Get to the Pointe — pointe shoe fitting for flexible feet

This is a dancer's worst nightmare. And confirmation of an age old superstition that dancing en pointe will break feet. Pointe shoes are meant to be a tool to help you dance en pointe. However, the wrong fit can prove harmful. Injuries and outdated fitting methods are the reason why we exist. To keep dancers safe and dancing for longer. Josephine discusses the rehab pointe shoe she picked for a dancer who broke several metatarsals, part of her lower leg, and has achilles issues.  Rehab pointe shoes are not often a dancer's 'forever shoe,' but for the time being, it...

Cheese grater and pointe shoes? What? This week, Josephine reacted to Maria Khoreva's pointe shoe preparation. And yes, it includes a cheese grater. Khoreva is first soloist of the Mariinsky Ballet in Russia. Even if you didn't know her name, if you love ballet, there's a high chance that you've at least seen her picture. Josephine was pretty surprised to see that Maria is in a Bloch stock shoe. Often times, professionals will have custom shoes based on stock shoe models. But even with some changes made at the factory level, pro dancers often still manually adjust and make changes...

This week - a pointe shoe fitting video! Yay! Your comments asking for more fitting videos are seen. Originally, we had to step away from this format back in 2020 during the pandemic. There were a few attempts with masks and captions, but scheduling got tricky. But when one door closes (at least temporarily), another opens! And thus, reaction videos were born. More specifically Tik Tok reaction videos were born. However, this whole time, pointe shoe fittings are happening constantly. They just weren't captured on camera. But for this video, we connected with 2022 Junior Model, Samantha Striplin! She has...

This week, Josephine was in Florida at YAGP Finals, and fit a dancer from Japan named Asuka Hara. This adorable and beautiful dancer is 11 years old. She is the 2022 recipient of YAGP's Hope Award, which is presented to the dancer for best overall performance in the Pre-Competitive category (9-11 years old). Asuka competed and performed on flat, in a variation from Graduation Ball. Although Asuka does have pointe shoes, she has not performed or competed en pointe yet. YAGP's guidelines do not allow 10 year olds to compete en pointe, and 11 year olds are strongly discouraged. However, during the...

This week, Josephine shared a fitting story from a studio in Sacramento. At first glance, there was nothing functionally wrong with this shoe. Sometimes dancers get fittings even if they like their current shoe, just for a second opinion. Sometimes everything is fine - but other times dancers sometimes don't realize when things are not as they should be. In this case, Josephine thought the shoe was doing everything it needed to: supported the dancer kept her stable en pointe, and wasn't causing injury. However, the shoe could look better under the ball of the foot. The shoe was reverse...