Since stopping dance I have been very aware of the fact that I have a huge amount of things that I have learnt in my days as a dancer sitting around in my head. Piles and piles of useful things that I realize that I may forget after a while. So my next couple of blog posts are going to be related to the little, extremely handy things... tricks of the trade I suppose. I have had a few people commenting and asking about improving general flexibility and their feet, so this post is dedicated to getting nicer feet.
When I first started my professional training I realized that my feet were something that I really needed to improve. If you don't have nice feet some teachers will barely even look at you! If you are lucky and happen to have very high arches then you may have a little bit more difficult with control and -sigh- making your pointe shoes last, but you probably will get more attention in class. Sad but true, you have to look to part if you want to play the part.
A lot of the things that make ones feet look beautiful are largely predetermined by ones genetics. There are some things that you will never be able to completely change, but you can improve your feet dramatically if you dedicate a lot time and work to them.
For my feet to improve as much as they did I stretched them about three times a day for 4 years, I cannot imagine how many hours I have spent working on my feet. It probably adds up to at least a week straight. I also did a lot of theraband exercises and took classes daily.
The most important aspect in improving your feet is not flexibility but surprisingly strength. Theraband exercises are the best! Especially if you buy the extra strong therabands, they are a lot more thick and opaque than the regular bun heads ones. I think the thickest ones are usually grey or black. They are also an excellent way to warm your feet up before class. If you do the excercises again in between class and putting your pointe shoes on, even better.
Everyone has their own routines depending on what parts of their feet they need to strengthen. Personally because my toes are quite weak and by ankles have a tendency to sickle I would do 32 full points rolling through my entire foot (make sure not to bunch in your toes) then 64 points just using my toes and then 32 winging exercises. I usually did this 1-3 times a day... they are great for those days when you have a billion rehearsals spaced throughout the day. If you have very high arches you might want to mainly concentrate on the full roll throughs and if you have really terrible feet you might want to repeat these exercises again. This website may be helpful if you are lost:
Another exercise for people with less than wonderful feet (this one comes from the Freed store in London) is to sit down with your feet flat on the floor. Slowly bunch your arches together while keeping the toes flat on the ground. You do not want to scrunch your toes at all, you want to feel like you are picking up a towel on the ground with the entire metatarsal area.... do not bunch your toes. It will take while but you should begin to feel your arches burning, that's a good thing! This exercise is great because you can literally do it anywhere, while you are doing homework, at school, on the bus. A lot of people who have difficulty getting over their shoes will see a great deal of improvement. In one set I would usually do about 400 reps... or just time it for ten minutes or so if you like.
Another thing that I would like to write about is stretching your feet.... Anyone who knows me know that I have always been absolutely obsessed with stretching my feet. I would not necessarily recommend it. It is kind of dangerous and I know that I have had a fair amount of tendinitis resulting from prolonged foot stretching, but it sometimes seems to do the trick although it also weakens your feet. If you want to stretch your feet I would recommend doing theraband exercises, point flexes, and releves after stretching your feet (and also make sure that they are fairly warm before hand).... hmmm so please be extremely careful when you are stretching your feet. If you are doing it with a partner, make sure that they are reliable and will not hurt you, that they understand if your foot is sickled and that they will apply firm, even pressure.
Here are a couple of different ways that you can stretch your feet:
-In your pointe shoes, probably one of the safer ways to stretch your feet. Kneel down, and put one foot up on pointe. Place your hand on the heel of your foot and apply gentle pressure to slowly push your foot over on pointe. The angle and pressure can be changed to stretch different areas of the foot. Note: make sure that your foot is NOT sickled and make sure that the floor is not slippery and your foot will not slip out underneath you.
- Also in your pointe shoes you can hold onto the barre, rise up into first position and then plie while on pointe to push over your shoes.
- With a partner, sit down with one leg stretched out fully. Place a bootie/towel underneath your heel to make a little cushion. Have your partner kneel facing you, he should put his hands right on top of your arch. Slowly and gently have him apply pressure downwards. Make sure that you foot is not sickled. Stop when you feel a stretch, stay there for about 30 seconds. Then if possible go deeper into the stretch, be very careful when you do this. For some people it is a lot more painful that for others so listen to what your stretching buddy is saying! Do not overstretch your feet.
-Variations of this include having you partner stand on your feet, putting them underneath a couch, set of drawers, piano, door. These are not safe and I do not recommend them as you could seriously get hurt. If you do try, make sure that you do not do it for long as it will damage your feet. Also make sure that nothing will fall on you, and that you have a lot of cushioning around the foot. Tendinitis is not cool!
A dancers feet are some of his/her most important tools and they must be treated accordingly!!!!
Hmmm I think that is pretty much all I have to say about improving your feet. Theraband exercises are the best thing that you can do to improve your feet. They can get kind of boring so listen to some music while you do them and just do a certain exercise per song. I find that I get a lot more out of it if I work on each foot separately but to each his own! Also remember that while having nice feet will certainly help you in the dance world but, being able to control and express using your feet is a lot more important. A dancer with nice feet but no control looks terrible on stage.
Good luck, I hope that these tips help your feet improve!
When I first started my professional training I realized that my feet were something that I really needed to improve. If you don't have nice feet some teachers will barely even look at you! If you are lucky and happen to have very high arches then you may have a little bit more difficult with control and -sigh- making your pointe shoes last, but you probably will get more attention in class. Sad but true, you have to look to part if you want to play the part.
A lot of the things that make ones feet look beautiful are largely predetermined by ones genetics. There are some things that you will never be able to completely change, but you can improve your feet dramatically if you dedicate a lot time and work to them.
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| My foot in 2007 (I think), this is when I first decided that I needed to work on my feet. |
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| My foot in 2010... after years of hard work, they continued to improve afterwards but I stopped documenting their progress after this picture =) not perfect, but acceptable. |
For my feet to improve as much as they did I stretched them about three times a day for 4 years, I cannot imagine how many hours I have spent working on my feet. It probably adds up to at least a week straight. I also did a lot of theraband exercises and took classes daily.
The most important aspect in improving your feet is not flexibility but surprisingly strength. Theraband exercises are the best! Especially if you buy the extra strong therabands, they are a lot more thick and opaque than the regular bun heads ones. I think the thickest ones are usually grey or black. They are also an excellent way to warm your feet up before class. If you do the excercises again in between class and putting your pointe shoes on, even better.
Everyone has their own routines depending on what parts of their feet they need to strengthen. Personally because my toes are quite weak and by ankles have a tendency to sickle I would do 32 full points rolling through my entire foot (make sure not to bunch in your toes) then 64 points just using my toes and then 32 winging exercises. I usually did this 1-3 times a day... they are great for those days when you have a billion rehearsals spaced throughout the day. If you have very high arches you might want to mainly concentrate on the full roll throughs and if you have really terrible feet you might want to repeat these exercises again. This website may be helpful if you are lost:
Another exercise for people with less than wonderful feet (this one comes from the Freed store in London) is to sit down with your feet flat on the floor. Slowly bunch your arches together while keeping the toes flat on the ground. You do not want to scrunch your toes at all, you want to feel like you are picking up a towel on the ground with the entire metatarsal area.... do not bunch your toes. It will take while but you should begin to feel your arches burning, that's a good thing! This exercise is great because you can literally do it anywhere, while you are doing homework, at school, on the bus. A lot of people who have difficulty getting over their shoes will see a great deal of improvement. In one set I would usually do about 400 reps... or just time it for ten minutes or so if you like.
Another thing that I would like to write about is stretching your feet.... Anyone who knows me know that I have always been absolutely obsessed with stretching my feet. I would not necessarily recommend it. It is kind of dangerous and I know that I have had a fair amount of tendinitis resulting from prolonged foot stretching, but it sometimes seems to do the trick although it also weakens your feet. If you want to stretch your feet I would recommend doing theraband exercises, point flexes, and releves after stretching your feet (and also make sure that they are fairly warm before hand).... hmmm so please be extremely careful when you are stretching your feet. If you are doing it with a partner, make sure that they are reliable and will not hurt you, that they understand if your foot is sickled and that they will apply firm, even pressure.
Here are a couple of different ways that you can stretch your feet:
-In your pointe shoes, probably one of the safer ways to stretch your feet. Kneel down, and put one foot up on pointe. Place your hand on the heel of your foot and apply gentle pressure to slowly push your foot over on pointe. The angle and pressure can be changed to stretch different areas of the foot. Note: make sure that your foot is NOT sickled and make sure that the floor is not slippery and your foot will not slip out underneath you.
- Also in your pointe shoes you can hold onto the barre, rise up into first position and then plie while on pointe to push over your shoes.
 |
| Alessandra Ferri stretching her feet... |
- With a partner, sit down with one leg stretched out fully. Place a bootie/towel underneath your heel to make a little cushion. Have your partner kneel facing you, he should put his hands right on top of your arch. Slowly and gently have him apply pressure downwards. Make sure that you foot is not sickled. Stop when you feel a stretch, stay there for about 30 seconds. Then if possible go deeper into the stretch, be very careful when you do this. For some people it is a lot more painful that for others so listen to what your stretching buddy is saying! Do not overstretch your feet.
-Variations of this include having you partner stand on your feet, putting them underneath a couch, set of drawers, piano, door. These are not safe and I do not recommend them as you could seriously get hurt. If you do try, make sure that you do not do it for long as it will damage your feet. Also make sure that nothing will fall on you, and that you have a lot of cushioning around the foot. Tendinitis is not cool!
A dancers feet are some of his/her most important tools and they must be treated accordingly!!!!
Hmmm I think that is pretty much all I have to say about improving your feet. Theraband exercises are the best thing that you can do to improve your feet. They can get kind of boring so listen to some music while you do them and just do a certain exercise per song. I find that I get a lot more out of it if I work on each foot separately but to each his own! Also remember that while having nice feet will certainly help you in the dance world but, being able to control and express using your feet is a lot more important. A dancer with nice feet but no control looks terrible on stage.
Good luck, I hope that these tips help your feet improve!
 |
| Svetlana Zakharova in Cinderella |
