freed – Page 2

Fitting Freed Of London Pointe Shoes

January 18, 2012 by 4dancers

Thank you to Brenda R. Neville and Freed of London for the content here today…to SAB student Ashley McAleer for her time, and to Christopher Duggan for his photography…

Making sure your pointe shoes fit properly is of the utmost importance. For all pointe shoes, it is crucial that the length, width, and box fit the foot correctly so that the shoe can provide adequate support and help prevent injury. There should also be enough freedom of movement so that the dancer can perform in them without feeling restricted.

Each pointe shoe manufacturer varies slightly in the way their shoes fit. Freed pointe shoe sizing converts down to about 2.5 sizes below a US Street shoe size. This is a good guideline to begin with—then you should know what to look for in the feel of the shoe once it’s on.

w_20120109_4Dancers-Freed_Christopher.Duggan_029 — Brenda R. Neville with SAB student Ashley McAleer, photo by Christopher Duggan

When trying on a Freed pointe shoe, the width should be snug enough so that you feel some resistance across your metatarsal as you push your foot into the block/box. Think of it feeling like a sock–but not pinching, with the ball and sole of the foot able to lie flat on the floor with ease. Freeds will stretch and widen across the box to mold and shape to the dancer’s individual foot. For this reason it is important that the shoes aren’t too wide when purchased. [Read more…]

Emily Starling: On Breaking In Pointe Shoes

January 11, 2012 by 4dancers

Emily Starling shoes 1 — Emily Starling's Pointe Shoes

by Emily Starling

Pointe shoes are a type of shoe used by ballerinas across the world and they enable the dancer to dance ‘on their toes’. There are many different makes, some of the most popular being Bloch, Freed and Gaynor Minden. A ballerina chooses the shoe which best suits their foot shape and range of movement of the foot itself.

Like many other types of shoe, pointe shoes must be broken in before they are worn but, rather than for comfort, this is a must for dancers in order for them to be able to perform at their best.

There are many ways of doing this some working better for certain dancers than others but in my opinion there are two stages to this process:

Making the sole flexible.

Manipulation of the toe section.

The sole must be flexible so the ballet dancer can perform all her moves to the best of her ability as well as being aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The toe section must be manipulated so the whole foot can be used with ease.

I personally use my hands to make the sole supple, having had years of experiencing different types of shoe and how the shoe feels on my foot I know to which degree I can bend them in order for me to execute all my movements with precision. This for me is the quickest and easiest method.

Manipulating the toe section is more time consuming and requires the shoe to actually be on the foot. Normally a couple of nights before I will wear them I place them in a warm place such as the airing cupboard. Then the night before I put them on and walk around my house for 15 – 20 minutes on demi pointe and do slow rises until I am happy that I can get from demi pointe to full pointe and back again with ease. The enables my feet to move freely–as close to how they would feel in flat shoes as possible. Finally, I place them back in the airing cupboard overnight so as not to undo the work I have done with them.

About the dancer: Emily Starling is 20 years old from Essex, England. She has recently graduated from Bird College in Kent, with a Diploma in Musical Theatre. Predominantly ballet-trained, Emily has been a member of Chelmsford Ballet Company for 9 years, and has recently become an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dance in London.

Stay tuned for more dancers talking about how they break in their pointe shoes as we continue our “focus on pointe” this month!

About Pointe Shoes

November 8, 2010 by 4dancers

Today I’m dedicating a post to pointe shoes.

Like all the other little girls out there, I couldn’t wait to get into a a pair.

And, as anyone who has had their feet in a pair knows–once you do–it becomes a whole other story…

My feet actually survived pretty well–I have little permanent damage from years of pointe work, unless you count the fact that my second toe used to be slightly longer than my big toe, and now they are the same length. I don’t feel it is particularly noteworthy…especially considering what could have happened to them.

After trying several brands, I wound up in Freed pointe shoes, which had an unusual, almost orange cast to the color of the satin. Very pretty. I can still remember going to buy them with my Mom. The place that sold the shoes was in an old building in downtown Chicago. If memory serves, you had to take a cage-style elevator up to the little store, and it always seemed like there was no one else on the floor when you got out. I remember it as a little spooky; but kind of exciting too.

I have always found it interesting, the different ways that ballet dancers prepare their pointe shoes. I didn’t have much of a special routine to break them in, although I always did wrap my ribbons nicely around the shoes after I took them off.

As for protecting the feet, after a while I didn’t bother with lamb’s wool or toe caps. Once in a while I would wind some paper towel around my toes if they were feeling particularly tender. My feet always felt sore to some degree, but you just learned to live with it, and oddly, it simply became normal to be in pain.

I was just telling this story the other day…after my feet toughened up, I was walking through the house without shoes or socks on and suddenly heard a clicking noise each time I took a step on my left foot. When I looked, a tack was stuck into the bottom. I felt nothing, and when I pulled it out, I didn’t bleed either. Kind of funny…

What about you? Any peculiar stories to share? Any preference in terms of pointe shoes? I’d love to hear from you…

History Of Pointe Shoes

November 4, 2009 by 4dancers

Have you ever wondered about the history of pointe shoes?

It is interesting to see how they evolved into what we use today. Modern pointe shoes are a very far cry from what they were many years ago. It’s fascinating to think about what they will be like in the future…

When I was actively dancing, I used lamb’s wool to wrap my toes when I first started out on pointe. I found it to be miserable–it shifted around like mad, and wadded up in all the wrong places inside my shoe. As soon as my feet toughened up I switched to paper towel. A rather unorthodox substance, but it worked well for me. Some dancers I know used nothing, or toe pads… [Read more…]

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