in my normal flv applications) are pretty much what you'd expect from them. You can browse them by category: "Plies", "Center", "Adage", "Allegro", and "Pointe".

They are okay I guess, but I prefer the ones on the ABT website, freely available to everyone:

http://www.abt.org/education/dictionary/index.html , or better yet: ABT's DVD set "The Video Dictionary of Classical Ballet" or Rosemary Boross' "The Visual Dictionary of Ballet for Children" DVD set.

 

The e-book isn't bad, but I doubt if there is anything in there that any serious ballet student doesn't already know. As a first introduction on the other hand, I think it's nice.

However, it does show that although Ms. Leembruggen might be an excellent ballet teacher, she surely isn't an amazing writer.

I don't expect everyone to create sentences like Hemingway, but it would be nice if people who publish a book (!) would at least be consistent in things like the use of apostrophes and the way ballet terms are to be spelled - for example, in the book "en dehors" is sometimes spelled as such, but also sometimes as "en de hors" or "en dehor"!

Furthermore, it sometimes just left me a bit weirded out about how little care seems to have been paid to certain sections. For example, the chapter "Major Schools of Ballet" starts with:

 

"Most countries where ballet dancing is a popular form of recreation have a major school of ballet. Generally these major schools experience close ties to that country's professional ballet companies. The competition to gain a place at these schools is fierce, with only a small number accepted each year, and many, many dancers hoping to gain entry.

 

New York City Ballet is descended from the American Ballet Company. The Studio is located in the New York State theatre and is known as the nations premier dance company. Dancers from all over the world move to New York in the hope of gaining a place at this prestigious school."

As for the "Audio Terms & Definitions Software", I think this is by far the worst part of the package. I was absolutely appalled to hear "allongé" pronounced as "ah-LONG-gay" instead of "ah-lohn-ZHEY", and this is software that is intended to TEACH one these terms!

For anyone who wants to learn the proper pronunciation, I would instead recommend the previously mentioned DVD set "The Video Dictionary of Classical Ballet" by ABT, that actually has an apparently native French speaker introduce each term, after which the main voice-over (an American male) explains the term further (while it is demonstrated by someone like, oh... Kevin McKenzie of Merrill Ashley...! )

 

So all in all, I appreciate the efforts of Ms. Leembruggen but I think there is definitely (a lot of) room for improvement...

[jimpickles]

From what I remember, this course was produced by a teacher in my city, who I had never heard of otherwise.

 

"For anyone who wants to learn the proper pronunciation, ..."

 

Par for the course for Australians' attempts to pronounce French, which is bizarre in the extreme. Where they get it from, I dont know. Except that France is a very very long way away.

 

Jim.