For those who cringe at every new user who is teaching himself the sword...

[arnisador]

On Their Toes and Asking for Trouble,
Self-Taught Ballerinas Go Online

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]YouTube Peer Review Horrifies Dance Schools;
En Pointe Accidents Waiting to Happen[/FONT]

Since Louis XIV established the Royal Academy of Dance in 1661, formal ballet has never been a self-taught art. Aspiring dancers have been trained under the supervision of professionals. And ever since the pointe shoe was invented in the early 1800s, only girls who had spent three years or so taking lessons ever got permission from their ballet teachers to buy toe shoes.


But now Web videos are shaking loose the rigid hierarchy of the ballet world. Aspiring ballerinas are recording videos of themselves dancing and posting the results for people to look at and critique on the Internet.


Young hopefuls put video cameras on their kitchen or bathroom floor, then do simple exercises in pointe shoes. The videos, which generally aren't more than a minute long, attract viewer chat pointing out mistakes and offering tips.
[...]
The ballet establishment isn't pleased. "To be honest, I was horrified by what I saw," says Rachel Moore, executive director of American Ballet Theatre, in New York, one of the pillars of the American ballet world. Dance professionals say these young dancers are setting themselves up for twisted ankles, broken bones and other injuries.


"If you look at those videos, there is no potential -- except to get hurt," says Kay Mazzo, co-chairman of faculty at the School of American Ballet, the official training academy of the New York City Ballet. "Ballet takes 10 years of training before you can do anything....You don't learn that by watching YouTube."


Dancing in pointe shoes can indeed be a danger for children who aren't trained to get up on their toes without hurting themselves. Possible injuries include stress fractures, sprained ankles, tendinitis, damage to the growth plates in the feet, shinsplints and bunions. Shoes that don't fit properly can permanently deform young feet.


Young dancers usually don't start putting on toe shoes until the age of 11 or 12. And even when children are ready for toe shoes, they often suffer through lessons with bloody, blistered toes.

When I read this in the WSJ this morning, all I could think of was self-taught martial artists. Especially for those training with partners or weapons, there's so much room for injury.

 

[Tez3]

As I watched the videos all I could think was OMG!

It's part of the whole "I don't want to spend time learning, I want it NOW" thing isn't it! I've seen it with some MA beginners, they want to fight now not put time into learning properly, everything has to be instant. Makes me mad and sad in equal degrees.

 

[MA-Caver]

Yep, same with caving... we even have an annual publication that lists and describes various accidents involving people who explore caves and many of them are just like those who practice MA without formal training or sword arts without training and ballet or other things without training.
Self-taught? Not always a good idea.