My First Pointe Shoes

I was very excited to get fitted for my pointe shoes recently. The thing that I am most surprised about is how much it hurts. Surprisingly, it is not as painful as I expected. I actually thought it would hurt more. Don’t get me wrong, it takes a lot of effort and hard work to get en pointe but honestly, I thought it would be worse. I guess all the exercises I needed to do for my pre-pointe assessment prepared me well. Since I am only a beginner, I haven’t yet done much en pointe. Once I learn how to properly balance, spin, hop and hold myself on the tip of my toes, I know for a fact that that’s when the pain will come and I will probably be complaining then!

As already mentioned, I had a pointe assessment prior to getting my pointe shoes and the dance physiotherapist gave me exercises to do. Some people may think that the only thing you have to work hard on is your feet, but that is just not true. Although you need strength in you feet, you also need strength in your ankles to hold you up, strong legs and calf muscles to make sure you can easily rise up and down, as well as a strong core to make sure you can balance on the tips of your toes. Aside from strength, some other very important things you need are self-motivation, control, resilience and persistence.

One other thing I would like to say is that not everything goes to plan. For example, I sadly didn’t know how to pointe my feet properly until I was around 8 years old and still didn’t do it properly until we first started talking about pointe shoes. Although not all things go to plan, all things will have a place in teaching you along the way.