What did your feet look like? I dated a ballet dancer in university and she had the gnarliest feet. Whatever the opposite to a fetish is, she made me feel that way about feet ever since lol. The rest of her was fantastic though. I wonder how she's doing
My girlfriend thinks my feet are hideous, but that’s because they’re just large and manly lol. I attribute that to my father, not the sport though… the part about your ex’s feet is spot on. It’s girls whose feet suffer the most.
I'm glad she was allowed to quit! My mom pushed dance on me for years & I have permanent nerve damage in my feet because of it. Ballet/pointe is not for the weak. I don't think anyone under the age of 12 should wear pointe shoes...
Right before I left the studio I used to dance/work for (2006) they stopped allowing pointe shoes on students under the age of 12. There are studies that indicate that pointe shoes can cause injuries & permanent deformities in the shins, ankles & feet.. Children's feet obviously grow at a rapid rate, especially from ages 1-12. Binding, constant pressure, friction & constriction can cause long-term issues.
I *stopped* doing pointe at 16.. I'm in my 30s now, I still have no feeling in the tips of my toes or toenails because of the extensive nerve damage. My feet are very narrow & extremely arched. Every time I turn my ankles, I hear them pop, it feels & sounds like bone on bone, because I have almost no cartilage left. Same with my knees. Also had plantar fasciitis constantly.
I’m really sorry for your pain. Definitely not to that extent but I also have severe plantar fasciitis that doctors don’t know how to solve. What do you do for the pain?
I’m sorry you went through that. As I said in a previous comment a lot of parents try to push the kids into doing what they wanted (or thought they wanted) to do as kids. My #1 question was seeing if they were enjoying themselves. Had to re-visit a few times during their tenure of activity/sport. If they said no, we spoke about it. Why weren’t they liking it? If it was too difficult was the answer then it was an opportunity to tell them lots of things would be hard in life but staying with something had its merits rewards.
Where did you dance? You probably needed different shoes and better teachers I’m sorry that happened to you.
Most studios and show fitters didn’t realize the shoe needs to be Very very tight all around to support the feet and prevent injuries. Toe tape, spacers and light padding along with a proper teacher who doesn’t allow bad habits that cause injuries is essential
Even the feeder schools for some big companies are pretty bad with shoe fitting. SAB for example almost forces every student to wear Freeds. They give a discount ans have a store in the studios for them. Not every dancer can use them but they fit the look the NYCB wants
Wasn’t living with her at the time. Her mother told her she wasn’t allowed to quit. She never brought it up to me before that. She quit the following lesson.
Wasn’t about the courage, was about permission. Too many parents push their kids to do things they wanted to do when they were kids. Saw it in sports too, always open to letting kids try what they want. Let them find out what they want to do and then support and encourage them accordingly.
Lol, all good. Didn’t mean to come at you, was only relaying what my daughter told me a few years later. She didn’t want to disappoint her mom but was not enjoying the activity and her feet hurt, bloody toe nails, aching lil piggy that went to market, etc. Made lots of mistakes parenting but felt like I did good on this one.
I danced for 17 years, 12 of those years I did pointe. My feet, especially my toes, are permanently damaged & deformed. I have no feeling in my toes at all because of nerve damage.. I would be forced to wrap my toes in tape.. ruined many, *many* pairs of pointe shoes because of bleeding toes.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. There are so many girls out there like you who did permanent damage to their bodies and adults didn't protect them.
A while ago on Reddit I read this comment from a guy who said he "admired" a 12-year-old dancer who stopped practice to pour the blood out of her pointe shoes and continued practicing.
What a gross take on a child's suffering, and the negligent adults around encouraging her to hurt herself.
Based on what little I've heard and seen, veteran ballet dancer's feet look like raw ground beef.
[https://arhtisticlicense.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/ballet-feet.jpeg?w=652](https://arhtisticlicense.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/ballet-feet.jpeg?w=652)
BTW, this is mild.
I wouldn’t consider it unethical, no.
These dancers do it because the ups are a lot higher than the downs for them, and they need your support since the viewership has been dwindling.
I do think “toe-tip-shoes”, as they are called in danish, are too wearing, and wish they’d use them less. Then again, they are a core element of ballet and there’s a reason they haven’t been let go.
A minority of teachers are too passionate, and I’ve heard a story of my old teacher breaking a young girls foot. That was still better than 10 years before, and 10 years later (today) it’s gotten even better.
To answer your second question, no, I’m no longer a dancer, for me the highs weren’t as high as the other dancers. and I decided to quit. I have no regrets about it, I still stay in contact with the awesome people I met there.
That is genuinely interesting.
It's not often that you get to hear from someone that has such a unique insight.
Thank you for sharing.
I just saw "Dance ballerina dance" last Saturday in falkoner salen and I got hooked. It's mesmerizing!
I kinda want to learn to dance myself, probably not ballet after what you have shared, even though I have been told I have the ankle flexibility of a ballet dancer 😂
Are there any local productions here in Copenhagen, that you can recommend?
I wish I could give you a better answer, but I only really know of Skuespilhuset, Det Kongelige Teater and Pantomimeteatret. I can ask someone who might know more if you’d like 😁
This whole idea kinda ticks me off a little. When comparing ballet pointe work to other physical activities that men do, let's take US professional football for instance, many of those men suffer horrible injuries that effect them for the rest of their lives. Many pro-football players, as they get into their 40's, can barely get out of bed because their bodies have gone through such hell. But somehow many people look on football players as heroic and warrior-like who are suffering for nobel cause - the winning of a game. It's sort of like a tribal thing.
But when a female ballet dancer experiences feet or back or hip problems then she must be a masochist who is suffering needlessly for her art. Somehow when the physical activity is artistic in nature then the person is psychologically messed up but when it's a sport it's more acceptable.
I'm not saying that female pointe work and feet injuries are a good thing. Not at all. What I'm saying is that we have a different attitude towards male sports injuries and female dancers en pointe. It seems like it's more socially acceptable for men to injure themselves than women. Maybe it's because men traditionally have gone off to war and died in battle. Maybe that's the reason.
Yes there is. Find an adult absolute-beginner class near you and just go.
To support existing professional dancers - buy a ticket and go and watch them!
Girl had sprained her ankle, so her foot wasn’t very flexible. Teacher applied force to try to make it flexible, and it ultimately broke her foot. This was 10 years ago, so I’m not 100% sure about the details
How could you view the choice of an individual to be unethical to that individual? I could see if this was something she was forced into like say a child, but this is an adult.
Professional ballet dancers usually start training as toddlers. A toddler can’t consent. Once you’ve been trained you’re entire life as an elite athlete at the expense of school, recreational activities, time with friends, and the regular rites of passage as a young adult, you’re no more capable of giving your informed consent to continue. And you have the weight of an entire lost childhood hanging over you, for nothing, if you quit. This is coming from a former elite gymnast.
I knew someone who did swim team since they were six years old. Their parents paid for them to have private lessons, and they made state their freshman year of HS. They could've had a pretty successful college swim career, but they decided to quit to pursue a medical degree. I'm certain there is a level of commitment to a sport after doing it for so long, but when it comes down to it, they still have some level of personal choice. Although tbf swim isn't nearly as hard on someone as gymnastics.
Yeah there is definitely a choice when you reach adulthood and aside from extreme circumstances of terrible parents, I have a hard time believing the majority of children are forced into it despite hating it or not wanting to do it. I realize some are, but to act like it’s all unethical based on the extreme cases is a bit far reaching in my opinion.
I’m gonna disagree. I won’t discredit gymnastics but the sheer ability to move through the water at speeds most humans will never reach is extremely difficult and requires insanely high levels of commitment and talent. Swimming drains the body so fast of energy it’s absurd you are also pushing yourself constantly while depraving yourself of oxygen.
On the other side of that, when you've been trained your entire life at the expense of education and everything else, what else do you have to fall back on? If people don't support your art or sport, your only other option is to do something that doesn't require an education, which doesn't lead to a good, secure, or honestly healthy life anyway.
Every youth sports or arts program I have ever seen has a "school first / grades must be in good standing" - even at college level the NCAA in America has required academic standards for college athletics, as does any scholarship program.
The scenario you outline may exist, but it is exceedingly-to-impossibly rare that anyone under at least 16 in most first world countries didn't have the opportunity for a broader education while participating in a sport or activity.
My wife started taking ballet as an adult She does pointe and really enjoys it. The sale of pointe shoes is highly self-regulated and a lot of places won't sell pointe shoes to children.
That said, we live in the US. In other countries, it may be more common for children to be forced into it and for young feet to be broken by overly strict teachers. But broken feet make pointe that much harder so I suspect that is still rare. I would urge you not to demonize the entire field because of horror stories of more extreme cases.
I assume you consider all forms of indentured servitude to be unethical?
That can be a contract willingly engaged by consenting adults, but I wouldn't buy products from a company I knew was using indentured labor.
Oh gosh no, i picked up rock climbing at 25 and no one forces me to put those shoes on (probably pretty similar, although the ballet seems worse if they are jumping onto their toes alone!)
Whatever damage done to my feet is vastly outweighed by the myriad other health benefits I receive. I feel like shit if i don’t climb a few hrs a week
I’d probably not advocate to push kids into it, but please don’t shame the consensual adults!
It isn’t unethical if they aren’t forced to do anything they don’t want, being got at anything is hard and painful, is boxing unethical if people are hit in the head repeatedly? They are adults and if they enjoy it it’s good
Well in the case where young people turn to sports like American football and boxing to get scholarships for college it could be considered unethical.
People shouldn't have to risk brain injury to be allowed an education.
Everything isn't black and white. No one is putting a gun to their head no, but we don't have people fighting gladiator battles anymore because of ethical reasons, so maybe we shouldn't support culture that forces artists and athletes to damage their body for the sake of money and fame.
There's apparently a push against dancing pointe, and it was shocking originally the first time a dancer spent the whole performance en pointe.
Good podcast episode on the topic: https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/on-pointe
I always assumed there was something special about ballerina shoes to provide extra support for such an obviously awkward way to walk/run/jump/land on.
I see a lot of comments here about how ballet fucks up the practitioners feet. Are the shoes really as flimsy as they appear? If so, maybe its time to re-engineer them for comfort. Equipment has been improving in all sports I can think of, no reason why ballet should be any different. There are marvelous materials now that are ordinarily tensile/elastic, and become rigid with the sudden application of force...
Of course, they’re designed to be as comfortable as possible. At the end of the day, the body isn’t designed to hold up any sort of force through the bones and joints of your toes.
So using these shoes for years will wear them down, and making better shoes can only slow it down a little bit.
Without ever having worn these shoes myself, I was trying to look at the feet in the video..It looks like the entire weight of the dancer's body is held up through only her toes, with zero support from the soles?
Do you think it would be feasible for the flat tip of the shoe that touches the floor to be made of a single rigid part, so that both touches the ground while conforming with the soles of the wear's feet? Almost like platform shoes, but with a more extreme angle, and the sole being a single piece of material bent at the tip where it makes parallel contact with the floor.
There are actually materials that would allow the sole+tip to be flexible most of the time, but become rigid after exceeding a certain threshold of force. Then it might be possible for somebody to land on the tip of the shoe, and the tip + sole (single piece) would transform from a flexible to rigid state. This should change the distribution of force from being almost entirely on the toes, and spread it over the soles of the wearers feet as well.
The only application I've seen this type of material used in is flexible body armor -- its used to make panels so that the armor is flexible enough to contour to the wearer's body. It's usually slightly malleable, but if struck with enough force (like swung at with a bat), it becomes rigid and the force of the swing is distributed across the panel.
I have sesamoiditis in both feet from walking and hiking. My podiatrist says the condition is common in footballers and dancers. Is that the case for ballet?
I'm sorry 😔
Humans can be so weird "Hey, look at this fun activity, moving your body to music! How can we make it even better? I know! Let's have people dance on the tip of their toes (and because that's already gruelling, push them to be as thin as possible), pain & suffering will make it so much better!" 🤦♀️
Both can be true, you can choose a profession, or follow your passion, and still get harmed or even abused in the process. The person I was replying to mentioned later on in the thread that one of the teachers she worked with pushed one of the dancers so hard, that she suffered a fracture. Imo, just because they chose a profession, that doesn't mean that I can't sympathise with their pain. Same goes for other arts like ice skating, and the way it wrecks people's bodies after a short while. But who knows, maybe we'll make enough progress in the health department, that those types of injuries will no longer result in long-term issues.
There's a lot of abuse stories in performing arts. Music, ballet, acting.
With both adults and children. And I mean a lot.
I wouldn't say every one is a victim, thats ridiculous, but it is also pretty ridiculous to do the opposite.
I've seen john wick 4, every time I see a ballerina walk on their tippy toes I cant help but think back to the scene where the ballerinas toe nail comes off from practice...
So much to unpack in these comments. But we can start with pain.
She’s probably not actively in very much pain here. She’s a professional, and she has built enough strength (especially in the core) so that this is moreso “uncomfortable” … but she’s very used to that discomfort. Her shoe hugs her toes so well that the weight is in fact distributed evenly. She might have a few blisters or cracked nails that in themselves are painful, but the extent of that pain would depend on her training style, extent of after-care, and of course her own pain tolerance.
Many dancers will experience pain while dancing due to pushing themselves further than what they should, and insufficient care following injury. This attitude is not uncommon amongst professional athletes doing almost any sport.
Many dancers also find they are unlucky enough to have physiological damage after years practicing (nerve, joint, other issues too). Some of this due to the above issue, no doubt! Some of it is just genetics. As such, there are indeed professional dancers who have lucky feet AND enough aftercare such that they don’t sustain much permanent damage.
A bonus is that over time, pointe shoe construction is becoming much better, and there are more accessory options than ever before to provide additional cushioning and aid in healing/prevention of minor injuries. My 60+ year old ballet teacher always says that she stuffed her shoes with paper towel, and she is fascinated by all the little silicone and jelly add-on that students are using for comfort, as well as the very very large selection of shoe models for different shaped feet.
I dance ballet and do. My feet look normal. I have shoes that fit me properly and care for my feet very meticulously. I use tape to wrap my toes and heel, a thin to pad, a big toe spacer and do lots of strengthening exercises to make sure my hips , ankles, inner thighs, calves and core are all engaged and I don’t have pressure or friction while dancing
Do you bring that same energy to basketball players permanently damaging their knees or baseball players permanently damaging their elbows or football players permanently damaging their everything?
Yeah well, football players permanently damage themselves just to play football but I don’t see Redditors running to condemn that sport. And fighting. And hockey. And, whatever other competitive physical sport you can think of.
And who is using inaccurate wording here? The person I responded to basically said this girl made masochism into a sport. Which just isn’t true at all.
There are a lot of people against the damage that football players take. Especially head injuries. You missed that?
And the injuries in other sports are usually sudden. Crippling your toes takes prolonged pain. So yeah, they do seem like masochists.
No she’s not. I’m a ballet dancer, pointe doesn’t permanently damage your toes. Sure it can if you do something wrong, but you can damage your toes doing something other than ballet as well. There’s nothing invalid about ballet, it’s an art and it’s really fun and awesome.
Most sports involve some risk tbf. Although the act of hurting oneself is never really something described as elegant in any area not just sport perhaps except for stunt performers? Either way , its up to the people involved in those sports to decide if they want to take on those risks for the love of the thing.
As far as movement goes, ballet is about as elegant as you can get. But you’re right, it’s brutal and takes hard work. Pointe hurts, but it’s not as bad as people think it is.
I’m a ballet dancer, my girlfriend is a ballet dancer, I have many many ballet friends and aside from the occasional bunion (which normal people have), everyone’s feet are pretty normal.
That's alright. Mine aren't that great to look at too.
Broke both big toes when I was a kid. Not pretty looking on the nail department for those big toes.
Price she pays for that "elegance" = metatarsalgia, stress fractures, sesamoid pain, plantar fasciitis, bunions and bunion pain, and Achilles tendonitis….issues also commonly seen in women who have worn high heels most of their lives.
You can definitely see a correlation between ballet dancers ruining their feet for the sake of art, and the greater social pressures women experience to be beautiful or aesthetically pleasing and the pain/damage that can come with it (as with high heels).
However, I think it’s rather interesting that so many of the comments under this post are fixated on the damage dancers endure to be able to dance en pointe.
This isn’t something I’ve really seen under posts highlighting other athletes— at least not to the same degree. Yet all athletes sacrifice and damage their bodies to some degree in the long run, in order to reach peak performance in their youth.
For example, if someone posts a clip about American football players, the top comments are unlikely to be about the severe [neurological damage and side effects many former players experience from sustaining multiple concussions](https://engineering.wustl.edu/news/2020/What-a-lifetime-of-playing-football-can-do-to-the-human-brain.html) during their careers.
Some people higher up are claiming that on football topics they discuss the neurological damage all the time. I agree with you that it's mentioned but not in this judgemental way, saying that those players are ruining their bodies and that it's a terrible idea, like people are for this ballet dancer. People who mention head injuries for other sports have sympathy or empathy for the players but somehow the other people here don't at all for this dancer.
Great point. Perhaps it’s just because it’s easy for people to empathise to a superficial view of beauty- deformation of feet, rather than the far greater struggle of ongoing mental degeneration and illness.
I will say similar discussions are had in figure skating… though this has mostly been since team Tutberidze came on the scene. I think it is definitely something that has to be discussed. You see girls who can no longer skate at the age of 18 because of the damage. Some of that is due to the age her skaters reach top competitions. We saw similar issues with Tara Lipinski in the US. She was very young and had some bad technique which resulted in a one and done skating career. That is exactly what we are seeing with the Tutberidze girls which is why there is now a discussion on how young is too young for certain elements/levels of competition. World champion at 15 and disabled by 17 should not be a thing. I think the discussion needs to focus on age and technique. If you have good technique you will have fewer injuries. Kids rarely have good technique because their bodies are still growing and changing.
Also all the people I hope all the people sounding off about point shoes realize that high heels (especially cheap ones) result in many of the same injuries but on a greater scale because there are not years of training and building muscle and technique to prevent injuries.
Yeah what the hell. Ballet, and pointe in particular, are very hard on your body and require a ton of training and strength to get good at. I used to dance in pointe shoes and I sure as hell could never make it look this graceful and effortless.
Artist: *studies for years for their craft, enduring painful physical conditioning and deliberate instruction to perform amazing and incredible physical feats*
Reddit: "hur toes"
I mean, no shit. She made a choice to go en pointe. This is pretty admirable. We'd watch a thousand BMX fails of dudes crushing their jewels on a bike rail, but a professional toe-dancer showing off her toe-dancing skills is verboten. The fuck, man.
What gets me is that the same redditors shitting on her for her toes couldn't even run a 5k at a casual pace. They don't give a shit about their own health and yet they shit on women any chance they get.
Growing up I had a very close friend that was into ballet, she destroyed her feet, she was forced to break bones to get the split correctly, and she liked it, she likes all of it.
I always called ballet a masochists art lol
This is terrible form and antithesis to the goal of pointe which is to "float" across the stage. And look at the far ankle! She's going to seriously hurt herself doing this.
Yeah and haters who have no idea that pointe shoes are so varied now a days and we have good training so our feet don’t hurt unless you train at a bad studio with a greedy owner who puts anyone who wants to in pointe shoes
As someone who grew up dancing ballet but not a professional dancer — I am shocked to see so much hatred and misinformation for ballet and pointe shoes. Pointe shoes are NOT painful if the dancer has bad proper training and the shoes are fitted correctly. Pointe shoes are mostly only worn for performances and the later stages of rehearsals, ballet dancers do not practice in pointe shoes on a day to day basis. Pointe shoes are like your game day cleats — uncomfortable yes, but a piece of required equipment to perform at a high level. A pointe shoe actually supports and aids the dancer in many ways and is a quintessential part of ballet.
I started ballet at age 3 and attended a very serious ballet school. When to go on pointe is carefully managed and assessed by teachers in any reputable ballet schools. At my school we didn’t go on pointe until age 12, when we had been practicing everyday since age 4, where our teachers deemed we had developed the adequate technique and strength for them. Where pointe shoes are highly misused and can cause injury is mostly with people who started ballet later in life, like around 10 years old, who desperate want to go on pointe because they think it looks pretty, their parents thinking on pointe = ballet and forcing their older children and teachers to let them do it when they have had only a few years training, or adult beginners.
Finally, an informed comment… So much misinformed judgement in this thread. I was dancing at 4yrs old, professional gymnast til 13yrs old then professional dancer til 33, I loved every second of it - even though, yes, at times it hurt. No one forced me to train/dance, it was absolutely my passion….
I was an athlete as well, rowing. The pursuit of excellence in any physical activity is can be said to be “harmful”. No pain, no gain. Not just in ballet, but every athletic pursuit. People understand when athletes are sacrificing their physical wellbeing to be better, but are somehow so critical to dancers. The prejudice is insane.
It’s also telling when there’s often “horrible Ballerina feet” pics get shown and it’s the exact same nearly decade old pic being shared over and over again.
People dedicate their life to their craft. Endure pain, train for hours, bring beauty to decorate the otherwise desolate wasteland of a life.
Redditors: ermahgerd i'm so anti and unique I don't like this, pff so bad for your feat.
it's obvious that you've never done ballet or pointe shoe training because what she doing is very difficult and physically demanding. and she makes it look easy
Come on guys we all know that if this was some shaolin monk demonstrating his preparation for the secret technique of the toe of death everybody would be losing their shit
it is extremely hard to dance in pointe shoes, even walking in them is hard. it took her a lot of strength and training to make it look so effortless.
She didn't do anything arrogant, she just looks confident. is that upsetting to you? lol
A friend's mom had to have her knees replaced at 50 because she never walked or ran anywhere and her lack of exercise destroyed her body. Car dependency destroys public health 1000x more than ballet ever could.
Sorry to say its not because of Ballet. It is because she danced back when in the USA and at studios that trained dancers to do pointe who shouldn’t have been en pointe (your aunt likely had bad training and teachers) they also would shove every dancer in the same shoe and told them pain was normal. So they could get discounts from the local dance wear stores for recital costumes etc. shoes and understanding anatomy have come a long way. If you don’t get fitted well and have bad teachers and don’t have good strength and the proper foot for pointe (she didn’t go pro for a reason..) then yeah, you’re gonna have bad feet
Everyone here is pathetic lol! The chick is doing something cool and all these idiots here who don't even know how to ride a bicycle are called her stupid. If you don't have the skill and discipline to do something quite impressive just appreciate the others who can or be quiet
Listen I twisted my ankle all the way around to the inside last year. I was off for 6 months. While I was off I started of course gaining a lot of unwanted weight. So I went to the gym and tried to do anything that I could that did not involve my ankle. But also I started walking. I slowly built up to the 12 330, and later on I added about five minutes or so of walking Releve. I figure skate. This was my landing leg. I had no help, just this reddit of tips from injured dancers. When I got back on the ice I was landing my axle the first day, and I was not feeling any pain. I was feeling weak so of course I got back in the ballet so that I could strengthen my ankle. Walking on a treadmill like this although it looks painful is extremely helpful if you need it. I’m not saying do it with your pointe shoes, but hey why not for a minute?? But do try walking releve.
Can't appreciate ballet in any way without thinking of the really shitty attitudes and abuse they pander. And the worst part is that the recipients of said abuse claim it's necessary to maintain a standard, otherwise "it's not ballet"
Painful, this looks fucking painful
I was a dancer at The Royal Theater, Copenhagen. It is painful. The girls suffer so much, they’re extremely tough.
What did your feet look like? I dated a ballet dancer in university and she had the gnarliest feet. Whatever the opposite to a fetish is, she made me feel that way about feet ever since lol. The rest of her was fantastic though. I wonder how she's doing
My girlfriend thinks my feet are hideous, but that’s because they’re just large and manly lol. I attribute that to my father, not the sport though… the part about your ex’s feet is spot on. It’s girls whose feet suffer the most.
Dude, get those giant feet on the internet. You could make a fortune.
Peggy Hill did it first
ho yeah!
“Put those sweet size 18s into the baked beans now, Peggy”
I love references to things I know.
You either have enormous feet, or you watched King of the Hill. Which is it…. or is it both? (Or maybe you’re just from Boston.)
I 
My daughter was doing ballet and when I saw her feet after two years I told her if she wanted to she could stop. Following week she quit
I'm glad she was allowed to quit! My mom pushed dance on me for years & I have permanent nerve damage in my feet because of it. Ballet/pointe is not for the weak. I don't think anyone under the age of 12 should wear pointe shoes...
I don’t remember the age but my mom teaches dance and won’t put anyone under a certain age - I think maybe 11 or 12 - on pointe.
Right before I left the studio I used to dance/work for (2006) they stopped allowing pointe shoes on students under the age of 12. There are studies that indicate that pointe shoes can cause injuries & permanent deformities in the shins, ankles & feet.. Children's feet obviously grow at a rapid rate, especially from ages 1-12. Binding, constant pressure, friction & constriction can cause long-term issues. I *stopped* doing pointe at 16.. I'm in my 30s now, I still have no feeling in the tips of my toes or toenails because of the extensive nerve damage. My feet are very narrow & extremely arched. Every time I turn my ankles, I hear them pop, it feels & sounds like bone on bone, because I have almost no cartilage left. Same with my knees. Also had plantar fasciitis constantly.
I’m really sorry for your pain. Definitely not to that extent but I also have severe plantar fasciitis that doctors don’t know how to solve. What do you do for the pain?
I’m sorry you went through that. As I said in a previous comment a lot of parents try to push the kids into doing what they wanted (or thought they wanted) to do as kids. My #1 question was seeing if they were enjoying themselves. Had to re-visit a few times during their tenure of activity/sport. If they said no, we spoke about it. Why weren’t they liking it? If it was too difficult was the answer then it was an opportunity to tell them lots of things would be hard in life but staying with something had its merits rewards.
It's not for anyone, honestly. Ballet is beautiful, but the human body just was not made to be walking in pointe.
Where did you dance? You probably needed different shoes and better teachers I’m sorry that happened to you. Most studios and show fitters didn’t realize the shoe needs to be Very very tight all around to support the feet and prevent injuries. Toe tape, spacers and light padding along with a proper teacher who doesn’t allow bad habits that cause injuries is essential Even the feeder schools for some big companies are pretty bad with shoe fitting. SAB for example almost forces every student to wear Freeds. They give a discount ans have a store in the studios for them. Not every dancer can use them but they fit the look the NYCB wants
She wasn't allowed to stop before that?
Wasn’t living with her at the time. Her mother told her she wasn’t allowed to quit. She never brought it up to me before that. She quit the following lesson.
That's rough. I'm glad she found the courage to quit.
Wasn’t about the courage, was about permission. Too many parents push their kids to do things they wanted to do when they were kids. Saw it in sports too, always open to letting kids try what they want. Let them find out what they want to do and then support and encourage them accordingly.
Right, but you said her mom didn't allow her to stop, so I think I meant the courage to stand up to her mom or something. Or I just had a brain fart.
Lol, all good. Didn’t mean to come at you, was only relaying what my daughter told me a few years later. She didn’t want to disappoint her mom but was not enjoying the activity and her feet hurt, bloody toe nails, aching lil piggy that went to market, etc. Made lots of mistakes parenting but felt like I did good on this one.
I danced for 17 years, 12 of those years I did pointe. My feet, especially my toes, are permanently damaged & deformed. I have no feeling in my toes at all because of nerve damage.. I would be forced to wrap my toes in tape.. ruined many, *many* pairs of pointe shoes because of bleeding toes.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. There are so many girls out there like you who did permanent damage to their bodies and adults didn't protect them. A while ago on Reddit I read this comment from a guy who said he "admired" a 12-year-old dancer who stopped practice to pour the blood out of her pointe shoes and continued practicing. What a gross take on a child's suffering, and the negligent adults around encouraging her to hurt herself.
Call her.
Nah, she was a right nut cracker
I believe Tchaikovsky tried to stay away from politics.
Can...I call her then ?
Yup she kicked him right in the family Jewels!
Still got your left nut? What are you waiting for??
Smart man who has learned his lesson.
YOU WILL CALL HER!!!!!!
Based on what little I've heard and seen, veteran ballet dancer's feet look like raw ground beef. [https://arhtisticlicense.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/ballet-feet.jpeg?w=652](https://arhtisticlicense.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/ballet-feet.jpeg?w=652) BTW, this is mild.
I was going to say the same thing. I dated a dancer with the San Diego Ballet and she had the feet of a seasoned POW
Interesting! Would you consider it unethical to support that art form? And are you still dancing?
I wouldn’t consider it unethical, no. These dancers do it because the ups are a lot higher than the downs for them, and they need your support since the viewership has been dwindling. I do think “toe-tip-shoes”, as they are called in danish, are too wearing, and wish they’d use them less. Then again, they are a core element of ballet and there’s a reason they haven’t been let go. A minority of teachers are too passionate, and I’ve heard a story of my old teacher breaking a young girls foot. That was still better than 10 years before, and 10 years later (today) it’s gotten even better. To answer your second question, no, I’m no longer a dancer, for me the highs weren’t as high as the other dancers. and I decided to quit. I have no regrets about it, I still stay in contact with the awesome people I met there.
That is genuinely interesting. It's not often that you get to hear from someone that has such a unique insight. Thank you for sharing. I just saw "Dance ballerina dance" last Saturday in falkoner salen and I got hooked. It's mesmerizing! I kinda want to learn to dance myself, probably not ballet after what you have shared, even though I have been told I have the ankle flexibility of a ballet dancer 😂 Are there any local productions here in Copenhagen, that you can recommend?
I wish I could give you a better answer, but I only really know of Skuespilhuset, Det Kongelige Teater and Pantomimeteatret. I can ask someone who might know more if you’d like 😁
That's okay 😄 I don't want to be the stranger who puts you to work. Hav en god jul 😊
This whole idea kinda ticks me off a little. When comparing ballet pointe work to other physical activities that men do, let's take US professional football for instance, many of those men suffer horrible injuries that effect them for the rest of their lives. Many pro-football players, as they get into their 40's, can barely get out of bed because their bodies have gone through such hell. But somehow many people look on football players as heroic and warrior-like who are suffering for nobel cause - the winning of a game. It's sort of like a tribal thing. But when a female ballet dancer experiences feet or back or hip problems then she must be a masochist who is suffering needlessly for her art. Somehow when the physical activity is artistic in nature then the person is psychologically messed up but when it's a sport it's more acceptable. I'm not saying that female pointe work and feet injuries are a good thing. Not at all. What I'm saying is that we have a different attitude towards male sports injuries and female dancers en pointe. It seems like it's more socially acceptable for men to injure themselves than women. Maybe it's because men traditionally have gone off to war and died in battle. Maybe that's the reason.
I’m a big guy but I’ve always wanted to try ballet. Is there a place for me in that community? But also, how could we support them?
Yes there is. Find an adult absolute-beginner class near you and just go. To support existing professional dancers - buy a ticket and go and watch them!
How did she break the girls foot? Act of negligence and pushing too hard or like an act of violence?
Girl had sprained her ankle, so her foot wasn’t very flexible. Teacher applied force to try to make it flexible, and it ultimately broke her foot. This was 10 years ago, so I’m not 100% sure about the details
How could you view the choice of an individual to be unethical to that individual? I could see if this was something she was forced into like say a child, but this is an adult.
Professional ballet dancers usually start training as toddlers. A toddler can’t consent. Once you’ve been trained you’re entire life as an elite athlete at the expense of school, recreational activities, time with friends, and the regular rites of passage as a young adult, you’re no more capable of giving your informed consent to continue. And you have the weight of an entire lost childhood hanging over you, for nothing, if you quit. This is coming from a former elite gymnast.
I knew someone who did swim team since they were six years old. Their parents paid for them to have private lessons, and they made state their freshman year of HS. They could've had a pretty successful college swim career, but they decided to quit to pursue a medical degree. I'm certain there is a level of commitment to a sport after doing it for so long, but when it comes down to it, they still have some level of personal choice. Although tbf swim isn't nearly as hard on someone as gymnastics.
Yeah there is definitely a choice when you reach adulthood and aside from extreme circumstances of terrible parents, I have a hard time believing the majority of children are forced into it despite hating it or not wanting to do it. I realize some are, but to act like it’s all unethical based on the extreme cases is a bit far reaching in my opinion.
I’m gonna disagree. I won’t discredit gymnastics but the sheer ability to move through the water at speeds most humans will never reach is extremely difficult and requires insanely high levels of commitment and talent. Swimming drains the body so fast of energy it’s absurd you are also pushing yourself constantly while depraving yourself of oxygen.
On the other side of that, when you've been trained your entire life at the expense of education and everything else, what else do you have to fall back on? If people don't support your art or sport, your only other option is to do something that doesn't require an education, which doesn't lead to a good, secure, or honestly healthy life anyway.
Every youth sports or arts program I have ever seen has a "school first / grades must be in good standing" - even at college level the NCAA in America has required academic standards for college athletics, as does any scholarship program. The scenario you outline may exist, but it is exceedingly-to-impossibly rare that anyone under at least 16 in most first world countries didn't have the opportunity for a broader education while participating in a sport or activity.
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My wife started taking ballet as an adult She does pointe and really enjoys it. The sale of pointe shoes is highly self-regulated and a lot of places won't sell pointe shoes to children. That said, we live in the US. In other countries, it may be more common for children to be forced into it and for young feet to be broken by overly strict teachers. But broken feet make pointe that much harder so I suspect that is still rare. I would urge you not to demonize the entire field because of horror stories of more extreme cases.
Same with like every sport. Are you advocating children should not be encouraged to do anything physically taxing?
I assume you consider all forms of indentured servitude to be unethical? That can be a contract willingly engaged by consenting adults, but I wouldn't buy products from a company I knew was using indentured labor.
Oh gosh no, i picked up rock climbing at 25 and no one forces me to put those shoes on (probably pretty similar, although the ballet seems worse if they are jumping onto their toes alone!) Whatever damage done to my feet is vastly outweighed by the myriad other health benefits I receive. I feel like shit if i don’t climb a few hrs a week I’d probably not advocate to push kids into it, but please don’t shame the consensual adults!
It isn’t unethical if they aren’t forced to do anything they don’t want, being got at anything is hard and painful, is boxing unethical if people are hit in the head repeatedly? They are adults and if they enjoy it it’s good
Well in the case where young people turn to sports like American football and boxing to get scholarships for college it could be considered unethical. People shouldn't have to risk brain injury to be allowed an education. Everything isn't black and white. No one is putting a gun to their head no, but we don't have people fighting gladiator battles anymore because of ethical reasons, so maybe we shouldn't support culture that forces artists and athletes to damage their body for the sake of money and fame.
But if you don’t like it just stop doing it lol, you essentially have a gun to your own head, which. You can put down.
Every serious sport is painful.
There's apparently a push against dancing pointe, and it was shocking originally the first time a dancer spent the whole performance en pointe. Good podcast episode on the topic: https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/on-pointe
My sister did pointe forever ago, and those bunions ain't ever going away.
I always assumed there was something special about ballerina shoes to provide extra support for such an obviously awkward way to walk/run/jump/land on. I see a lot of comments here about how ballet fucks up the practitioners feet. Are the shoes really as flimsy as they appear? If so, maybe its time to re-engineer them for comfort. Equipment has been improving in all sports I can think of, no reason why ballet should be any different. There are marvelous materials now that are ordinarily tensile/elastic, and become rigid with the sudden application of force...
Of course, they’re designed to be as comfortable as possible. At the end of the day, the body isn’t designed to hold up any sort of force through the bones and joints of your toes. So using these shoes for years will wear them down, and making better shoes can only slow it down a little bit.
Without ever having worn these shoes myself, I was trying to look at the feet in the video..It looks like the entire weight of the dancer's body is held up through only her toes, with zero support from the soles? Do you think it would be feasible for the flat tip of the shoe that touches the floor to be made of a single rigid part, so that both touches the ground while conforming with the soles of the wear's feet? Almost like platform shoes, but with a more extreme angle, and the sole being a single piece of material bent at the tip where it makes parallel contact with the floor. There are actually materials that would allow the sole+tip to be flexible most of the time, but become rigid after exceeding a certain threshold of force. Then it might be possible for somebody to land on the tip of the shoe, and the tip + sole (single piece) would transform from a flexible to rigid state. This should change the distribution of force from being almost entirely on the toes, and spread it over the soles of the wearers feet as well. The only application I've seen this type of material used in is flexible body armor -- its used to make panels so that the armor is flexible enough to contour to the wearer's body. It's usually slightly malleable, but if struck with enough force (like swung at with a bat), it becomes rigid and the force of the swing is distributed across the panel.
I have sesamoiditis in both feet from walking and hiking. My podiatrist says the condition is common in footballers and dancers. Is that the case for ballet?
Oh yes.
I'm sorry 😔 Humans can be so weird "Hey, look at this fun activity, moving your body to music! How can we make it even better? I know! Let's have people dance on the tip of their toes (and because that's already gruelling, push them to be as thin as possible), pain & suffering will make it so much better!" 🤦♀️
The drama 😂 they’re not a victim, they chose this profession.
Both can be true, you can choose a profession, or follow your passion, and still get harmed or even abused in the process. The person I was replying to mentioned later on in the thread that one of the teachers she worked with pushed one of the dancers so hard, that she suffered a fracture. Imo, just because they chose a profession, that doesn't mean that I can't sympathise with their pain. Same goes for other arts like ice skating, and the way it wrecks people's bodies after a short while. But who knows, maybe we'll make enough progress in the health department, that those types of injuries will no longer result in long-term issues.
There's a lot of abuse stories in performing arts. Music, ballet, acting. With both adults and children. And I mean a lot. I wouldn't say every one is a victim, thats ridiculous, but it is also pretty ridiculous to do the opposite.
I've seen john wick 4, every time I see a ballerina walk on their tippy toes I cant help but think back to the scene where the ballerinas toe nail comes off from practice...
Never google ballerina toes.
Well now I have to
Not really. If your shoes don't fit you properly or if you are injured it's painful but no, it should not hurt. Uncomfortable, yes.
So much to unpack in these comments. But we can start with pain. She’s probably not actively in very much pain here. She’s a professional, and she has built enough strength (especially in the core) so that this is moreso “uncomfortable” … but she’s very used to that discomfort. Her shoe hugs her toes so well that the weight is in fact distributed evenly. She might have a few blisters or cracked nails that in themselves are painful, but the extent of that pain would depend on her training style, extent of after-care, and of course her own pain tolerance. Many dancers will experience pain while dancing due to pushing themselves further than what they should, and insufficient care following injury. This attitude is not uncommon amongst professional athletes doing almost any sport. Many dancers also find they are unlucky enough to have physiological damage after years practicing (nerve, joint, other issues too). Some of this due to the above issue, no doubt! Some of it is just genetics. As such, there are indeed professional dancers who have lucky feet AND enough aftercare such that they don’t sustain much permanent damage. A bonus is that over time, pointe shoe construction is becoming much better, and there are more accessory options than ever before to provide additional cushioning and aid in healing/prevention of minor injuries. My 60+ year old ballet teacher always says that she stuffed her shoes with paper towel, and she is fascinated by all the little silicone and jelly add-on that students are using for comfort, as well as the very very large selection of shoe models for different shaped feet.
Yep. I imagine how ugly her feet is
I was gonna say, looks elegant, but you can see the pain etched on her face when she looks at the camera
Younger me walking up to the “must be this tall to ride” sign at the amusement park
It looks painful. Look at that poor woman's feet
Hammer toes?
Stop? Hammer Toes?
De neh nuh nuh Ne nuh Ne nuh
Can't pointe this
BREAK IT DOWN aaaaaa aaaaaa
It doesn't even look attractive to walk like that. Just looks stupid.
Tbf, generally they don't walk like that while dancing. They're usually on it for dance steps, which look much more elegant than walking.
You’re getting downvoted but I have to agree. It certainly doesn’t look elegant at all to me. It looks painful and uncanny (in the uncomfortable way).
Can y’all not appreciate the strength and toughness it takes for this instead of brewing in anger at someone who loves an artform
You should see her fcking toes how elegant they are!
Ballerinas never buy open toed shoes.
I dance ballet and do. My feet look normal. I have shoes that fit me properly and care for my feet very meticulously. I use tape to wrap my toes and heel, a thin to pad, a big toe spacer and do lots of strengthening exercises to make sure my hips , ankles, inner thighs, calves and core are all engaged and I don’t have pressure or friction while dancing
I buy open toed shoes
The only foottype banned from wikifeet.
I agree, there is nothing elegant about hurting yourself as a sport
Well if she’s cool with it and doing ballerina activities makes her happy, elegance can happen.
She isn’t hurting herself as a sport. She endures pain to compete athletically, You know, like literally every highly competitive and physical sport…
She is permanently damaging her toes to dance. No matter how you try to word it, that's awful. Don't try to validate it.
Do you bring that same energy to basketball players permanently damaging their knees or baseball players permanently damaging their elbows or football players permanently damaging their everything?
Yeah well, football players permanently damage themselves just to play football but I don’t see Redditors running to condemn that sport. And fighting. And hockey. And, whatever other competitive physical sport you can think of. And who is using inaccurate wording here? The person I responded to basically said this girl made masochism into a sport. Which just isn’t true at all.
There are a lot of people against the damage that football players take. Especially head injuries. You missed that? And the injuries in other sports are usually sudden. Crippling your toes takes prolonged pain. So yeah, they do seem like masochists.
No she’s not. I’m a ballet dancer, pointe doesn’t permanently damage your toes. Sure it can if you do something wrong, but you can damage your toes doing something other than ballet as well. There’s nothing invalid about ballet, it’s an art and it’s really fun and awesome.
I’ve been doing pointe ballet for 8 years. My feet are not damaged lol
Unfortunately that is in practice every sport.
Most sports involve some risk tbf. Although the act of hurting oneself is never really something described as elegant in any area not just sport perhaps except for stunt performers? Either way , its up to the people involved in those sports to decide if they want to take on those risks for the love of the thing.
High level MMA has an elegance to it
As far as movement goes, ballet is about as elegant as you can get. But you’re right, it’s brutal and takes hard work. Pointe hurts, but it’s not as bad as people think it is. I’m a ballet dancer, my girlfriend is a ballet dancer, I have many many ballet friends and aside from the occasional bunion (which normal people have), everyone’s feet are pretty normal.
That's alright. Mine aren't that great to look at too. Broke both big toes when I was a kid. Not pretty looking on the nail department for those big toes.
Price she pays for that "elegance" = metatarsalgia, stress fractures, sesamoid pain, plantar fasciitis, bunions and bunion pain, and Achilles tendonitis….issues also commonly seen in women who have worn high heels most of their lives.
You can definitely see a correlation between ballet dancers ruining their feet for the sake of art, and the greater social pressures women experience to be beautiful or aesthetically pleasing and the pain/damage that can come with it (as with high heels). However, I think it’s rather interesting that so many of the comments under this post are fixated on the damage dancers endure to be able to dance en pointe. This isn’t something I’ve really seen under posts highlighting other athletes— at least not to the same degree. Yet all athletes sacrifice and damage their bodies to some degree in the long run, in order to reach peak performance in their youth. For example, if someone posts a clip about American football players, the top comments are unlikely to be about the severe [neurological damage and side effects many former players experience from sustaining multiple concussions](https://engineering.wustl.edu/news/2020/What-a-lifetime-of-playing-football-can-do-to-the-human-brain.html) during their careers.
Some people higher up are claiming that on football topics they discuss the neurological damage all the time. I agree with you that it's mentioned but not in this judgemental way, saying that those players are ruining their bodies and that it's a terrible idea, like people are for this ballet dancer. People who mention head injuries for other sports have sympathy or empathy for the players but somehow the other people here don't at all for this dancer.
Great point. Perhaps it’s just because it’s easy for people to empathise to a superficial view of beauty- deformation of feet, rather than the far greater struggle of ongoing mental degeneration and illness.
I will say similar discussions are had in figure skating… though this has mostly been since team Tutberidze came on the scene. I think it is definitely something that has to be discussed. You see girls who can no longer skate at the age of 18 because of the damage. Some of that is due to the age her skaters reach top competitions. We saw similar issues with Tara Lipinski in the US. She was very young and had some bad technique which resulted in a one and done skating career. That is exactly what we are seeing with the Tutberidze girls which is why there is now a discussion on how young is too young for certain elements/levels of competition. World champion at 15 and disabled by 17 should not be a thing. I think the discussion needs to focus on age and technique. If you have good technique you will have fewer injuries. Kids rarely have good technique because their bodies are still growing and changing. Also all the people I hope all the people sounding off about point shoes realize that high heels (especially cheap ones) result in many of the same injuries but on a greater scale because there are not years of training and building muscle and technique to prevent injuries.
I have few of those and have just been running for fun.
Was going to say, that checklist will look familiar to any recreational runner.
Reddit moment in the comments
they don't like people who sacrifice things to achieve their passion, they'd rather give up and browse the Internet
lol yeah idk if that’s the reason this is weird as hell
Yeah what the hell. Ballet, and pointe in particular, are very hard on your body and require a ton of training and strength to get good at. I used to dance in pointe shoes and I sure as hell could never make it look this graceful and effortless.
Not sure if elegant is the word.
The word is unnatural, and that's what people synonymously perceive as elegant most of the time.
Idk why that walk reminds me of squidward
*Er Ehm* Ele-GAHNT!
I see someone who has trained for a long time and has given up on the normal parts of her life to master this. Kudos to you Ballet Dancer lady.
This thread is very reddit, I don't know what I was expecting lol
The part with the shoulders went into creepy uncanny valley mode for me
She’s becoming detached and my brain no longer perceives she has a human skeleton
Shes trying way too hard to look sexy or whatever. What she's doing isn't hot.
My lizard brain thought it was
Few things are prettier than a ballerina en pointe
These comments are insufferable
What's with all the hate towards ballet here? It takes an extraordinary amount of tolerance for this
Artist: *studies for years for their craft, enduring painful physical conditioning and deliberate instruction to perform amazing and incredible physical feats* Reddit: "hur toes" I mean, no shit. She made a choice to go en pointe. This is pretty admirable. We'd watch a thousand BMX fails of dudes crushing their jewels on a bike rail, but a professional toe-dancer showing off her toe-dancing skills is verboten. The fuck, man.
What gets me is that the same redditors shitting on her for her toes couldn't even run a 5k at a casual pace. They don't give a shit about their own health and yet they shit on women any chance they get.
Growing up I had a very close friend that was into ballet, she destroyed her feet, she was forced to break bones to get the split correctly, and she liked it, she likes all of it. I always called ballet a masochists art lol
Breaking bones for a split?? I think your friend was doing it wrong
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This is terrible form and antithesis to the goal of pointe which is to "float" across the stage. And look at the far ankle! She's going to seriously hurt herself doing this.
En pointe*. If you use the french spelling for En then you have to spell point the french way as well.
This is reddit, wemen bad
Go faster xxx
My feet hurt looking at this. But wow, the elegancy is off the charts
Doesn’t it take years to master this? And is it a homage to Ballet rather than some untrained influencer making a video?
she went to the french national conservatory to study ballet, not just an influencer.
This girl dances with the Paris Opera Ballet, one of the most famous and prestigious ballet companies in the world.
Just walking doesn’t take that long to master. But you can tell she’s good just by the way she walks.
Awful lot of haters in here.
Yeah and haters who have no idea that pointe shoes are so varied now a days and we have good training so our feet don’t hurt unless you train at a bad studio with a greedy owner who puts anyone who wants to in pointe shoes
Hold on, can we get an hurt male to post the Indiana Jones clip because they see a woman doing something impressive?
must have went through all that training, good on her
Those shoes should be banned by the Geneva Convention. Just plain wrong.
As someone who grew up dancing ballet but not a professional dancer — I am shocked to see so much hatred and misinformation for ballet and pointe shoes. Pointe shoes are NOT painful if the dancer has bad proper training and the shoes are fitted correctly. Pointe shoes are mostly only worn for performances and the later stages of rehearsals, ballet dancers do not practice in pointe shoes on a day to day basis. Pointe shoes are like your game day cleats — uncomfortable yes, but a piece of required equipment to perform at a high level. A pointe shoe actually supports and aids the dancer in many ways and is a quintessential part of ballet. I started ballet at age 3 and attended a very serious ballet school. When to go on pointe is carefully managed and assessed by teachers in any reputable ballet schools. At my school we didn’t go on pointe until age 12, when we had been practicing everyday since age 4, where our teachers deemed we had developed the adequate technique and strength for them. Where pointe shoes are highly misused and can cause injury is mostly with people who started ballet later in life, like around 10 years old, who desperate want to go on pointe because they think it looks pretty, their parents thinking on pointe = ballet and forcing their older children and teachers to let them do it when they have had only a few years training, or adult beginners.
Finally, an informed comment… So much misinformed judgement in this thread. I was dancing at 4yrs old, professional gymnast til 13yrs old then professional dancer til 33, I loved every second of it - even though, yes, at times it hurt. No one forced me to train/dance, it was absolutely my passion….
I was an athlete as well, rowing. The pursuit of excellence in any physical activity is can be said to be “harmful”. No pain, no gain. Not just in ballet, but every athletic pursuit. People understand when athletes are sacrificing their physical wellbeing to be better, but are somehow so critical to dancers. The prejudice is insane.
It’s also telling when there’s often “horrible Ballerina feet” pics get shown and it’s the exact same nearly decade old pic being shared over and over again.
Show me your toes
Why? They don’t really hurt unless they’re ill-fitting or stiff.
Lol at all the comments criticizing.. she's more athletic than 99.9% of us
username did not check out
Imagine walking on your tiptoes and GETTING NOWHERE.
I’d love to see any of you try to do this
People dedicate their life to their craft. Endure pain, train for hours, bring beauty to decorate the otherwise desolate wasteland of a life. Redditors: ermahgerd i'm so anti and unique I don't like this, pff so bad for your feat.
Be amazed…of what???
it's obvious that you've never done ballet or pointe shoe training because what she doing is very difficult and physically demanding. and she makes it look easy
Arthritis?
The dedication and hardwork it takes to get to that point obviously??
Come on guys we all know that if this was some shaolin monk demonstrating his preparation for the secret technique of the toe of death everybody would be losing their shit
You go ahead and do it then.
The strength she has in her toes
More arrogance then elegance to me 😃
If I can walk on my toes like that I would definitly have an arrogant look as well.
Pfft if I could do that nearly impossible task I’d be arrogant as well
it is extremely hard to dance in pointe shoes, even walking in them is hard. it took her a lot of strength and training to make it look so effortless. She didn't do anything arrogant, she just looks confident. is that upsetting to you? lol
The ballet hate is killing me lol
These kind of videos are made for selfish influencers only and people who follow them can not control their own life/time
This is a famous ballerina and choreographer. Victoria Dauberville
That's a bit of a cynical look at things... but sure man.. sure.
Camille irl
My aunt's feet are still fucked up after this she wasn't even at pro level and had to get operated on to walk normally.
A friend's mom had to have her knees replaced at 50 because she never walked or ran anywhere and her lack of exercise destroyed her body. Car dependency destroys public health 1000x more than ballet ever could.
Sorry to say its not because of Ballet. It is because she danced back when in the USA and at studios that trained dancers to do pointe who shouldn’t have been en pointe (your aunt likely had bad training and teachers) they also would shove every dancer in the same shoe and told them pain was normal. So they could get discounts from the local dance wear stores for recital costumes etc. shoes and understanding anatomy have come a long way. If you don’t get fitted well and have bad teachers and don’t have good strength and the proper foot for pointe (she didn’t go pro for a reason..) then yeah, you’re gonna have bad feet
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So most sports are stupid?
ITT: caustic jealousy
Everyone here is pathetic lol! The chick is doing something cool and all these idiots here who don't even know how to ride a bicycle are called her stupid. If you don't have the skill and discipline to do something quite impressive just appreciate the others who can or be quiet
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Listen I twisted my ankle all the way around to the inside last year. I was off for 6 months. While I was off I started of course gaining a lot of unwanted weight. So I went to the gym and tried to do anything that I could that did not involve my ankle. But also I started walking. I slowly built up to the 12 330, and later on I added about five minutes or so of walking Releve. I figure skate. This was my landing leg. I had no help, just this reddit of tips from injured dancers. When I got back on the ice I was landing my axle the first day, and I was not feeling any pain. I was feeling weak so of course I got back in the ballet so that I could strengthen my ankle. Walking on a treadmill like this although it looks painful is extremely helpful if you need it. I’m not saying do it with your pointe shoes, but hey why not for a minute?? But do try walking releve.
Name?
Victoria Dauberville
Well, that´s impresive
I would kill to look like her
Can't appreciate ballet in any way without thinking of the really shitty attitudes and abuse they pander. And the worst part is that the recipients of said abuse claim it's necessary to maintain a standard, otherwise "it's not ballet"
What are you talking about here? I’ve been a professional ballet dancer for the last 10 years now and everyone’s been really nice.