April 25, 2014

Beginner Ballerina Profile: Dan Hynds

IMG_2709 2This week’s profile is of Dan Hynds, who blogs at Ballet Chap and also helped start an amateur ballet company, Shires Adult Ballet.

When did you start doing ballet as an adult? 

Around 4 years ago.

Did you ever take lessons as a kid? 

I dabbled as a teen, but never to any serious level.

 Why did you decide to take ballet as an adult?

I hit thirty and lots of things were at a crossroads in my life–I needed to find a “me” thing to do that ideally kept me fit as well, so I decided to revisit ballet and haven’t looked back!

 Where do you take classes? 

I regularly take classes at the Sophie May School of Dance, near Bedford, and With Amie Brotherton in Northampton. I also travel to London for regular pas de deux workshops.

What is your favorite part about ballet? 

It is so expressive and all consuming. When I dance it allows me to switch off from the real world. It pushes me to constantly challenge myself.

What is your least favorite part?

Allegro and small fast jumps! I’m 6’2 and just under 200 pounds; I do big and dramatic, not quick and nimble!

 Who/What is your ballet inspiration? 

It might sound clichéd but I’m inspired by many of the other amateur dancers around me–the adult ballet community is such a supportive caring group of people. More than once I have close to quitting, or been really nervous about a class or performance and I have been picked up by those around me.

What motivates you to keep dancing?

I want to be the best I can, and I don’t like quitting!

 Do you take any other dance classes?

I did one term of tap in my younger years and that was quite enough, thank you!

 What are your hobbies outside of ballet? 

I’m a singer, I ride horses and cycle.

 What advice would you like to give to those who want to start ballet or have just started? 

Go for it–I wish I had ten years ago.

 Anything else you’d like to add? 

Yes! I’m part of a group who have started an amateur adult ballet company–we plan to give more opportunities to adult dancers to perform in our area. We are called Shires Adult Ballet, and we are on Facebook and Twitter–website coming soon!

 

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April 24, 2014

Why I love Compression Gear: Zensah Socks and Sleeves

I love my compression socks, sleeves (and leggings too!). I have about six different pairs of compression socks and three different pairs of compression sleeves.  By far, the best pair of socks I have are the Zensah compression socks that I won in a #runchat tweet chat a few months ago. I recently bought a pair of Zensah sleeves that I love, too.

Why does compression gear work? Zensah’s got a great blog post on it, but here are some main points:

  •  Compression improves circulation and oxygenated blood flow to improve performance and enhance recovery.
  • Improved circulation reduces the buildup of lactic acid
  • Enhance athlete’s warm-up by increasing the temperature of the skin and the muscle
  • Provide an extra support to stabilize the muscle tissue, reducing inflammation and micro trauma

I mostly wear socks for recovery, but I’ll use my Zensah sleeves during ballet and sometimes while running.

zensah_socks

Chilling in my Zensah socks in my messy room

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April 23, 2014

Ballet Class Recap and General Updates

Since I haven’t posted since last week, I fee like I kind of fell off the face of the earth with this blog–even if it really hasn’t been that long.

I spent most of my weekend (starting on Wednesday, since I worked three days in a row last week) with my family and struggled to get even my homework done for the Coursera Python course HQ and I are taking. I also got in a few runs while at home since there is a nice running trail there. My legs seem to be doing super well, and I’m currently looking for a cheap-ish 5k in May/June to run.

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April 18, 2014

Beginner Ballerina Profile: Maria Lucia Violo

MLV

This week’s profile Maria Lucia Violo, a 31 year old from Rome, Italy, who started ballet back in 2010.

When did you start doing ballet as an adult?

I started in 2010, when I was 28 years old.

Did you ever take lessons as a kid?

Yes, I’ve loved dance and ballet since my very first childhood (I used to improvise dances at home, to watch avidly every TV show about dance and even to dress up my dolls as ballerinas and made them “dance” as a play!), so I actually ended up taking lessons, which I did approximately since age 9 to 12; it was never a serious thing, however. I was living in a small town then, and we didn’t even have a proper classical training, it was more of a casual mix of modern dance and ballet. I didn’t like the classes very much, plus I didn’t enjoy them really (sadly, I felt very insecure of myself in those days). Even my family wasn’t very encouraging (sadly they believed the old doctors’ tale that “dance can do harm to the body”). So, the mix of all those causes made me eventually quit.

Why did you decide to take ballet as an adult?

It had to do with the beginning of kind of a “new life” for me. It happened when I had recently past my mid-twenties and I was reconsidering a few things about my life, making new choices and especially allowing myself to let my desires free without succumb to others’ opinions and decisions, like I had frequently done in the past. So it was kind of natural for me, I guess, to come back to my old love too (as I said before, I was very fond of dancing as a form of expression since my very first childhood). But it wasn’t easy: I knew I wanted to dance, but I didn’t know even where to start from. Italian society can be very conservative sometimes and adult ballet is not so popular here still, so I had to research quite a lot till I could finally find the right place to study and to feel myself at home.

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April 17, 2014

Survey Results Part I: Reader Demographics

I’ve just started to scratch the surface of all the wonderful responses everyone left in my reader survey–there were 49 in total. Here’s part one of the survey results, including what age my readers fall into, how everyone gets updates from ABP, and what posts everyone enjoys reading the most.

Reader Age

ABP-Reader-Ages

These numbers didn’t really surprise me. Most of those surveyed were between 18-25 and 26-35.

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