I am always amazed by gifts such as good arch,open legs, X legs,natural endehors etc on non dancers.As many people in this site are actually non-dancers i'd like to ask you some questions...have you ever verifyed if you have natural gifts for ballet?have you ever tried to point your feet and see if your arch would be good if you were dancers,or tried to do a split and see if you have it or not?

i would be curious to know if i could be talented in fields that i like but don't practise as a professionist.For example,i liked drawing very much when i was a child and when younger i gave an art critic some drawings to know what he thought about them and discovered that i could have become a very good cartoon maker...the same for singing...they told me i had a tenor voice....not that i use such "gifts" but i am curious enough to ask.

Getting back to ballet,i've seen many non dancers who had incredible gifts.The arch is a common example.Maybe they have difficulties to point the foot first,but when they do you discover very good arches on people who have never danced at all.It always surprises me.

What about you?did you discover to have a gift?and which one?

waiting for your answers.

I think this question is for the younger side of the membership. I'm way too old to start on anything athletic... my bod is way past the flexibility and strength required. But I have thought about what moves people into "physical" careers.. like dance and athletics as opposed to the non physical ones... like writing and architecture, or social work...

I suspect I might have been able to take another career path, but I am content with where I have traveled and even more so that I can enjoy the hard work of the talented performers... especially in ballet which for me is the synthesis of sculpture , architecture, literature, music and acting. Did I leave something out? I just came to the realization too late in life. My view of ballet was that it was a very narrowly focused pursuit about "dance". Boy was I wrong. Youth wasted on the young???

I wonder what attracts youngsters to ballet aside from the joy of movement. Ballet seems to be much more complex and nuanced than most young minds can comprehend. The older I get, the more I realize how little I know about everything. I'm going to take my 11 year old twin nieces to the ballet and see what they think.

When I was about your age, a dancer told me I had a perfect dancer's foot and genius thumbs. While undoubtedly true, I have nevertheless never pursued ballet classes even when I was young enough, but have always been a good yogi in a rather arcane sense mostly, but also could do all the things you need to be double-jointed for even in the more traditional yogas.

Of course, people are often multi-talented, and this can be very inconvenient for concentration, of course. I once read a quote by Garbo, saying 'I never thought to be an actor. I would have been good at a number of things.'

Ah you see....you had a good arch.Do you still have it?I think this thing lasts for all life.I was not talking about the talents one has in his life in particular,i was more concerned about physical gifts for ballet non-dancers have.I was also wondering if somebody who loves ballet but doesn't practice it as professionist,ever has the will to try to repeat the movements he has seen...i don't know,maybe point his feet at home,try a pirouette or try and raise a leg....and doing so,he/she can discover to have a physical gift or attitude that would be good in ballet.It's that i could never imagine me still,if a music is playing.I am just oblidged to move and i couldn't imagine me after a ballet,not trying steps i've seen....i'm trying to imagine what is the reaction a non-dancer has after watching a performance....if i weren't a dancer i would maybe go home and act like a dancer and try some steps...just to laugh,but wonder if it's common or absurde among ballettomanes...:-)

Interesting way to express it, I have found that I am energized by an evening at the ballet, and start walking with echoes and ghosts of what I've just seen for awhile, although I try to tone this down so as not to look like a bumpkin walking across Lincoln Center Plaza...but no attempts to do pirouettes and other very specific things, because there's no satisfaction in knowing how poor they would be. It's more of an attitude that one gets....You can just think about ballet and the music that accompanies with and have this inform some of your movements--mostly about bringing inner space alive: This is the way non-dancers might think of ballet for themselves if they're happy with the bodies they have. If not, then they might as well go ahead and try the pirouettes or demonstrate one of the cygnets, as a too-buxom friend (at least for a cygnet) did for me and a few others in a kitchen once...

Which joy can be extremely powerful. Don't underestimate it. Moving to music is a great pleasure. Moving well to music is ecstasy.

And don't underestimate the sensitivity of people who have not yet acquired the language skills -- or even analytical skills -- to describe everything they are capable of perceiving. I don't think emotional nuance is beyond young children's ability to apprehend. But I'm not sure it's what attracts a desire to do ballet.