January 7, 2013

Top Dance Blog Contest 2013: Recreational Dancer

topdanceblog_2013Hello Readers! Every year the fantastic website Dance Advantage holds a contest to try and find the best Dance Blogs on the web. I’ll be entering in the category of “Recreational Dancer” since this blog focuses on profiling beginner ballerinas, my own experience, as well as tips for adult ballet dancers.

The Top 20 blogs with the most comments make it into the finals. Comment on THIS post to show your support for the blog. You can share why you read your blog, why you think it’s special, share your favorite posts or simply state “I love the Adult Ballerina Project.”

Thank you for your support!

The link to the contest can be found here, if you’re interested.

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January 7, 2013

Beginner Ballet Tips: Strengthening Ankles

Français : Pied sur la pointe

Ankle strength plays a huge role in ballet, especially pointe. I’ve struggled a lot with my ankles so far, having to take some time off because of bad cases of tendonitis. However, I’ve been working to improve them through various exercises. Regardless of whether you’ve had ankle injuries in the past, these ankle strengthening exercises are useful to get ready for pointe work as well as ballet in general.

Prehab: Strengthen Your Ankles: While I was told to stay off my ankles in ballet, several of the different doctors that I saw recommended the last exercise in this article, writing with your feet. I find it’s super easy to fit this one into your routine because you can do it while watching TV or while lying in bed.

12 Ways to Build Ankle Strength:  This article, from Active.com lists a wide variety of ways to strengthen ankles, including Theraband exercises which are my favorite. Again, some of these, such as the balancing ones can be done pretty much at anytime.

What other exercises have you come across to strengthen your ankles?

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December 31, 2012

A Look Back at 2012: My Favorite Posts

cropped-img_0589.jpgWhen I started this blog back in September, I didn’t expect to fall in love with ballet like I have now, attending four classes a week. Although it’s been a struggle (between two ankles injuries and a number of sicknesses), I’m looking forward to a new year where I won’t be so bogged down by class work and can attend even more ballet classes.

Since it’s the end of 2012, I figured I’d share some of my favorite posts from this blog, especially if you haven’t been reading from the start.

Why Should You Take Ballet Classes as An Adult? One of the very first posts I wrote for this blog, listing a lot of reasons why you should do ballet (a lot of them from readers). I’d love for this post to keep growing, so if you’ve got suggestions, add them.

Ballerina Profile: Legal Ballerina Legal Ballerina was the first person to be interviewed for the site, and she’s been an awesome supporter of my blog, and she’s got an awesome blog as well you should definitely check out.

30 Day Stretch Challenge Although an injury got in my way, I still hope to continue to work on my splits using the 30 Day Stretch Challenge. Hoping to come up with more ideas to make in better in 2013.

Boyfriend Does Ballet I dragged my boyfriend to ballet at Koresh, and he helped write a post about it. I’m hoping to drag him to more classes in 2013.

What Was it Like to get Your First Pair of Pointe Shoes I love this post for how helpful everyone was in the comments. If you’re getting pointe shoes soon, read them.

Guest Post: Profile of Susan Attfield from Pretoria, South Africa Susan started her own ballet studio (although she is not instructor herself) in South Africa. She’s amazing.

Guest Post: Advice for Men: Scott offers some great advice for men in the adult beginner ballet world.

Q & A with Julia and Aaron, the creators of Barre: A Real Food Bar. Julia and Aaron took some time out a few weeks ago to answer some questions for ABP.

What are some of your favorite posts YOU’VE written this past year?

 

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December 30, 2012

2012 in review: Thank-you to everyone whose been reading!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

I’ll have a post up tomorrow with some of my favorite posts from this year.

 

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December 26, 2012

Legwarmers Part 2: Making Your Own

legwarmers

Like some of the other adult ballerinas I know, I both crochet and knit. I’ve crocheted myself a few pairs of failed legwarmers. They always end up too short and slip like crazy if I actually try to wear them with ballet. I’m forever jealous of these wonderful looking legwarmers made by Knit Two, Pointe Two, Bake Two Together. Her pattern is here, and I’m tempted to break out my knitting needles to make them.

However, I’ve been searching for good patterns to crochet (I’m better at crocheting than I am at knitting) and I stumbled upon these, the Draft Dodger Legwarmers. Besides having a pun-y name, The cuffs at the top and the bottom made me think, even though these don’t contain elastic, they might not slip. I’m still working on them (they’re really long–if you’re considering making them I’d think about cutting back on how many stitches you start out with), but I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Have you made your own legwarmers? How’d they turn out?

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