I hope I didn't offend you Fionne. The purpose of my post was to talk about some of the positive aspects that I felt were being overlooked in the thread as a whole. I wrote it in the way that I did to point out that it is child's perspective and growth that this is all about. One of the things I love about Irish dancing is that all types of children, which come in many different shapes and sizes, can enjoy dancing. That is a feature that is not true for some other dance styles, such as ballet. Because I have little girls in this overly body concious world, this is important to me.

Claire