I’m pleased you’ve found your way to my website, and I hope you’ll find many things here that will help you as you move forward in your dance career. To break it down a little, I’ve included some basic information below.
Who is this site for?
Teachers! You will find…
- Lots of ballet combinations!
- Post about teaching different levels of class, like Pre-Ballet and Beginning Ballet
- Information about how to make ballet combinations fun, and how to construct them
Dancers! You will find…
- Information on improving your technique
- How to think about weight and managing pain
- Find out the 10 ways to make performance butterflies work for you!
- Interviews with professional dancers
How to use Inside Ballet Technique
The navigation bar will take you to barre or center combinations, topics of interest to teachers, articles dancers will enjoy, interviews, other dance blogs that I highly recommend, and to my LinkedIn Group ‘Teachers of Classical Ballet’, where some pretty fantastic discussions are taking place by incredible dancers and teachers all over the world!
The posts on the Home page are extracts from the full posts. To see all of a combination or article, click on the heading and you’ll be able to see it in its entirety. It’s very helpful to do this with the combinations because the layout is scrunched together in the extract, whereas the full post lists the steps by counts in an orderly list fashion.
About me
My name is Tammy Rhoades. After spending most of my life in the Midwest (Indiana and Kentucky), I moved to North Carolina 13 years ago. While I was in Kentucky I danced with the Lexington Ballet and opened and managed a dancewear store called Dance Essentials, Inc. We sold the store after 10 years, but it was a neat experience. I have three really cool kids who have little to no interest in dance, but who are all musical and coordinated. 
They play piano, violin, or guitar and enjoy Tae Kwon Do, yoga, and soccer. I work a “real” job in IT at Wells Fargo Bank in Charlotte. In my free time I love yoga, crocheting blankets, reading all kinds of non-fiction as well as novels by authors like Jodi Picoult, Sophie Kinsella, and Cecelia Ahern, and seeing my kids grow up into wonderful people.
Unfortunately I have this thing called Fibromyalgia, and it pretty much stinks because it makes me very tired, stiff, and sometimes confused. While it’s not fun, I think my condition is mild compared to other folks I know who deal with it. The main reason I don’t like it is because it keeps me from teaching dance. BUT! That’s where my website comes in! I can stay involved in dance by offering combinations that I used when I was teaching. Knowing that I’m helping other dancers and teachers, maybe giving them a fresh idea or two, maybe encouraging them when they feel like giving up…this is how I can stay connected to my passion, which has always been (and will always be) ballet.
My credentials
Education: Two years as a high school student at Butler University’s early enrollment program. BS in Ballet from Indiana University and an MFA in Dance from the University of Arizona
Teaching experience (ballet, pointe, and some tap): Indiana University, University of Arizona, University of Kentucky, and Eastern Kentucky University. The School of Lexington Ballet, the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Lexington, KY (a magnet middle school), and Town and Village School of Dance in Paris, KY (to name a few).
Feel free to contact me. I’d love to get suggestions for the site and your feedback is always welcome!
My kids and me–summer of 2012 (photo by Krista Rhoades)