Each Ballet Barre Exercise Gets You Closer to Dancing in Pointe Shoes

In the first couple of years dancing ballet, every little girl dreams of dancing in pointe shoes. Those students who have a good ability to concentrate have a head start at getting into pointe shoes with a better ballet technique. The better the foot muscles are trained, the better the whole leg functions. And the better your first pair of pointe shoes will feel.

Whether a ballet student is six years old, or is an adult ballet beginner between twenty and sixty years old, the first ballet lessons are extremely important.

Beginning ballet is very simple, as far as barre exercises go. The need for understanding and accuracy of ballet positions and ballet movements cannot be stated enough.

A teacher who believes she must make a class fancy and entertaining in some way, or too complicated, in order to challenge students or make them feel they're really doing something, is sacrificing any real achievement in later intermediate or advanced classes.

Varying the combinations in early ballet exercises, and introducing different musical rhythms keeps class interesting and challenging. If students understand what they are trying to do, they are mentally busy with the simplest of barre exercises.

If young or adult beginner ballet students understand correct posture, correct turnout and correct weight placement on their feet, not a lot will go wrong as they progress through their ballet class.

Correct battments tendus with less than half a dozen exercises for the foot muscles will prepare feet for dancing ballet in pointe shoes.

Any ballet dancer ten years old or older can investigate how ballet is somewhat anatomically incorrect and solve the mysteries of why "I just can't do it!". Taking advantage of the available analysis of arabesque or examining how the core muscles are needed in ballet (including correct turnout) can save years of frustration at the ballet barre.

Only in recent years has the volume of academic information on ballet technique become easily available to ballet teachers and students. The dance education obtainable via The Ballet Store far surpasses some of the data being only recently produced by some still secluded ballet societies.

So what does this all have to do with how to progress faster and better toward dancing ballet in pointe shoes......your ability to concentrate on your basic ballet barre exercises and your ability to find the information you need when you don't understand why YOUR body will not do a ballet movement or ballet position as easily as someone else's, is a big part of what will speed you toward your ballet goals. Each correctly done ballet barre exercise gets you closer to dancing in pointe shoes.

Your Ability To Concentrate And Dancing In Pointe Shoes

Advancing in ballet, and into pointe shoes is determined by some finer details other than age, experience and muscle strength. Your ability to concentrate, to form neural pathways (learning new things through concentration and repetition) and to create the correct muscle memory will show that you can go on to pointe work. You must be able to work safely, with no distractions. If you are a little tired, or having an "off day", your ability to concentrate will get you through.

Holding back a young dance student from pointe work, who has the near-perfect physique, allowing for accurate placement and tidy looking exercises, is sometimes advisable.

The extent of muscular strength may not be present yet. Just as important, the maturity and ability to concentrate may not be developed.

The advantage of practising pre-pointe foot exercises is that a student has focused on some finer details of muscle work in the tiny intrinsic foot muscles. These muscles do not get developed well in our footwear, generally.

Specific exercises using the toes like you are playing a piano, or switching off lifting the big toe from the floor, then the other four toes, develop the foot muscles.

But first, the neural pathways are developed. The ability to concentrate on these tiny movements trains the brain to recognize what you want.

Then, after repetitions of the correct movements, the brain connects immediately with the right muscles and the correct movement results. That's muscle memory. And the strength follows.

I've often recommended stretching while you are watching a movie, or studying. Sprawled on the floor with a book, in second position, and slowly stretching and backing off when pain occurs, does not take the same kind of focus.

What you cannot get on the shelf at the ballet store, you can get with practise. Your brain will build neural pathways any way you want. If the technique is accurate, hurrah. If not, you will at some point have to unlearn, and learn again. That is more difficult.

If your power of concentration is not developed, no problem. You just repeat a correctly learned exercise. Your fantastic brain takes over. You feel your muscles and every single part of a movement. THEN you start to build strength.

And when you get into pointe shoes, you already have a better ability to concentrate, a good muscle memory from well built neural pathways, and a measure of control.

Here are some excellent tips and tricks to build strength, muscle memory, when you are dancing in pointe shoes.

Building Strength, Your Age Profile and Dancing in Pointe Shoes

Regardless of your age profile, you can now get the information on how to build strength and good classical technique toward dancing in pointe shoes.

Ballet shoes naturally lead to pointe shoes, and although there is no guarantee that you will do pointe work, repetition builds strength, and correct instruction creates good dance technique. Precision and detail are required to achieve this. Education prevents injury. A whole new world opens to dance students with the correct information!

When I was professionally training and needed pointe shoes, I could choose only between Gamba and Freed. Freeds were agonizing for my not so flexible and not quite strong enough feet, and Gambas were much easier to break in for me. Unfortunately, no one told us how to initially break in a shoe so as to enhance our work.

I was in a class with some younger girls and they were a year ahead of me in training. I was told that pointe work hurts, and not to complain. I was told that a little Lamb's Wool was ok to put in the shoes, but that the dancer should be able to do pointe without it, and not to complain.

No one had help in fitting the shoes, or breaking them in. I went through pointe classes seeing black spots from the pain, straining my neck and shoulders, getting the usual bloody blisters. It did not seem to occur to my teacher that maybe something was amiss with me and a few others who had these problems.

Students shared different tips and tricks with each other, to make things easier. Wrapping Kleenex around our toes was one. Another amusing one was that at The National Ballet School, the ancient washroom (long gone at this point) had funny little squares of toilet paper that were waxy, as opposed to absorbent. They were perfect for pointe shoes! Two layers meant that they would slide against each other, unlike tissue which could bunch up. The waxy paper also slid against the tights, preventing blisters. Later we used plastic wrap too, for the slippery effect.

By year two of training I had developed better techniques of avoiding the extreme pain. What a waste of a year, also the negative perception of my abilities by my teachers. I was truly struggling unnecessarily and could have done much better.

We all wore shoes that were too small. We had no guidance in strengthening the intrinsic foot muscles. I think I was already teaching when I heard another teacher describe the "dragging the towel" exercise to a student, for strengthening under the foot. That student had a problem with muscle cramps. Which we all did in my first year.

I was extremely lucky in another aspect however. Our pre-pointe training was excellent in that our posture, placement, turnout, rises, releves and retire positions were as perfect as our physiques could allow. We had teachers' assistants in large classes so everyone was corrected, constantly.

However, the anatomical knowledge that is available now, was unknown. The details that could have allowed some of us to flourish, weren't known.

You can get ALL of this wealth of information and with instructional photos and video that will help you know how to start working your pre-pointe exercises, and assess your own progress, for dancing in pointe shoes!