Holding onto Door Knobs and Running for the Subway

I officially began taking my first ballet classes when I was four years old. I'd never seen ballet in my life, it meant nothing to me. I didn't know that ballet meant pointe shoes and dancing and music, I just knew it was something that took me away from swinging on swings, climbing trees and hanging upside down from the monkey bars. And so, I soon decided that I hated it. I recall hanging onto the house door knob in an attempt to keep from being taken to class. That was the first and last time I did that.

There are ages when drop-out rates in ballet classes are high. At age five, after a year of pre-ballet, many parents consider that their child has 'tried it' and won't get much more out of it. At age 9, after the first year of 'real ballet' as the child discovers that ballet isn't as easy as it once was, and that they are far from being able to do what 'the ballerinas do'. At age 13, when students have completed their first year of pointe, having decided that they've now reached the limit of ballet accomplishments, and at age 15 when girls decide that boys and parties are more important than dance class.

There are times when students just don't know what's around the corner, and seeing no immediate gratification they simply want to quit. In today's drive-thru- google, get it now world, many children are simply not used to having to wait for anything- learned patience means nothing to them because they never learned patience, period. Or being used to having everything handed to them, they don't like that they have to work to move up to the next class level. Ballet for children today can be very difficult for those very reasons, but it's for those reasons that ballet can be good for children.

As a ballet student, I took ballet class because I had to. Most likely deriving little or no joy out of it because I was a stubborn pain in the backside, and because I had never been exposed to what these exercises and classes could lead to. This is why I try to expose even my youngest students to what real dancing looks like so that they can see an end result.

There are times when I will advocate that a disinterested child try class for one more year (for younger students) or three more months (for older students) to see if anything changes for them. Usually the answer is yes, students finally begin to see the results of the hard work they've been doing, or are exposed to more challenging work. However if the child still hates class, they shouldn't be forced to continue. (This is why it's always best for new students to 'try out' dance in the summer- there is much less of a commitment)

It's not unusual for students to dislike ballet at first, then grow to love it. It's also not unusual for them to quit.

At age five I knew I wanted to quit ballet, and spent subsequent years hating it. If you'd told my five or 13 year old self that I would eventually be happily running to catch the subway in New York for morning ballet class, or dancing with the Milwaukee Ballet,I don't think I'd have believed it. I was finally allowed to quit ballet when I was 13, and was never happier. Until classes started up in the fall- I couldn't get back fast enough!

It's also not unusual for students to drop out then come running back. There isn't a professional dancer in the world who didn't hate ballet at one point, or even for years, but if dance is in you, the dancer always comes back.

Read more...