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Dancers, we've all been there: you never have enough bobby pins to put your hair up, yet somehow you find these suckers EVERYWHERE around the house. The hair net with too many holes, the fact that you can never make your hair look good after you take it OUT of the bun, and why are there never enough hair ties? I just bought a pack of 20. Okay, believe it or not, I had so much stuff to rant about that this video could have gone on for 20 minutes. I cut it down and I hope you enjoy it. Sometimes, it just feels good to vent, to kvech, and to RANT. So, I give you my first official "Ballerina Rant" - THE BUN.

It felt so good to do big jumps again. If you've been following my new dance vlog updates, you know that I pulled my left MCL ligament a few weeks back, and have been on the slow road to recovery - thank god I don't need surgery. I'm doing grand allegro and fouettes again, though not as many or as much as I'd like YET, but there is continued progress. Also, my head and neck alignment continues to improve as I work in Pilates, the Eric Franklin method, and additional meditation/mindfulness techniques. If you are interested in Eric Franklin's book "Conditioning For Dance", check it out on Amazon. I am so grateful to each and every one of you for your encouraging comments and support - it means the world to me. We are a tribe, and we must continue to inspire one another to grow, to soar, and to live our dreams.

I am thrilled to be collaborating with @DanceOnNetwork again for this video tribute to my mom who passed away suddenly last fall. The only video footage I have of her is a brief clip of her playing piano with me just months before her passing. My mom has always been my biggest fan, and she believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself.

A taste of backstage at the performance of Coppelia - shooting documentary footage of my ballet mentor Alexandra Zaharias - but she isn't in these YouTube Capture clips - she was too busy working - at 85 years old!!. Miss A. continues to inspire me and continues to produce professional-level full-length ballets.

Every ballerina has a toe-shoe kit (actually, we call them pointe shoes, but "Top Ten Toe-Shoes" has a nicer ring to it, don't you think?) This kit is developed over years of trial and error, and it is always a work in progress, as dancers make new discoveries, learn tips and tricks from their peers, and continue to grow in their pointe technique.