I am bored teaching pointe. Have been for months. years, maybe. I LOVE ballet and pointe best of all, but for me, teaching pointe is so boooooring. I try to stay upbeat, because if I'm bored looking, how exciting can it be for the students? I don't mind it when they're first learning, but once they reach the year mark, my interest starts to fade. It's like I end up like my students who always ask "Can't we DANCE instead of barre and all of this practice stuff."

Thing is. I LOVE ballet and ballet barre best of all. I don't know why it's so boring with pointe. My favorite thing to do is fix technique, so maybe the pointe dancers are more sure of their technique so there's less to fix or. . . . no. I don't know.

Sometimes I want to move them faster just to get someplace, but I stick to the curriculum. *sigh*.

LOL. I feel like I've just come out of the closes on DDN.

I have been there, sometimes. I do not think that it is unusual to get tired of teaching something.

I got like that, with ballet, that I lOVE, and gave up all of my ballet classes, my last two years of owning my studio, but for one beginner class in the last year, that I had no teacher for.

Now I am back to teaching it again, but not as much as I used to, and that works for me.

You are not alone. I get bored with the "inbetweeners". That "Can't we DANCE already?" thought goes through my head every week. Probably because we know they're on the edge ready to jump into something new and exciting.

I did the same thing, then for two years I taught very little ballet, now I am back to it and LOVE it again. It is best when I have good teaching days - when I feel like my class flowed well and my exercises built well on each other and we accomplished a goal. Sometimes my plans just don't work...today was a good day.

Change up the music. My students and I got bored a couple of weeks ago, we did ballet to all Cirque de Solie music. Another day I used my Tap Music. Now I am just playing ballets with my young ones. We talk about the ballet a little and dance to the music.

For begining pointe, sometimes I use popular music instead of ballet class music - keep them on their toes LOL!

Try teaching shorter classes. No one has the time to get bored.

I think it's because there is less challenge for you! Try scheduling a private lesson for yourself with a teacher who can truly challenge YOU! I am teaching 2-8 year olds primarily and some days all I can think is I wish I could just DANCE! Just DO something really challenging. Also repitition gets stale, try looking at your class plans and see what can I do to mix it up! Chin up-you're just going through a rough patch!

Look for some fresh ideas. It certainly does get tedious if you do the same things every class. For example, if you always stay in one place at the barre and always do every exercise facing the barre, try including some exercises that travel down the barre or doing some with one hand on the barre if they're ready for it.

The Pointe Book has some sample class exercises from schools like SAB that you could try giving. They indicate what level the exercises are intended for.

Change up the music. I had a teacher in college who always had us do our barre work for pointe/variations to Nat King Cole and Israel K. instead of to traditional ballet class music. Then when we got to the center, we'd learn a variation with "real" music.

If you are acquainted with other teachers or SOs in the area, ask if you can come observe their pointe classes and take some notes about different exercises they do that you could incorporate into your own teaching. Offer to let them do the same in the future. Dance teachers in a given area need to be a support network for each other, for reasons such as this. I had/have a teacher who does this a lot, and she always names the exercise after the person she learned it from (ie: Merril Ashley's pas de bourrees), so we know and she doesn't forget, and the originator gets credit for it.

I feel your pain....to spice things up a bit, last night I brought in a Lisa Harris Christmas album and the kids had so much fun doing rises and releves to familiar Christmas music, it made the class more lively and entertaining. For the last center exercise we did marches across the floor and the kids started to sing the song, pretending to be carolers.

They decided after class that we should form a Christmas Ballet Coral group haha. I love 12 yr olds.

I think we all get a little bored every now and then with one class or another. I find that getting ideas from another teacher, taking a workshop or sometimes just taking a break from teaching that class helps me renew my enthusiasm for it.

I change the music too, in the past I've used Nickleback, Madness, The Monkees and The Brian Setzer Orchestra.

My girls are a bit older so I don't have to watch the lyrics quite as much in class, they are all over eighteen at the moment. Some have done pointe for a few years and some have only had the year and your right they reach a sort of plateau at about a year, some of it is to do with strength and some of it is just confidence, but you do feel that you've been doing the same thing for ages