[Unit Project 1] My buddy

 

 My artifact is toe shoes. It is used when dancing ballet at lesson studio. It is made of cloth, paper and glue. The point of this shoes and sole are hard so we can stand and dance on our toe. The color is pink. Its custom-made shoes made by a company in Tokyo. The size of shoes is 22 cm and three fourths. 

 I have bought several pairs of toe shoes because I use it a lot for practice. If I use it a lot in practice, toe shoes break, and I can't stand on top of it, so I buy several pairs of toe shoes a year. I bought the shoes in this spring for stage in this summer. To buy the shoes, I measured my foot size and width and sent them to the company. The company made and sent me the shoes that fit my feet perfectly. Since I started using toe shoes, I have practiced a lot of rotations and jumps. There were a lot of difficulty, I can grow with the shoes. 

 I started ballet when I was four years old because my mother's profession is ballet teacher. I grew up watching my mother dance ballet and I wanted to be like her. I started practicing with toe shoes when I was 10 years old, previously I used ballet shoes. Ballet shoes is made of close so It's easy to dance ballet. Dancing with toe shoes at young age may injure our feet so we used ballet shoes. Therefore, we tend to use ballet shoes when we are young.

 When I started practicing with toe shoes, I could not keep my balance and could not stand well. Also, the shoes were made differently from my usual sneaker, so my feet were not accustomed to them. In addition, I injured my toenails. I was very sad because I could not dance well, and my toenail was painful. I tend to run away from things which I couldn't do. Again, I felt like running away from ballet.

  I said, "I don't know how to do it well. I don't enjoy dancing anymore."

 However, my mother who is my ballet teacher said, "If you keep practicing and never give up, you will be able to do it."

 Thanks to her encouragement, I was able to keep practicing. Finally, I can stand on my toe shoes. Furthermore, I can face things which I'm not good at. I learned the importance of continuation. I became to like dancing ballet again.

 

 There are two problems with ballet. First, it is difficult to balance it with school club activities. Many people who learn ballet take the lessons at least twice a week because we must practice a lot to be good at it. Also, we take lessons almost every day of the week, especially before a stage or competition. It often takes until late at night. It's hard to miss lessons because I don't want to bothered with my friends who dance with me. Therefore, we can't have enough time for our club activities. However, club activities are important for learning group behavior, rules, and for making memories with friends. It is desirable for students to be involved in club activities as well as ballet.

  Second, a lot of money is needed to learn ballet. Not only we have to pay for monthly lessons, but we also need money for the stage. If you have sisters who learning ballet, it costs twice as much as normal. Furthermore, we'll need money for school.  In the upper grades of school, study in school gets harder and harder, especially math and English. Next, more children go to cram school. The closer the entrance exam, the more often they go to cram school and the more money they spend. Therefore, it is difficult for them to spend enough money for ballet. It's not good that some people want to continue ballet but can't. I think that the cost of ballet should be lower than it is now. For example, the cost should be reduced for children who take ballet with their sisters or for children who take ballet more than twice a week. It's important to create an environment where they can work on both your studies and what you want to do.