Strong, well-coordinated feet are a cornerstone of a dancer's technique
Most dance styles, with the exception of modern dances that use the hands and arms for balance, the feet and legs are used more for support than the upper body. It is therefore very important to take care of your feet as they support most of your body weight in an infinite variety of configurations and speeds. Due to time constraints, most dance classes can only offer limited preparation for the feet.
Why is it important to prepare the dancer's feet?
Inadequate foot preparation leads to overtraining syndromes, rapid exhaustion, and tears in joints, muscles, and connective tissue.
To compensate for this limited preparation time, it is important to prepare yourself
- either by showing up earlier to your dance class to specifically warm up your feet and all your muscles with my self-massage equipment
- or by working on your feet and legs during specific sessions at home or in a separate room.
The footstretcher and all the accessories such as the elastic bands are excellent ways to coordinate the action in the front and back of the feet that allows a dancer to obtain a range of motion for the whole body. The movement of the foot is connected to the movement of the hip, pelvis and spine. Therefore, you can perform complementary exercises to activate and strengthen the muscles that control the action of the ankle and foot. You will gain stability and power of movement by using proprioception equipment for example.
The famous foot thongs as well as the Blochsox socks for contemporary dance or modern-jazz contribute to facilitate your rotations and help you preserve joints and tendons.
In addition to the foot, I also invite you to protect your joints, in particular the knees, very solicited during the dance. For pole dance, as well as modern and contemporary dance, knee pads are particularly recommended during the passages on the ground. There are foam knee pads but also silicone knee pads in skin color or black
Which areas of the foot should be protected when dancing on pointe?
In order to allow you to dance in the best conditions and prevent any foot injury, there are many tips that you can find yourself and by discussing with your friends, to put on your ballet pointe shoes with a minimum of comfort. Gone are the days of putting steaks in your pointe shoes!
Foot protection starts with
- toe protection to prevent blisters or pain thanks to different cut-out tips, position correctors for people with deviations of the big toe or the toes (hallux valgus, for example), foam tips of different shapes to be positioned at the bottom of the pointe shoes according to the shape of your foot (Greek or Egyptian foot)
- the foot's skeleton, especially the metatarsals, which must be covered by a tip that can be made of silicone, foam, wool, or silicone coated with fabric, also called ouch pouch. These toe caps can be slipped under convertible ballet tights so that they stay in place. Make sure your pointe tip covers the joint of all the toes up to the famous bunion. There are different sizes of tips that you can fit. All tips are machine washable.
To store all these small useful objects, avoid leaving them at the bottom of the tips because, with perspiration, they risk macerating and damaging them: a small dance bag allows you to put them away without losing them.
In this section you will also find everything you need to fix and adapt your pointe shoes, such as elastics, pink satin ribbon, stretch ribbon for pointe shoes or a sewing kit that includes the essentials to prepare your pointe shoes. Please note that all these items are sold by the meter. You need a total of 15 € to validate your order: I recommend you to cumulate your purchases or to anticipate your need in ribbons, elastics....
Legwarmers, dance gaiters and warm-up boots also contribute to the dancer's well-being and help prevent strains and other injuries.
