Improving your feet

[Guest carrie0619]

I have a weird problem. i have really high arches, but when i point my foot, the top of my ankle, where it meets my foot, will not bend like "banana" feet. they used to be really bad but they got a little better because i've been working on them everyday for three years. but because i have a high arch, does that mean that my feet have potential to bend like the other people with high arches? or am i forever stuck with bad feet?

[Victoria Leigh]

Carrie, are your insteps high, or only the arches? They usually go together, but not always. If you do not have the instep, that would make a difference in the look of the foot. If you do have, but it won't point all the way, that is a flexiblility issue.

[L' Allegro]

I have a different sort of related foot question...

 

I have very high arches and a very high instep. If I I try to get all the way on my feet in soft shoes... like those pictures in discount dance... I have to hold onto the barre and really push. Then I can do it. Are there any methods that enable you to sustain a really nicely placed foot all the time? Am I using wrong muscles, since I can only do it at the barre??

[Victoria Leigh]

Are talking about a high demi pointe position, or about getting on pointe without pointe shoes?

[L' Allegro]

High demi pointe.

[Victoria Leigh]

If you have a high instep and a high arch, the only reason I would know of for not having a high demi pointe would be a lack of flexibility in the ankle. Or, I suppose there could be a lack of strength, since you can do it with the barre, but I would think that after several years of training you should be at the highest demi pointe by now. Are you on pointe? If so, when you are on pointe are you totally up on the top of the shoe?

[L' Allegro]

Yes, I am on pointe. I have very good balences, and can do ultiple releves in centre very well. I am always on my shoes... unless they're dead... at and away from the barre. From what you said, I think it may be a lack of strength. Just because it never occured to me to work at high demi -pointe until I went to Nutmeg's SI- and I saw everyone's working on high demi pointe.

[Victoria Leigh]

Yikes! How could you ever have been placed on pointe without owning a high demi pointe??? And if you have the strength to do multiple one foot relevés on pointe, there has to be enough strength there for demi pointe. This makes no sense. Did your training not teach you to get to the highest possible position? If so, this is sad, but not critical, and I'm sure you can change it, but I certainly hope you are attending a different school now.

[L' Allegro]

Yes, actually I switched schools about 3 years ago. I was soo far behind that I couldn't even do a combination(very simple). My posture was a wreck, and I was very weak and very unflexible. It has only been the past year or so that I've been advanced enough to start working on things not quite so critical, like a high demi pointe. I think my problem is that I didn't know to do it, and my teacher saw I was was struggling so badly that he didn't mention it. So in a sense, I did/i] own a high demi pointe, but I didn't use it!!

[Victoria Leigh]

Well, I think it is pretty critical, so you need to get on that immediately.

[L' Allegro]

will do!!!