The Right Pointe Shoe and 'Bad' Ballet Feet

It is pretty awful that when I search Google and "bad ballet feet" comes up with over a million sites and "the right ballet feet" or "flexible ballet feet" comes up with between eight and two results. It is a cultural bias that persists in the world of ballet, yet many many famous ballerinas did not have 'the right ballet feet', Margot Fonteyn, a legend, for one. But, if you have bad ballet feet, or think you do, let's talk about the right pointe shoe.

A less flexible ankle joint, requires a pliable pointe shoe usually with a lower vamp, unless the toes are long.

There are so many shapes and styles of pointe shoes. You must take time to try many on, and be fussy. Even if one type feels good, try on all that are in the category of "more pliable".

If a shoe feels good (none of them really feel GOOD), try on a half size shorter/longer/wider/narrower, just to be sure.

Do a demi plie in each one, making sure that your toes are not completely squished into the box, with pain. You need some "squish" room, because the feet spread when you plie.

Be sure to take your toe protectors to try shoes on. Take tights to put on your feet. With one foot (standing on flat with the other) press up onto a pointe position in a try-on shoe. See if your foot places onto the platform easily, and feels the whole shoe, except for the middle of the sole, or shank, which will not bend yet.

Use something for a barre and rise up onto pointe with both feet. Make sure you can rise onto the platform completely.

The right feet for pointe shoes, are feet that have been wisely prepared for pointe. Special foot exercises can be done for months before a student is ready for pointe classes.

As a matter of fact, there are NO BAD FEET IN BALLET.

Except maybe those feet that have had no preparation with special training, for strength and flexibility. Get the right exercises and plenty of practice for your ballet feet with The Perfect Pointe Book, and you'll be ready for the right pointe shoe.

Stretching After Exercise For the Long Leg, the Straight Leg

You are a ballet student, in contemporary dance classes, or cheer leading, and you cannot get the straight leg look. You know about stretching after exercise, and you want the long leg, straight leg look. You have learned all the good stretching exercises, yet your knees still look bent.

The following tips will help you understand whether you have a structural problem or simply need to know more effective ways to release muscle tension.

The Essentrics Flexibility For Athletes DVD teaches fitness with stretching exercises.

Relaxing the piriformis muscle (your turnout muscle) with a muscle roller stick increases your turnout and enhances relaxation of the hamstrings.

Kneading down the back of the leg while sitting on the floor, roll around to get at the tense spots on both the inside and outside of the hamstrings.

Rolling to the outside extreme, you can get into the side of the quads, muscles that will pull on the knee joint when holding chronic tension.

You can massage the lower thigh muscles above the knee, and at the sides of the knees. Don't get into the back of the knee area. It is a very delicate muscle that can be worked on by a chiropractor, physiotherapist or massage therapist.

Learning how to release tension in the feet and calves will contribute to your overall muscle relaxation as well.

If a professional therapist tells you that you have tight ligaments around your knees, please do not plan to go home and stretch your ligaments. They are not elastic like muscles.

Take careful note of the professional advice you get. Ballet dancers especially are known for trying drastic and forceful measures to get a straight leg. Please don't!

Keep stretching after exercise and be patient with your muscles. Learn all the expertly taught and professional good stretching exercises with Essentrics Flexibility For Athletes.

Dance Classes For Boys

Because of our current social biases, many boys start dancing later than they would have liked. They know their parents might have a problem with them practicing ballet dancing positions, even if it is for technical support in their hip hop dance steps for beginners. Or jazz, contemporary dance classes, ballroom, and other dance styles.

If you never intend to dance ballet (and, if you do), there are many technical classical ballet positions and technique factors that you would benefit knowing and mastering. For instance, understanding correct ballet posture will help prevent lower back pain injury.

Knowing how to find your real degree of turnout is a bonus. Then, learning how to hold the turnout that you have, will help you prevent many dance injuries.

For example if you're still learning hip hop dance steps for beginners, and have no ballet classes, read up on turn out. Understanding and increasing your turnout will help you move fluidly, and prevent common knee injuries.

If you are older and in dance classes for adults, the same holds true. Any part of classical ballet technique is worth understanding, if you intend to dance for a while.

Most dance studios would love to offer dance classes for boys. Especially in tap dancing schools and beginning hip hop classes, teachers would be thrilled to see line ups to register for their dance classes. And, some do.

And many do not. This is understandable. The cost effect of having a dance class for 4-6 boys can be prohibitive.

Boys who want to be in a dance class have the worst and the best - social phobias, and ironically, what seems to the girls in the dance world, red carpet treatment for scholarships and advancement.

Sometimes it is the simplest of things that determines whether you dance, or for how long. To go from dance classes to a dance company requires dedication. And technical know-how. Learn the real elements of ballet turnout, whatever you form of dance you study, with the book Tune Up Your Turnout.

Higher Leg Extensions In Dance and Ballet

I've had many questions this week about higher leg extensions - so I decided to list some articles discussing the topic:

Get Higher Developpes

Build Strength For Long and Lean Ballet Muscles

The Ultimate Ballet Line - Arabesque

You'll understand that the quads do lift the legs to the front and side, and the hamstrings lift the legs to the back (a gross simplification). And you'll understand how to strengthen the psoas muscle to lift the legs above ninety degrees, and gradually you'll stop straining the quads.

Weight Loss Overview - Keeping A Perspective

If you want to lose a little weight, I recommend that you cut back on all the empty carbs you may be eating. Bread, pastas, crackers, buns, cereals and potatoes. However, you must not go hungry, and you must eat enough proteins, vegetables, salads, fruits, and healthy fats.

You don't want to lose any muscle mass, or visceral fat - the fat that protects your organs. Some dancers weigh too little - oh yes.

Here are some tips to keep this all in a healthy perspective:

How To Lose Some Weight and Keep It Off this article has a link to protein calculator;

What Ballet Dancers Need To Understand About Weight Loss and Calories

What Is Your Protein Requirement

Learning To Develop Lean Muscles

Healthy Fats For Ballet Dancers

A Quote That Deserves Its Own Post re Ballet Turnout

From page 279 of Gretchen Ward Warren's book "The Art of Teaching Ballet":

"Turn-out is something a dancer does, not necessarily something he has." - Anne Woolliams

Haven't many of us said it ourselves, perhaps in a different way.....

Understanding and being able to hold the turnout that you have, is more important than the turnout that you have!

A Word of Encouragement For Late Ballet Starters

source

I get many queries from young dancers as to what are their chances for becoming professional. This is a general answer to dancers whom I cannot see -

I can't see you dance and give an opinion as to whether you could make the professional grade or not, but I will try to help you see it for yourself.

Update: I remembered this movie (not new) but relevant. It is described as:

"Divertissement is the story of five amateur dancers who began the study of classical ballet later in life and how their lives were transformed through dance. Each of these women are non-professional dancers with lives, careers and families outside the studio, yet each is drawn by the desire to fulfill something long set aside: the dream of dance. Coming from all walks of life, they confront obstacles of ageism, physical and self-esteem issues and emotional challenges as they embark on their journey. How the persevere and how their lives change is as touching as it is empowering."




Here are some professionally trained 14-17 yr old dance students, who will be able to get a job in a world class ballet company:

This play list includes other schools as well. Compare the ability and technique to the students at your school/company and you will see how your abilities match.

Bear in mind that these students have had 6-10 classes a week with world class teachers since they were 9-10 yrs old - so don't get self-critical! (I know, dancers specialize in that!).

While it may not be possible for you to train well enough to get into the top world ballet companies, perhaps you would qualify for a smaller/regional company. Look at as many as you can on line.

Consider a ballet summer intensive next year at a major school, to see if you can work day after day in a professional training schedule.

Get a dance manual like The Perfect Pointe Book (you can CLICK HERE to get your copy) so you can improve faster. It focuses on the vital basic technical details of classical ballet with lots and lots of foot exercises and strength tests.

Here is where you can learn to get really flexible as an adult ballet beginner.

Those three references above can keep you busy for a year! Professional dancers do those exercises ongoing, at whatever level they need.

Look into BFA programs where you will train and perform through your college years, and be able to go on to dance history, criticism or teaching when you can no longer perform.  

 Pointe magazine publishes a list of colleges that offer dance programs.

Or, you could enter a B.Sc. program in dance that will proceed to dance medicine/physical therapy as a specialty for after you stop dancing. In the meantime, you will be dancing!

If you cannot have the career that a dancer with 8-10 years of intense training can have, there is much to do in the world of ballet!

Since you are so drawn to ballet, you must believe that you have a special gift to offer the dance world, in one way or another.

Keep your personal vision alert and wide, and your adventures in dance may be amazing!

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

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