Any tips or resources for an aspiring dancer who can only afford to learn & practice from home? Also I’m really struggling to map out/find a private place like this to dance in that give me more space than my apartment kitchen. 😅❤
The space in my video is from the YMCA and it's a racquetball court. One can reserve it for an hour slot at a time. Are there any YMCAs in your area? Some of them have studios with barre, mirror etc. There are other fitness centers that also have "stretch rooms" with mirror. I practice both in the YMCA and at home in my basement with a portable barre and homemade flooring (plastic garbage bags line the concrete, then puzzle mat tiles over that, then thin plywood underlayment over that, then vinyl flooring, 6'x9' space for barre and center practice). I know in larger cities some dance studios rent out their studio by the hour for dancers to rehearse or perform in. Minneapolis has this. I am three hours north of that though. It really is a constant struggle to find space, isn't it? Sometimes in summer I practice outside if doing a more modern style dancing. More...
How far along are you in training or are you brand new to ballet and dance? I trained many years ago in the 1980s to 1992 at Columbus Youth/City ballet under Shir Lee Wu, then at Ohio State University. I started very late at 14 and was told in no uncertain terms I had the wrong body type and lack of turnout. Honestly i had some mental health issues also and I knew I could not make it as a professional dancer, though I trained daily from 15-18. I had a few years of pointe work back then but I could never find the right fit of pointe shoe and struggled with it. I quit dancing from age 20 to age 43. I started doing dance improvisation on my own at age 43, in the back room of Anytime Fitness, or outside or wherever. I was awful at first, but over time began to improve. I watched and still do, a LOT of dance and ballet videos. All kinds of styles, all kinds of dance, even street dance, modern, ballet, pointe, you name it. I watch others dance improvisation too. It helps to learn how to move your body and get outside the same old movement patterns. In 2017 when I was 45 I got up the courage to sign up for adult intermediate ballet at School of Minnesota Ballet in Duluth. I took class twice per week and they offered pointe also for adults, just 30 minutes 2x week so I did that too. I did this for 2.5 years but then had some chronic injuries (shin splints and stress reactions in shins, and issues with right foot 2nd/3rd metatarsal, some kind of bone spur that still shows up on xrays and can be painful but I manage it better now than I did for a while). If you notice in my videos I rare do any jumping or just briefly, not a lot. Not with my shin splints and foot issues. How I manage to do pointe work with my right foot is beyond me but I am careful to stretch and take a ballet barre before doing any pointe work, and I spent a LOT Of time getting fitted for pointe shoes at several different places and learning what works and what doesn't before I could even begin to start dancing in them beyond a few minutes at the barre. I do have some ballet background to be able to do this on my own. I also studied Martha Graham technique in the 1980s and some modern dance at OSU in early 90s, so not completely clueless. More...
@@naturebound2901 this is a fantastic idea!! Idk why I didn’t think of that. Yea, I do have a few YMCA locations near me and upon inquiring, they do have studio spaces while racquetball courts seems to be in limited supply haha! Anyway, thanks so much for this suggestion, I feel like I have an affordable option now!
On my own I practice all kinds of ballet barres I find for free on TH-cam. My favorites are the Dutch National Ballet Series barre and centerwork videos. They have at least 17 barre videos and at least 4 center ones. They are not really for beginners though a few of them are advertised as such. But they are not overly hard either if you've had some ballet training. Another barre series I do is those of Maria Khoreva, famous ballerina with Mariinsky theater in Russia. She has a lot of barre, center and pointe classes online for free. I find her to be very enjoyable, easy to follow, and her classes are not overly challenging but not too easy. There are other random online TH-cam barre classes I find. I recently found a pointe warmup class given by a New York City Ballet dancer that is geared towards beginner/intermediate. If you look through my liked videos you might find quite a bit of dance related classes and videos. Even without personal instruction and attention one can improve a little if extremely self aware, vigilant, listen to the general corrections given in the videos etc. And practice practice practice. But if you wanted to become a professional or need a lot of training to become more proficient, you are going to need professional training. I'm just a 52 year old woman who still loves dance/ballet and it gives me goals and joy in life. I care for a disabled husband who had a double lung transplant for end stage lung disease last year. We had to live in Cleveland for five months post transplant and I found a dance studio at the downtown YMCA there to my delite. I practiced in the stairwell of the temporary apartment we stayed at too. After his transplant we were devestated to learn he had lung cancer in his old lungs that was never detected until post transplant. It has since metastasized and I have worked full time and juggled that with lots of chemo, radiation, and traveling back and forth to Cleveland for transplant care with him. I have little time to dance or take class but I squeeze it in where and when I can. I actually find that NOT taking class with others in an actual classroom, NOT being compared to others, Not being pressured to be perfect in order to have a shot at being professional, has freed me to really enjoy dancing and training and push myself more just for the excitement of it. I no longer dread it as I did when I was a teen. Yes I do regret quitting for so long, but I am having so much fun now! There does feel like this race against time as I keep getting older though! at any rate, I also invested in wireless ear plugs with bluetooth so I can follow along with online TH-cam classes on m y smartphone or laptop while at the YMCA public studio shared by others working out. No one seems to mind me dancing up there and I have gotten compliments and encouragement from others watching me which is nice. I will warn the flooring in these fitness centers is not ideal for ballet or dance in general. They are not sprung floors and can be slippery or sticky. I glue pointe shoe suede tips to my pointe shoes and Gaynor Mindens have built in suede tips which has been awesome for me. I dab water on the soles of my ballet slippers and pointe shoes if the floor is really slippery.
Any tips or resources for an aspiring dancer who can only afford to learn & practice from home? Also I’m really struggling to map out/find a private place like this to dance in that give me more space than my apartment kitchen. 😅❤
Also congratulations on this video and performance! This was so beautiful and inspiring to watch. You’re wonderfully talented and truly skilled. 💜✨
The space in my video is from the YMCA and it's a racquetball court. One can reserve it for an hour slot at a time. Are there any YMCAs in your area? Some of them have studios with barre, mirror etc. There are other fitness centers that also have "stretch rooms" with mirror. I practice both in the YMCA and at home in my basement with a portable barre and homemade flooring (plastic garbage bags line the concrete, then puzzle mat tiles over that, then thin plywood underlayment over that, then vinyl flooring, 6'x9' space for barre and center practice). I know in larger cities some dance studios rent out their studio by the hour for dancers to rehearse or perform in. Minneapolis has this. I am three hours north of that though. It really is a constant struggle to find space, isn't it? Sometimes in summer I practice outside if doing a more modern style dancing. More...
How far along are you in training or are you brand new to ballet and dance? I trained many years ago in the 1980s to 1992 at Columbus Youth/City ballet under Shir Lee Wu, then at Ohio State University. I started very late at 14 and was told in no uncertain terms I had the wrong body type and lack of turnout. Honestly i had some mental health issues also and I knew I could not make it as a professional dancer, though I trained daily from 15-18. I had a few years of pointe work back then but I could never find the right fit of pointe shoe and struggled with it. I quit dancing from age 20 to age 43. I started doing dance improvisation on my own at age 43, in the back room of Anytime Fitness, or outside or wherever. I was awful at first, but over time began to improve. I watched and still do, a LOT of dance and ballet videos. All kinds of styles, all kinds of dance, even street dance, modern, ballet, pointe, you name it. I watch others dance improvisation too. It helps to learn how to move your body and get outside the same old movement patterns. In 2017 when I was 45 I got up the courage to sign up for adult intermediate ballet at School of Minnesota Ballet in Duluth. I took class twice per week and they offered pointe also for adults, just 30 minutes 2x week so I did that too. I did this for 2.5 years but then had some chronic injuries (shin splints and stress reactions in shins, and issues with right foot 2nd/3rd metatarsal, some kind of bone spur that still shows up on xrays and can be painful but I manage it better now than I did for a while). If you notice in my videos I rare do any jumping or just briefly, not a lot. Not with my shin splints and foot issues. How I manage to do pointe work with my right foot is beyond me but I am careful to stretch and take a ballet barre before doing any pointe work, and I spent a LOT Of time getting fitted for pointe shoes at several different places and learning what works and what doesn't before I could even begin to start dancing in them beyond a few minutes at the barre. I do have some ballet background to be able to do this on my own. I also studied Martha Graham technique in the 1980s and some modern dance at OSU in early 90s, so not completely clueless. More...
@@naturebound2901 this is a fantastic idea!! Idk why I didn’t think of that. Yea, I do have a few YMCA locations near me and upon inquiring, they do have studio spaces while racquetball courts seems to be in limited supply haha! Anyway, thanks so much for this suggestion, I feel like I have an affordable option now!
On my own I practice all kinds of ballet barres I find for free on TH-cam. My favorites are the Dutch National Ballet Series barre and centerwork videos. They have at least 17 barre videos and at least 4 center ones. They are not really for beginners though a few of them are advertised as such. But they are not overly hard either if you've had some ballet training. Another barre series I do is those of Maria Khoreva, famous ballerina with Mariinsky theater in Russia. She has a lot of barre, center and pointe classes online for free. I find her to be very enjoyable, easy to follow, and her classes are not overly challenging but not too easy. There are other random online TH-cam barre classes I find. I recently found a pointe warmup class given by a New York City Ballet dancer that is geared towards beginner/intermediate. If you look through my liked videos you might find quite a bit of dance related classes and videos. Even without personal instruction and attention one can improve a little if extremely self aware, vigilant, listen to the general corrections given in the videos etc. And practice practice practice. But if you wanted to become a professional or need a lot of training to become more proficient, you are going to need professional training. I'm just a 52 year old woman who still loves dance/ballet and it gives me goals and joy in life. I care for a disabled husband who had a double lung transplant for end stage lung disease last year. We had to live in Cleveland for five months post transplant and I found a dance studio at the downtown YMCA there to my delite. I practiced in the stairwell of the temporary apartment we stayed at too. After his transplant we were devestated to learn he had lung cancer in his old lungs that was never detected until post transplant. It has since metastasized and I have worked full time and juggled that with lots of chemo, radiation, and traveling back and forth to Cleveland for transplant care with him. I have little time to dance or take class but I squeeze it in where and when I can. I actually find that NOT taking class with others in an actual classroom, NOT being compared to others, Not being pressured to be perfect in order to have a shot at being professional, has freed me to really enjoy dancing and training and push myself more just for the excitement of it. I no longer dread it as I did when I was a teen. Yes I do regret quitting for so long, but I am having so much fun now! There does feel like this race against time as I keep getting older though! at any rate, I also invested in wireless ear plugs with bluetooth so I can follow along with online TH-cam classes on m y smartphone or laptop while at the YMCA public studio shared by others working out. No one seems to mind me dancing up there and I have gotten compliments and encouragement from others watching me which is nice. I will warn the flooring in these fitness centers is not ideal for ballet or dance in general. They are not sprung floors and can be slippery or sticky. I glue pointe shoe suede tips to my pointe shoes and Gaynor Mindens have built in suede tips which has been awesome for me. I dab water on the soles of my ballet slippers and pointe shoes if the floor is really slippery.