Growing up I never thought l’d have the strength, determination, and commitment to dance en pointe, yet here I am today, proving myself wrong. It all began when my parents put me in my first ballet class at age four. Even at such a young age, I loved every minute of dance class and knew I wanted to continue with it. Subsequently, I joined other styles of dance and thrived in those, but I always seemed to struggle with ballet. Not having the strongest core, most flexible arches, or longest balances, made me second guess myself a lot.
Taking a huge toll on my self confidence, I attended each ballet class with the indset I wasn’t as good as my peers. As I grew older, my friends started getting accepted into pointe, but I never seemed to be quite at the level they were at. Falling behind, made me realize I had to work twice as hard to become the ballerina I aspired to be. I was desperate to do anything I could, adding extra ballet classes to my schedule, spending my nights stretching while doing homework, even doing eleves in the shower, I was desperate to do anything I could. I involved myself in ballet workshops and any extracurricular things available to me.
Eventually, my technique started improving, my jumps were rowing in height, and my brain started to comprehend more combinations. Finally, one spring my dance teacher called my mom and I in for a meeting. The tension in the air dropped suddenly as she explained the news that would bring light and relief into my life. There is no better feeling than the satisfaction of achieving something you worked so hard for. My first time en pointe felt like I was floating, not only physically, but emotionally too. I was floating with pride and satisfaction of everything I had accomplished.
Description Dancing en pointe is the hardest thing you’ll ever love. The pain and struggle you go through each day builds up to the three minutes you get on stage. In those three minutes you have to prove to judges the skills you’ve learned the last ten years. It all starts backstage. Your mind is racing in hundreds of directions, you’re struggling to remember the position you start in, it seems as if everything goes blank. You watch the dancers before you, and your self confidence comes to an all time low. Then your number is called by the monotone DJ that’s been announcing all night.
You hear the faint violin intro of your music start to play. All of a sudden your face is smiling down at the judges as you float across the sticky, wooden floor. Your light pink tutu brushes against your thigh as you glissade jete across the stage. Entering your turn seequence you can’t help but notice the joy running through your body. The emotions you feel when you dance are exposed through your facials that captivate the audience and judges. All of sudden it’s over. The music fades, the audiences’ cheering subsides, and you are offstage. The “good job’s” start filling the backstage and you are thrilled at what you just accomplished.
Then the excitement and drenaline rushing through your veins starts to diminish. You are brought back to reality. The reality that your feet are now numb, your jaw hurts from smiling, and the thoughts that make you think every other competitor will have a better pirouette than you. This is what the competition life of a pointe dancer is. The three minutes you get are the only three minutes that you can use to prove yourself. To prove that you are extraordinary, not only with your dancing, but with your determination. Process analysis When putting on your pointe shoes for the first time there are many steps you need to follow and keep in mind.
These are to preserve the life of your shoes, and your feet. The first thing you must do is tape and comfort the parts of your feet that are most likely to blister. For me, this is my pinky toe, bunion, and metatarsal. You find these spots on your feet after consistently wearing your shoes and monitoring the irritated parts right after you take them off. After applying tape, I use these little, squishy circles called “corn cushions” and I stick them onto the parts of my toes that need a little extra protection. I then continue my routine by placing lambswool at the bottoms of my shoes where y toes meet the wooden box they will stand on.
Lambswool provides a soft padding, which may seem like nothing but it truly does help. Because of the way my toes are pointed I need a toe spacer. This is basically and second toe. Next, I pull my toe pad over about half of my foot. This half gel, half cotton sock holds all my tape, cushions, wool, etc in place. My tights then go over my now protected feet, and I am ready. Before you go up for the first time it is important to break in your shoes. This includes dabbing a very small amount of water on your shoe creases and by your arch. This helps your pointe shoe loosen up so your feet can have more movement.
Lastly, I wrap my ribbons and continue by tying them in a square knot. After following all these steps, you are then ready to begin your dance career en pointe. pad that I put between my big toe Compare and contrast Pointe is very different than all the other styles of dance. It requires a mentality that is much more extreme than one you would need for jazz, hip hop, tap, lyrical, african, or even modern. First off, pointe is a totally different shoe and requires an entire different process to simply put the shoe on, as xplained in the process analysis paragraph.
You need to add tape, lambswool, toe spacers, and toe pads, but for every other style all you need is the shoe. Another difference is the experience. For every style of dance you just need to sign up for the class and you’re in, but for pointe you need to be accepted in order to take the class. Your teachers evaluate you in your ballet classes and when they think you’re ready, they call you in for a meeting to tell you the news. Pointe isn’t just any ordinary style of dance. It requires the best strength, balance, and flexibility from a dancer. The skills used in pointe dancing greatly contrast those used in other styles.
For instance, hip hop is all about staying loose and “going with the flow”, while pointe is about keeping yourself together. Pointe also requires technique that takes years to build up. You can’t get a perfect arch and point from nowhere, the dedication to be an exceptional pointe dancer is far behind the dedication needed for any other style. Once you are committed, you have to stay committed unlike tap or jazz, where it’s easy to drop out and in at any time. However, one similarity between pointe and every other style would be he fun. Personally, I enjoy every style of dance just as much as the other.
The anticipation to go to each class is always the same, and I am always deeply looking forward to further accelerating my dance abilities. Definition Pointe, a ballet position in which the body is balanced on the extreme tip of the toe. Also known to a pointe dancer, as one of the most painful, thrilling experiences you may ever endure. Undergoing just one pointe class is not everything it’s made out to be. Your feet will blister, your toes will go numb, and your calves will feel as though they could snap at any given second. Pointe is portrayed as the graceful art performed on your tiptoes, when really it is much more.
Pointe is struggle, pain, hardship, commitment, and time. The amount of time you put into your pointe classes and workshops determine the amount you get in return. What happens behind the scenes is not always shown to the general public. When going to a ballet you expect smiles and grace, and in order for this to be executed the dancer must experience a little bit of suffering. The pointe dancers’ rule of thumb is if it’s not hurting, you know you must be doing something wrong. Although it may hurt, if you want to e the best you must put all of your time towards this one thing.
The time commitment and suffering through each class makes a great pointe dancer, which results in a happy audience. After all, the goal is to dance for not only yourself but those around you too. Dance gives back to the community, which makes any pointe dancers’ heart happy, and that is what makes all the pain worth it. Therefore, pointe dancing can be defined as suffering and happiness all at the same time. It is something that once you become committed, you become addicted, and it’s hard to let go of what has taken over every minute of your life and verything you think about.
Cause and effect Dancing while wearing pointe shoes can result in many things, many of which aren’t the best for you or your mental health. Pointe can put such a strain on your feet that many studies show females whose feet are destroyed from simply taking ballet and pointe classes. If yoou took one basketball camp, the injuries you would received can’t even compare to those of which you would receive at one pointe workshop. Humans don’t naturally walk on their tiptoes all the time, so when you’re on your tiptoes, it puts a lot of pressure and pain on your feet.
Gel ads, tape, and wool are inserted into the shoe to relieve the enormous amounts of pressure on a ballerina’s toes. It is crucial that dancers understand the technique or else they can seriously injury themselves. This is why it is most common for a dancer to begin pointe around age twelve, while every other style normally starts around age four or five. A pointe dancer must have incredibly strong ankles, sturdy legs, and good flexibility. If they are not trained well enough, their feet can become disfigured. If a dancer falls while en pointe, it can hurt them from falling so high, causing a broken leg or ankle.
Even stretches and simple ballet moves can be gruesome, anything done in pointe shoes can very easily injure the ankles and feet. The pointe shoe is not the most comfortable shoe to wear either. It constantly rubs against your skin and will usually give you blisters, bumps, calluses, bone degeneration, and even bleeding. A study of eleven pointe dancers that all got MRI’s, showed that each one had signs of osteoarthritis. Although the consequences of dancing en pointe seem very dangerous, it’s because of a ballerinas love for ballet that people continue with their training.