How to Prepare For Pointe Shoes and Prevent Dance Injuries

Prepare, prepare, prepare, for dancing ballet in pointe shoes. Learn how to prevent dance injuries like a sprained ankle or a ballet knee injury years before you, or your child is looking for exactly the right fit in pointe shoes. Even recreational dancers who may leave ballet classes for hip hop, jazz, salsa, cheer leading or any other style of dance, benefit from learning how to do basic classical ballet technique correctly.

The basic ballet movements and ballet positions can be executed correctly by almost any dance student. Students who do not have the physical attributes of turnout, flexibility, long legs/short body, long arms and long necks, can still learn to do ballet correctly enough to advance.

In some ballet schools, teachers actually believe that a student will never be able to do certain ballet movements because they lack "X" physical attribute. Unfortunately some students absorb this negativity whether the teacher voices it or not. It's a shame.

If you feel like you are not progressing and you do not get the coaching you need in ballet class, read, read, read. There is detailed information available about ballet technique and also there is plenty of help in the area of anatomy and anatomical correctness in ballet movement. The all too common sprained ankles and knee injuries of ballet/sports/fitness can be avoided, for you.

The trick is how to get YOUR body to do THAT. If you are a few degrees too many from the ballet ideal, your teacher may not be able or may not be willing to help you. However, you can learn what you need to do to develop the correct application of for instance, a demi plie, onto a correctly postured releve with a correctly stretched arch and ankle.

If you aspire to become a performer in another dance style such as jazz or hip hop, your longevity in dance will depend on the correct use of your body. If you aspire to dance ballet in pointe shoes, you need to be sure that your time and effort and the thousands of plies, degages and battment tendus are not being practiced with errors that will lead to injury.

Your basic dance movements imitate the advanced and sometimes intricate classical choreography. Modern ballet and modern dance choreography often cannot be imitated by basic ballet movements, but you are more prepared for that if you know how to move and prevent injury.

Take advantage of the wealth of information available at The Ballet Store in books (print and downloads)and on DVDs. You can learn what you need to know to prepare to dance in pointe shoes and prevent ballet injuries.

Ballet Toe Shoes - Building Strength for Good Dance Technique

Get a detailed dancer's guide about when a dancer can get into ballet toe shoes (pointe shoes). How should your ballet teacher decide?

The best strategy to start doing strengthening exercises for the feet before starting pointe classes.

One or two classes a week will not prepare the feet, or whole body for pointe work. Three classes a week for at least a year will enhance the preparation, but even then, to achieve the optimum strength for pointe work, there are exercises a student can do every day.

The dancers I talk to seem very motivated to get into a pointe class, so I am assuming that adding an exercise regimen to their already busy day would not be a problem.

Lisa Howell, author of The Perfect Pointe Book, explains many fine points of anatomy, especially of the foot structure and muscles. She covers turnout, hip placement, and more.

Students wonder "do I have the right arches for pointe?" ...."do I have the right toes, the right ankles, enough turnout?"...."why does my teacher say I'm not ready?"

I've always advocated holding a student back, if there is the slightest reservation in my mind about putting her on pointe. A child can improve ballet technique in any area, so why risk an injury or deviated growth pattern?

Concentration and awareness is extremely important in ballet class. It is recreational for many children, but there comes a time when dedication is required to ensure safety.

This dedication has to show up before pointe work begins.

Developing good technique in ballet, means pushing your physique to the max without sacrificing
safety. Preserving the integrity of the joints and muscles may mean a restraint of advancement. Fellow students who are a little older, more physically developed and stronger, may go into pointe class sooner than others who are not.

I've had students who are "born pros". When I've had to hold them back in some way, I explain exactly why and they really get it. They are willing to build strength for good dance technique, knowing that they will catch up once the strength has been established.

This attitude reflects a positive outlook and a visionary one. Children are more than capable of this. Whether or not they have a great talent, some have an instinct for the more productive approach to their progress. They are ready to suffer (and they do!) a short term disappointment.

It's truly difficult for a teacher to work out a long range plan for every individual student, to get them to build strength for future pointe work.

If a student can find a prepared series of assessments and exercises, and can assess her own progress, the ones who want to advance in this way, will.

The good news is, you can go and get what you need for your own strategy to get intoballet toe shoes!

7 Highly Effective Tips for Fouettes To Improve Ballet Technique

Get a highly detailed home study manual to improve ballet technique, which will make all this easier.

Traveling, in a series of pirouettes,ballet fouettes, or turns a la seconde, is a problem of strength holding the postural plumb line. If the movement is not perfectly vertical, the turns will travel and flounder.

Here are 7 highly effective tips to examine your technique for fouettes and turns a la seconde:

** Standing sideways to a mirror, do a few press ups in first position. Do you have a postural plumb line? If your core muscles, your turnout, your ankles and soles of the foot are steady, also check to see that these movements are done with no strain in the shoulders and neck.

** With fingertips on the barre, do slow motion press ups and down in retire, or a la seconde. If you can do this without strain in the neck and shoulders, great. If there is strain, you need to build up strength in your core, and possibly overall. If a postural deviation from your plumb line shows up here, check for technical accuracy.

** What specific technical accuracy? The basics, always. Is your turnout strong, or have you compensated by shoving your supporting heel forward when you plie, changing your center of balance? Are you dropping your weight back in the bottom of the demi plie? A shorter demi plie is not a bad thing. What counts is being in good posture in your demi plie so that you can press with your heel/foot, into the floor, and use gravity to push up, without having to make another compensation to rise into a straight position. It's a lot more work to keep all these compensations/counter-compensations going.

** Spend several weeks if necessary, to address the above issues, until you can do rises and releves with correct posture and placement. Learn some Pilates core work, and stretch and relax all your muscles, before, during and after class.

** To check your spotting, walk on the spot, turning as far as you can toward a quarter turn, leaving your head to the front. I don't specifiy exactly how far you should turn, because this depends on the extent your head will turn without inclining. Memorize this feeling and this head position. This is just to feel the looseness of your neck muscles in leaving your head behind.

** Repeat this exercise in retire or a la seconde. Use a partner, to hold the hand of your supporting side as you turn away from the front. Again, this is to check the neck (and shoulders) relaxation as you releve, and to check your postural plumb line in the position of your turn, and your demi plie. (We haven't dealt with fouette yet).

** For fouettes, use a partner in the center, to do your demi plie with the leg extended devant, and then do a slow motion press up with the ronde de jambe and into retire, turning a little. This is to again check the postural plumb line, correct demi plie, and ease of the neck in leaving the head behind.

This whole process may take place over a whole year. You will be doing your pirouettes, fouettes and turns a la seconde all the time. But as you gain strength, and learn to see and feel those tiny compensations you have been doing, you will build excellent work habits for these spectacular feats.

Ballet is much harder to do incorrectly. If your early training wasn't the best, you can back-peddle like this to improve ballet technique in your advanced levels.

For any overworked muscles use an ice pack at least twice a day. A homeopathic cream called Traumeel is wonderful for soft tissue repair. Apply after icing.

So save yourself time and over-exertion with a dancer's guide to improve ballet technique.