Pointe shoe fitting story

We will be baking some cookies for a lady that was very, very nice to us this past week.   She has a dance wear shop and she has a great selection of pointe shoes, plus she gave us a lot of advice and I asked my daughter to share all what we went through last week to find "The Perfect Pointe shoe", so it can be helpful for other ballerinas that are having the same problem. So I will introduce you to my daughter and I hope you enjoy her story!!

Hi everyone, I am so happy to share this with all of you, and I hope you find it useful.

.... I was born with the famous flexible archy feet, but on top of that they are very strong. Even though it may look very pretty and most people want this type of foot,  it has its own challenges and obstacles to face. Because of my feet being flexible and strong I am of need of a very hard shoe and also one that lasts. For a year I have been wearing Bloch aspirations a strong shoe, but lately I have been going through them very fast and they were breaking in a very awkward place. I went to my local dance wear shop for a new shoe.   They gave me the Só Dança Toshie SD-40shoe,which I fell in love with and once they were finished I quickly ordered new ones.   In the next picture is the one on the very top.

They gave me the Só Dança Toshie SD-40 shoe,which I fell in love with and once they were finished I quickly ordered new ones. Of course the shoe " I fell in love" with, it is not the same anymore, causing my right foot to over-extend as if I had worn them for 2 weeks (but they were new).  
I soon discovered that it was a new version of the Toshie, the Só Danca SD-40V
and the old version was discontinued in the US. ( The 2nd shoe from the top). 

I was crushed and so disappointed I thought "Why would they give me a shoe that was discontinued." I switched back to my Aspirations, (the first shoe from left to right)  but I missed the feel of my Toshie shoes.

 We went back to the dance shop in hopes of finding a new shoe. This time I came out with the Suffolk Spotlight, but these shoes had inserts called arch supports.( 4th shoe from left to right) It was a piece of metal stuck under the shank of the shoe. These inserts made the shoe much more expensive and they were special order which was a problem. Plus my mom was terrified of these metal inserts for she felt they were going to stab me for some weird reason hahaha.



 We spoke with my teacher and she liked the Suffolk, but still my mom was unsure of this "special shoe." The next day my mom came up to me telling me that we should go to another dance shop that was about 30 min away from us. I reluctantly agreed. We went in, the pointe shoe fitter examined my foot and she also saw how I looked in my Bloch Aspirations, Toshie, and Spotlight saying that they were wrong for my foot and that I wasn't "pulling up". "Pulling up" something I have heard recently as a correction. The lady quickly demonstrated her version of "pulling up and out".  We came out with the new Capezio Airess pointe shoes (5th shoe from left to right) which pulled straight up and I didn't over extend. I went to class hoping that these shoes would make the next Svetlana Zakharova, but I ended up not liking the shoe and feeling like a dancing trash can (ballerinas are quite the perfectionists as you can see).  For the first time these shoes felt TOO HARD. Ironic right? Yep hahaha. So we went back to the lady and she gladly wanted to show me another shoe which I also liked. She warned me that the capezio were shoes that were modeled for partner work or for certain variations like Sugarplum fairy. She was right I could still wear them for certain things, but I needed an "everyday shoe".  Now the shoes we ended up with are the Suffolk Stellar(6th from left to right)  hopefully they will work out fine and help me become a Misty Copeland or Natalia Osipova. 

She even said that I was pulling up and that if I would continue to do that it would become second nature and up my dancing 10 levels. Despite this difficult journey I learned a lot and I realized how ballet reacquires so much of you and in order to be a good ballerina you must experiment and sometimes it can blow up in your face, but sometimes you can turn lead into GOLD. I hope this post will help other ballerinas with similar problems. I also owe great thanks to the lady or more like fairy godmother who has helped me with my shoes and my dancing, and I am so excited that I can send her some cookies. 

Making these cookies were so fun. These two below are the ones I made using my mom's techniques. I loved using the food coloring and brushstrokes to make it seem like the tulle on the tutus. I am very grateful for the help the pointe shoe fitter lady gave me and I will definitely send her some cookies. Enjoy this bun head post.