Pushing over on pointe

[little_dancer]

I have relatively lows arches and on pointe I am always trying to push my arches forward more. Is this a bad thing to do because I heard that you should try to lift up from your heels?

Thanks

[Victoria Leigh]

Hello little dancer, welcome to the Young Dancers' forum here on Ballet Talk for Dancers!

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by pushing forward, but as long as you are not rolling over OR pushing DOWN into the shoes, then it should be okay. You must be lifted up out of the shoes, or you are just crunching your toes and it does not help the arch at all!

[onmytoes123]

My teacher always says to have your heels under your calfs, so that you are pulling up not pusing over and just using your natural arch. I would not do it until one of the moderators agree.

[little_dancer]

I think I'm trying to push my pointe more so it looks like there is a better arch. But does this cause knuckling? Because I've been told that I've knuckled before and wondered if this was the cause?

[Victoria Leigh]

There is a difference between pushing your arch over, and pushing down into the shoes and knuckling. When you do that the shoe breaks in a different place, and the arch does not look better at all. But one would have to see you to tell you what you are doing. That's for your teacher to determine.

[Mel Johnson]

If I had a leg here, and a plumb line, I could show you really easily from an engineering standpoint how the weight/force lines run from the knee (or anyplace) to the point of the toe. But since I don't, I've got to resort to words that we can all understand. You won't be knuckling unless you are actually putting weight onto the tops of the toes instead of the ends. There is a straight weight-bearing line that runs from the knee to the end of the toe. It actually runs up much higher than that, but that doesn't become a question unless the dancer is hyperextended. This weight-bearing line is often out of vertical, so there are other forces at work, too. The triangle is the most stable and strongest of all polygons, so it is important to maintain a triangle in the way the leg and foot bear weight. If you knuckle over, you're creating another edge, even a very short one and no longer have a triangle, but a quadrilateral. They are mostly inherently unstable. Got that?

[SeaMonkey]

I think I know what you're talking about. When I was younger, I was wearing shoes that were too hard for me and I kept pushing forwards trying to make my arch look better.

 

I wound up with rancid tendinitis in both my feet for several months.

 

Have you tried therabands? They're a lot better for strengthening the arch rather than pushing forwards

[Mel Johnson]

Rancid tendinitis? That's a new one on me! What is it? Really old, smelly tendinitis?