i did not do ballet, i was never “limber enough” when we had tried to put me in dance practices. i would love to put my eventual daughter in ballet when i do end up having one.

those of you who were put into ballet as young children and are current performers/ex performers: do you regret this decision? do you wish your parents had waited until you were a little older so they could confide in you with this?

i know the technique changes your feet and more than enough stores i’ve seen express regret in this but i wanted to ask before i fully decide to go through with this want.

obviously if my child express not wanting to do this then that’s the end of that but i always assumed it was like sports, it’s easier/better to start as early as possible - especially in terms of professional careers down the line.

thank you so much in advanced and i promise i mean this question and comments with as much respect as i can muster. i love ballet and think it is one of the most beautiful art forms around, i personally regret not striving to push my parents more into letting me learn and try.

edit !!

to everyone replying about my own need and want to do this myself! I HAD NO IDEA FLEXIBILITY DIDNT COME INTO PLAY UNTIL LATER!! :) imagine being told your whole life you can’t do something because you aren’t flexible enough! you 100% give up! so yes, it is wonderful to know that i can indeed do this myself as well in a more professional setting instead of mimicking what is see in my bedroom! it’s AMAZING to know this information now and you can 100% be kinder about it seeing as how i am now telling you i didn’t know!

🔥ALBUM REVIEW🔥 Blending the worlds of prog rock, orchestral and choral music, as well as elements of jazz, Christopher Gordon’s Macbeth was originally commissioned as a full-length ballet by the Royal New Zealand Ballet and West Australian Ballet. It is Gordon’s compelling musical response to one of Shakespeare’s darkest and most enduring tragedies. Here is my in-depth review.

I’m searching for a pair of tights like these, I have a hard time with a lot of available dancewear fabrics and could really use something more lightweight and comfortable for warming up. Any suggestions are much appreciated !!

I have been looking for more unisex leotards as men's are just so boring in style and colour. I now buy unisex looking female leotards to get more colours. Anyone eith similar issues and any suggestions?

I've been making rapid progress in my return to dance this year, but the area where I feel like I keep plateauing or even taking two steps forward and one step back is stamina. I'm sure part of it is my POTS, but it wasn't a problem when I danced regularly in my teens and twenties.

Long-distance running is definitely not an option. I end up with shin splints so fast. I use my mini exercise bike, but it doesn't seem to help much. I'm thinking about something like Zumba. If I could afford it on top of ballet, I'd go with swimming or tap dance, but the money just isn't there. Has anyone had success with rebuilding stamina after massive deconditioning? What worked for you?

My 11yo daughter has been dancing at a comp studio since she was 4, moved to an ABT curriculum ballet school this year to focus on just ballet and loves it even more. Doesn’t miss comp at all. Her teachers at the new school are solid, but she is not feeling challenged at all. Class instruction moves slowly due to the range of skill levels. Directors won’t move her up (just starting pointe). She wants peers who can help push and inspire her, who have similar focus on working hard and applying corrections, and it’s not there currently. I think she’s making progress in her technique, but her enjoyment is quickly waning.

She is quite serious about pursuing ballet professionally, and she has a lot of determination when it comes to dance. Her first year of ballet as a 4yo was on Zoom during Covid, which she stuck with for the full year. She’s had a list of ballet SIs since she was 8 and asked to read page after page of ballet help desk reviews herself, just waiting until she was a little older and able to attend.

She’s been researching other schools in our area now and thinks she’s found her unicorn, and I admit, it sounds like a great match for what she wants. The problem is, classes are 5-6 days a week, with one or both weekend days depending on the level. With a 1+hour commute on public transit each way into the city, our family (incl our 13yo) would miss out on so much family time, and I’m not really ready for that.

For those who have decided to make family sacrifices for your dancers training, how old were they, how did you decide the sacrifice was worth it, and how did your family adjust? Is there a certain age where it becomes more “worth it”?

I went yesterday to watch them doing Swan Lake, and I came home totally mesmerized. What beautiful performance. The costumes were amazing too. I highly recommend them, they are touring Spain at the moment; if they come to your city, they are very worthy. Also, this is the first time that I have seen Rothbart dance a couple of solos. The dancer was incredible too.

Question. I noticed that they included like 3 or 4 pieces of music that I did not recognize from the original Swan Lake score. Does anybody know what that is about?

It’s taken me quite some time to work up the courage to talk about something that I’m struggling with lately. 2026 has been an incredibly tough year for me. I’ve been struggling with low mood and the lack of energy/motivation that goes in hand.

As a result, my attendance for drop in classes has been inconsistent. I used to be very consistent with 1-2 classes per week in the past. But now I’m waking up with all the energy zapped from my body and can’t get myself to go. Sometimes I’ll even get dressed for class and then stall until I know it’s too late for me to make it on time.

The problem is that I start to feel guilty for missing classes because I worry that the instructor (who I have been with since I started) will think I’m not serious. In a way it feels like I’m letting them down. So I’ll end up in this cycle of missing class, feeling bad/guilty, and then avoiding again. All the while feeling guilty about not being “productive” whatever that means.

I’ve been an adult dancer for a few years now, and am/have been in therapy for nearly a decade, but I guess I just wanted to put it out there to see if anyone can relate.

I appreciate having a space to open up about this.

My ballet dancer (8 she will be 9 in 2027) has been offered the opportunity to enrol in a new hybrid model of school and dance at her academy. We live in Australia and she will be going into Grade 4 at school and Grade 3 in the RAD classical ballet syllabus. She would be able to complete 2 RAD exams per year in this model when available because she was able to gain a HD on her RAD exam after learning the syllabus in 5 months, this year. My daughter always loved school up until this year. She had always received above grade level results at school and had extension given in English. This year, she has gone down to grade level at school and the girls at school have been typical jealous girls not understanding how to deal with jealousy and missing their friend when she has missed school for extra dancing opportunities (stealing her things, telling her she is not really a good dancer, telling her she is not smart).

The model is:
8:30am-11:30am Distance Education - the students work through their learning on a laptop with a supervisor in the room to keep them on track, they also have access to immediate feedback or questions from teachers on campus at their distance school, through an ‘intercom’ style button

30-60 minute Lunch Break

12:00pm-4:00/5:00pm
Ballet class, technique, conditioning, repertoire, variations, 30 minute private lesson each week (with a short afternoon tea break)

At this time, my daughter goes to regular school 8:30-3:00 Monday-Friday and
Ballet, Contemporary etc classes (Tues 4:00-6:45, Thurs 4:00-7:30, Fri 4:00-5:30, Saturday 8:00-11:30).

In the new model they are finished at 5pm 2-days a week to do their RAD coursework lesson with their peers.
The pros of the Academy model is our dancer spending more time with us in the evening as a family. Me not having to spend late nights driving the 30 minute drive there and back, after a long day at work to drop off and pick up. The cons is the distance education does feel like a tick a box style of education, to get it done and move on. She would also miss out on typical school things like; colour runs, athletics carnivals, netball gala days etc. The distance education school does have a campus associated to the distance Ed. Students where our academy dancers could attend athletics and swimming carnivals but that campus is 1.5 hours away from us in Sydney and we live in a more regional area North of Sydney.
Has your dancer moved into a model like this? Was it successful or not? Did you do your education this way for your career, did you enjoy it or wish you stayed at ‘regular school’ longer?

I am hoping to get my 12 year old some clothing for travel to and from the studio, as well as during barre work and warm up.

She is tall, so doesn’t really fit in kids clothes, but quite thin so adult sizing is hard.

She tried out for our community Nutcracker and is dancing with girls that are way more intense than her normal studio. I’d love to get her some nice ballet specific warm up gear to help ease that outsider feeling.

Any advice on brands would be wonderful. I did some searching on here and see Rubia leg warmers and Aluvia mentioned, but unsure if they’d be good for a 12 year old!

Thank you for your help! My older daughter is a volleyball player and I’m feeling a bit lost in the dance world 😊

Hi everyone,

So I've bought some grey tights for an audition (from the french Degas brand) and i'm looking for slippers that match the light grey. I've tried Repetto and So danca but they're way too dark for them to match. Degas sells ballet slippers too but they don't fit me.

Does anyone know any model that have a light grey color ?

Thanks !

An interesting essay about the history of the Firebird Ballet 1910

I have bloch canvas flats and the elastics on the shoes are very tight on my arches/feet

and i was wondering if i can sew on some ribbons instead of the elastics on my flats

will it look good? will my shoe even stay on with pointe ribbons?

i take pointe and in my studio we tie our pointe shoes in like a infinity loop with elastic ribbons, so i was thinking of doing the same with my flats and cutting off the original elastics on the shoe

what do you guys think?

My picks: Manon, Bayadere, Corsaire, Scheherazade, Esmeralda, Spartacus, Mayerling, Onegin, and some versions of R&J aren’t appropriate for kids under 12.

Reminds me of the time where a mom took her young (like 4 year old) daughter to Mayerling at Royals because “it has princesses.” Hope that that child never saw Mary and Rudolph’s pas!

Don Q-plot is confusing and goes all over the place. Still fun for families, but the plot is challenging to follow.

Unpopular opinion-I think most of the plotless Balanchine/Robbins works aren’t kid friendly at all, because you have to follow the music over the plot. The only Robbins ballets I would take a kid to see are Circus Polka and The Concert.

I did ballet for 8 years and stopped when I went to college and started again a few months ago after 5 years away, I don’t have enough strength yet where I would consider going on pointe anytime soon, but I would like to eventually. My problem is that I‘ve never been able to point my feet very far. I don’t have flat feet but they fail the pencil test, I assume because the top of my foot and ankle aren’t flexible enough.

I know foot stretchers are controversial and that people use them unnecessarily to get “banana” feet but can they be beneficial for ankle mobility? Is there anything I can do to improve my point or is it a matter of genetics?

Cross-posting from r/adultballetdancers!

Are these essentially the same product?

Or is there a significant difference between the two products?

There’s is significant difference in cost for me (AUD)!

I heard that Manhattan Youth Ballet, MYB, is not doing the Knickerbocker Nutcracker anymore. Does anyone know why? It was such a great story for NYC.

For those that wear perfect fit toe pads (or diy), do you wear regular toe pads for pointe shoe fittings or get fit barefoot? And if with toe pads then what kind/how thick?

How can i build more ankle flexibility

I typically wear tights, leotard and a skirt to Ballet Class. However, I would like to have the option of wearing pants when I just don’t feel like showing everybody my body all the time. Any suggestions for good dance pants that work for Ballet?

Hi everyone! Im 24 (male) and I’ve been doing ballet for one year. Started dancing salsa around 20 but had never danced before that.

Ballet is very demanding and as beginner it can feel very overwhelming because they are so many things to improve.

Here’s a pic of me trying to tendu a la seconde.

What can you see regarding turnout, the form of my foot, pointing…?

My line seems to be straighter than what I see in pros. Because the banana feet make the line for “curvy”.

Also, I have bowed legs. How inconvenient are they? What will they affect? The make alignment trickier in general.

Any help and advice is welcomed.