A Pointe Shoe Exercise - Tips For Pointe Beginners

 Pointe Beginners

Pointe shoe beginners need more than one pointe shoe exercise - naturally. But here is one to get you started, if your goal is to dance in pointe shoes.

The following describes a pointe shoes exercise, for the pointe shoe beginners and the hopeful. It focuses on training the feet to point, extending the ankle joint as far as possible, to force up the instep into its maximum arch.

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Don't Curl Your Toes!

However, the toes, next for the completion of the movement, can point, and stay long and strong, or curl over. This is what you want to avoid. The toes can follow the curve of the arch, but not curl in their own joints.

This should be the way you have always pointed your toes in soft leather ballet shoes.

Many dance students try to feel more arch by curling their toes over, but this does not help ankle flexibility. It puts the toes into a position, that inside pointe shoes, will create blisters. The top of the joints press into the stiff box of the toe shoe.

Ouch.

If you are not sure how precisely you have been pointing your toes in soft shoes, just practice the following exercise:

• Sit on the floor, legs straight in front of you

• Point the foot, extending the arch/instep as far as it will go. But keep the toes flexed.

• Next, begin to point the toes. When they are in a long position, following the curve of the foot, but not curling over in your toe joints, STOP.

• Hold and memorize this position. You may have been doing this all along, from your very first ballet class. If not, you can correct and re-train this important ballet position right now.

• Then flex the toes back up, and then flex the whole foot. Push through the heels and get a nice calf stretch.

• Repeat twenty times.

If your feet or ankles cramp, stop and rotate the ankles in circles to loosen the muscles back up. If the sole of the foot cramps, massage it until the tension releases, and then start the exercise again.

You can avoid dance injuries, blisters, and pain, if you know how to use your feet properly in ballet toe shoes.

If you are an adult ballet beginner, this works for you too. Visit us to get the best in a group of routines that give you much more than a pointe shoe exercise.

I like this video because the teacher stresses long toes, not curled, and also shows the best position of the leg for getting the most turnout activated.

D. Buxton is a writing partner with Vone Deporter, of The Sedona Series, about a surfer girl in pointe shoes.

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A Pointe Shoe Exercise For Perfect Ballet Positions

Would you like to do perfect ballet positions? While true perfectionism is an illusion, learning one pointe shoe exercise properly will take you far.

The following foot strengthening routine is one example from The Perfect Pointe Book.  

here is a great way to practice press ups, or rises.

As long as you understand the form and the movement, you will do it right. Sitting in a chair, you do not have your body weight on your foot.

Repeating the ballet movements exactly as you will do them in pointe shoes, you prepare your brain and your feet to do these actions precisely, safely, and in a way that you will get stronger and prevent dance injuries.

Start sitting straight in a chair with your feet flat on the floor, resting evenly on the ball of the foot, the heel, and the little toe joint.

In other words, no rolling ankles or pronation, or leaning to the outside of the foot.

The purpose of this exercise is to train your foot to perform it perfectly, in a way that develops strength, and prevents over-use of the shin and calf muscles. (which can lead to painful shin splints or Achilles Tendon strain).

Your arch muscles should be "on", meaning ready to move, but not clenched.

One foot at a time:

• peel the foot slowly off the floor 

• work and control the muscles and keep the foot/ankle angle in a straight line

• no leaning to the inner side of the foot, or the outer.

• lift the foot off the floor, as though you were completing a jump or releve 

• stretch the toes long, do not curl them. (This is the top of a jump, or where your toes will be positioned in pointe shoes.)

• touch the tips of the toes to the floor.

• press the heel back down, with resistance through the sole-of-the-foot muscles 

Resume your starting position and repeat twenty times. Simple yet very effective!

This is one in a series, a wonderful pointe shoe exercise.

The Perfect Pointe Book is a complete ballet ebook showing you how to make you stronger in perfect ballet positions.

Pointe Ballet Shoes, Sizing and Your Foot Type

I often read that pointe ballet shoes can be best fitted to 2-3 sizes smaller than your street shoes. The trouble is, that completely ignores the issues of pointe shoe sizing and your foot type.

Pointe shoes, or ballet toe shoes, come in many different shapes and sizes, and street shoes do not.

If you are a pointe ballet beginner and are ready to go and buy ballet shoes, know your foot type before you walk into the ballet store.

Why? Because there are hundreds of pointe shoes you could try on!

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Here are some ballet tips that will help.

If you have a "Greek" or "Morton's" foot type, your second toe is longer than your big toe.

This means you must have the strength to keep the second toe long in the pointe shoe.

Using a toe protector such as a gel sleeve on the toe is a good idea, at least until you have developed lots of strength in your toe shoes.

A "V" shape of the vamp, or the cloth covering the foot over the metatarsals, may be a more flattering and comfortable style of shoe.

Try on a few vamp/box shapes and see what feels best.

The "Egyptian" foot is a challenging shape to fit. The big toe is longer with the other toes diminishing in length steeply.

Often the little toe is opposite the ball of the foot. I

In most pointe shoes, this means that it is not even in the box.

This little toe may need taping up as it will be rubbing against the wing, or the stiff outside of the shoe, instead of being tucked securely in the box with the other toes.

Make sure that as you press up through demi pointe, that the big toe joint is not bumping into a too deep box edge, but can bend efficiently.

The "Giselle/Peasant" foot has three or more toes that are the same length. Often toes on such a foot are short, and medium in width.

Some students do not think this foot type is very elegant, yet it is an ideal foot for pointe ballet.

Short to medium vamps are good. This can be a strong foot in toe shoes, and will likely suffer less injuries than other foot types.

The Compressible foot is one which appears quite wide when the dancer is standing. Yet this foot has little muscle structure between its bones, and will easily compress into a narrower shoe than a fitter in the ballet wear store might pick, after seeing your feet.

So always try on MANY pairs of shoes. Do not rush a fitting, or allow anyone else to rush you.

Once you find a shoe that feels fairly good, try half a size different each way - shorter, longer, narrower, and wider, just to be sure.

Point shoe sizing charts are a guide, but only a guide.

After you buy your ballet toe shoes, take them to the dance studio and let your teacher check the fit before you sew ribbons on them.

This way you can be sure that you have the best fit, and you can return the shoes if you don't.

Here is a video walking you through a pointe shoe fitting.

The woman in the video is Lisa Howell, author of the Perfect Pointe Book.

Get your own copy of The Perfect Pointe Book for ballet terms, and ballet barre exercises.

 You will get strong enough to start dancing in pointe ballet shoes.

D. Buxton is a writing partner with Vone Deporter, of The Sedona Series, about a surfer girl in pointe shoes.

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