Nobody's Perfect.

Vaganova. Cecchetti. RAD. Balanchine. Now ABT, too.

No single syllabus has everything right.

Go ahead, yell and scream, and rant and rave, it's no use you need a shave! (Obscure Bugs Bunny reference).

I can poke holes in all of them.

If you slavishly adhere to a single syllabus, you doom ballet to stagnation. Balanchine didn't stick to Vaganova, he "invented" a whole new style. RAD supposedly chose the best of all the syllabi. ABT decided to create their own.

I started with Vaganova. I love a lot of the Russian training, but the forcing turnout thing is ridiculous. I have a theory about Russian training, whether it is ballet, gymnastics or hockey: If you can survive it, you'll be quite strong. If not, kiss your knees goodbye. I was lucky enough to have very strong quads when I started ballet- from being a hockey player, hmm...- and I never had a knee injury in all my 18 years as a dancer. So, no forcing turnout, and I prefer the Balanchine tendu placement, on the center line of the body. (I also studied at SAB).

I don't like the way Balanchine wanted tendu done, by lifting the arch, and tensing the toes. Here's where I can prove Neo-classical technique contradicts itself. Mr. B. liked his ladies to roll up and down en pointe. Doing his tendus does not translate into that. In fact, doing tendus "wrong", as far as he went, does far more to train you to roll up and down than his technique does. I also don't like the straight back leg for pirouettes. Too stylized. Just as you wouldn't dance "Four Temperaments" like a Petipa dancer, you couldn't dance "Giselle" like a Balanchine dancer; neither would look right. When Gelsey Kirkland wanted to dance the classics, she spent a year learning the proper technique.

(I also don't like Neo-classical port du bras- it can get very messy- or opening the hip for arabesque. That twists your spine and does nothing to stretch out your hip flexors.)

Simple movements must prepare you for the more complex stuff. The Neo-classical tendu doesn't prepare you for relevé, and neither does the RAD simple brisé prepare you for the more complex brisés voleé. The RAD brisé is a linear movement, a brush to the side. The RAD voleé is a rond de jamb. The simple one has no relation to the complex. You can do simple brisés till you're blue in the face, and they won't do you a bit of good as far as voleé goes. To learn that, you have to start from scratch.

The simple Russian brisé is a brush through first to the front, or back, from fifth position. The Russian voleé is also a brush through first. The only difference is you land on one leg (in coupé) instead of two. The simple helps the complex.

I started ballet when I was 17. I had to find the most efficient methods to train myself, to make the transition from ice hockey to classical ballet as fast as possible. 4 years and 10 months after I started, I was dancing for The Joffrey. I picked and chose what made sense and what worked. I think I did pretty well. I was not gifted, just analytical.

So, even if you are in a strict whatever-style school, you have to explore other syllabi. Some things may just not work for you. For example, I tried the RAD voleé and felt like a rag doll flailing about in a hurricane. The Russian simple brisé prepared me so well that the first time I tried voleé that way, it just worked.

Keep growing, keep ballet growing, and I'll see you in class.