I stumbled across this video in youtube some time ago. The makings on a pointe shoe.
Fascinating to see how those are made. Inside out first, then rolled so that the inside is where it should be, inside the shoe. And after that the glue is cured an the box hardens. Anyone else finding this fascinating?
I also found this pic, which made me wonder what kind of insole there is in my pointes. Especially if there is the cut area under the demi pointe spot. Sure feel like there ain't one. Rolling en pointe through demi is hard enough.
This fall I started a short course en pointe technique. Before I have done some short exercises en pointe on my regular classes. Usually 10-15 min at the end of the class.
The pointe class in on Friday, after a regular class of 1,5h, and lasts for an hour. So that's 2,5 hours of ballet on a Friday evening. Pretty exhausting I might say. We do first some basic warm up series on the barre with the pointe shoes on, plies, tendues and so on with some stretches included. After that it's time to do some rolling warm ups for the ankles like in the video below. We do these from the sixth, first, second, fourth and from the fifth position (the last two for both sides, naturally).
Then some small jumps and stuff: echappes, jetes, pas de bourrées etc. At this point some do these in the center, but I stick to the barre. Maybe I'll cough up the courage to these without the safety net, the barre, some day. Hopefully. And finally some center exercises that include bourrée for one. I like the bourrée, it's simple yet hard at the same time. It's very en pointeyi, so I you can fool yourself in to believing that it's dancing what you are doing. Gah.
