Chances of becoming a dancer?

Ballet is a great hobby for anyone at any age! I have known people well into their 30's doing ballet. Now professional... not so much. Girls who have been training ballet since they were little and dancing a minimum of 18 hours a week. So even girls who have been training to become a professional their whole lives have very slim chances. Which makes your chance even slimmer and since your not flexible and not in good shape that makes your chances even slimmer. The chances would be less the one and a million. If you have the drive, desire, and tons of talent from the start then you could be that one. I know most people will say go for it! Never give up! Those words are wise and true but I just want you to know that the chances are VERY slim.

Now since we covered the chances of you become a professional now we can get onto you starting classes. You will need to start taking classes immediately. Stretching at home is a must as well as eating healthy and doing yoga and Pilate's on the side. You need to start taking a minimum of three ballet classes a week... and that's just to start you off. Since you are interested in other types of dance such as hip hop you will want to take a class of that as well. Focus on ballet even if you don't intend to become a ballerina. Ballet is the core for every type of dance, actually in most studios in order to take modern you would have to take ballet. Once you start gaining the strength and flexibility add onto your hours of dancing. If you want to peruse dance then you will have to devote your life to it. Especially at your age. Once you are completely ready to start training long hours your hours should be a MINIMUM of...

Ballet ~ 13 hours a week

Hip Hop ~ 2 hours a week

Modern ~ 2 hours a week

That is bare minimum. You should be taking more but whatever you do don't rush into it to much. Sabra in SYTYCD was very athletic and did gymnastics. As MintChips said she really wasn't a dancer.

MintChips answer is very helpful and I would defiantly go by what she said. It may be tough to take in reality but if you believe you can do it then that is all that really matters. MintChip you received my thumbs up of course. Another great answer.

Good luck in dance and I hope this helped. Sorry if it sounded mean.

For a hobby, recreational dance is for anyone of any age. Find an adult beginner ballet class or other type of class and start enjoying ballet.

Yes, Sabra won SYTYCD, but Sabra does not get work as a dancer because she really isn't a dancer but is a gymnast. She does dance competitions as a judge and holds master classes but doesn't get hired to dance because she has no real dance technique. All she has is flexibility and strength. Those things are important but are not the be-all and end -all of dance. Danny Tidwell who didn't win but danced with American Ballet Theater as well as many world renown contemporary dance companies both before and after being on that show, currently has a fabulous dance career. He was ballet academy trained since he was small.

19 is too way old for a career in the ballet even for a male and most likely too old for other dance as well. Perhaps not ballroom dancing. It takes 10 years to "make a leg" in dance. That means taking at least 15 hours of technique classes a week and double that in the summer months. You would be also hard pressed to get anyone of professional caliber to train someone your age. You would also need the body, facility and musicality that is required for a dance career. Only 10% of the best trained dancers get work and only 10% of them can make a living at it. There are dancers trained at the School fo American Ballet who dorm at the school so they can take 20-30 hours of classes a week, are either home schooled or take their academics as arranged by their academy so they can graduate high school early to dance in the ballet at age 16 when they apprentice if they are lucky to be chosen. Many of these dancers don't make the professional ranks. All of these dancers were screened for the body, facility and musicality in order to be able to study at that school.

That being said, there is no reason why you cannot reach your personal best. Not many people would be looking to hire a 29 year old dancer. That is the age that many dancers think about retiring.

Find yourself an adult beginner ballet class. That is the best way to build technique for almost every type of dancing. Dance for the joy of dance and dance can always be part of your life. How good you get will depend on your natural facility for dance as well as your training and the amount of training you get along with how hard you work in class. That is the reality of it.

iwould be amazing to start dancing again though i have to warn you it will be hard at first and you wont be amazing for the first month or two. now becoming proffesional all depends on how hard you work at it and how good you are...you definatly wont become proffesional in a couple years that would be way too miraculous. though in 3-5 years still depending on the people teachin you and how good you are you may be able toget an agent that will help you be like the dancers on tv or in disney world or whatever....it all kind of depends on what your leaning towards by saying proffesional im not exactly sre what you mean but i know it wont be easy.

Definitely go for it! It's never too late to start. Maybe a professional career in ballet is out of it (by 19 training has to for sure be complete, and most ballerinas will be starting some company by then as a means of a professional career), but modern is generally less specific in terms of age and training requirements. So you can definitely enroll in some sort of dance school to get started (most studios/places have great programs for older dancers).

It's never too late to take up dance as a hobby. I'm 34 now and have been doing hip hop and jazz for 4 years and it's my second of ballet and lyrical. Look for etiher a teen or adult beginner class in whatever style you want to take first and sign up. I think that you will be able to do it without worry. Flexibility can still be gained and will increase over time.

Here are some stretches to help you work on your splits/flexibility.

I do not suggest trying to do an over-split until you can do the splits. That would be like doing an aerial before you learned to do a cartwheel.

For the straddle--lay on your back with your butt against the wall. Extend your legs up the wall and then let the fall into the straddle stretch, gravity will help pull your legs down. Hold as long as you can. Repeat a few times. Also when you are doing your normal stretching in the straddle position, right before you are done stretching, lean forward into the middle and then try to pull through the stretch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MhiIL6Aojo&playnex... (watch around the 15 sec mark for what I’m referring to)

Another one for the straddle is to sit on your butt facing the wall and try to get as close as you can to the wall and still be in the straddle position.

For the other splits--lay on your back, bring a leg into your chest, hold a few seconds, then extend it. Grab your leg and try to pull it as close to you as you can and hold it, repeat a couple of times bending the knee and extending it. On the last extend, while holding your leg, roll over into the splits. Repeat on your other leg.

These 2 will need another person to help you---stand against a wall, lift your leg, have your friend lift it as high as they can. And hold it as long as you can. Both knees should be straight. The goal is to touch the wall with your foot. Repeat with your other leg.

Next lay on your back on the ground and have your friend push your extended leg towards the ground. Same idea as the stretch above, but it works the muscles in a slightly different way since you are in a different position.

One last stretch which will help your splits (and your arabesque penchee). You will need to find a blank spot on a wall and grab a chair. Now facing away from the wall and holding onto the chair for support, take a leg and slide it up the wall like you are going into splits. Hold it for as long as possible then switch legs. Try to keep your legs straight. As you work the stretch move the chair closer to the wall until you are touching the wall in a vertical split.

One note—you can also try to do some of the two person stretches solo, by moving into a doorway and working one leg up the frame or down the frame depending on what you are trying to stretch. I just tried a few doorway stretches for the first time and I was able to put my foot against the door frame and got a completely vertical split in the needle position. This link is so you can see what position I’m talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8yJ4NeuT4k

A new one we did last night that helped me was to stand up and bend over like you were doing a standing pike stretch, then choose a leg and swing it up vertically as far as you can 7 times and on the eighth time hold the leg as high as you can (you will be in the needle or 6 o’clock position at this point) and then when you let the leg down try to get into the splits. Then repeat with the other leg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3EgYYiGTIo (video of kicks that help stretch your legs)

As long as you don’t rush and push yourself too fast, you can really make progress fast. Make sure that you really work both sides as evenly as you can. Don’t lose faith, I’m in my 30s and only got my left splits a few months ago and they could still be cleaner, it just takes time and you can do it.

I would go for it, you only live once.