Web of muscles OR: Why we wear slippers instead of socks

Under your foot is a web of muscles we call, collectively, the intrinsic muscles. They do so much work for us!

By Henry Vandyke Carter - Henry Gray (1918) Anatomy of the Human Body

There is both dorsal flexion and plantar flexion of the foot (top and bottom, respectively). The easy way to remember which is which is to think we "plant" our foot on the ground and that is the plantar side of the foot.

We definitely need both types of flexion to do ballet but when it comes to releve, pointe work and just basically pointing our feet, we rely on the muscles on the bottom of the feet and toes. The problem with this is that we tend to think of them as one muscle when they are in fact, dozens (almost a hundred!). The result of this is that we grip the bottoms of our feet and toes when we dance rather than activate and lengthen them.

One way to do that is to wear slippers with soles rather than socks.

"But I can articulate all the muscles of my feet and my toes when I wear socks!" you say. "Plus they're so comfy!"

Both of these things are true. However, when you wear slippers that have some sole (and nowadays, people only wear split soles rather than full), you give your feet some structure and you give your muscles something to work against and in turn, help strengthen them.

Another reason to wear slippers instead of socks is to give the foot a shape that finishes the line and helps guide the toes inside. Not everyone can point their feet and have their toes look like a perfect point; ballet slippers help the toes find that shape and train the muscles to keep the toes in their place.

A ballet slipper will also lift the medial longitudinal arch of the foot which is the long arch on the inside of the foot that, when active, domes the foot (hollows it out) and lifts it off the ground. Strengthening these muscles and this arch is critical to pointe work and to maintaining a high releve in demi-pointe for multiple turns, etc.

Happy dancing~

A Trio of Tips for Thursday!

Not one but 3! No matter what level you are, I have a helpful dance tip for you!

1. Beginner:

Promenade - one of the biggest errors I see in students attempting promenade (which is a series of small heel lifts to turn in place and can be executed in arabesque, attitude, retire, etc.) is that they begin the movement with their hips, knees or shoulders. 

The very first thing you do to begin a promenade is to lift the heel. There should be no weight at the back of the foot during promenade or else you will find yourself rocking back and forth and eventually falling off your leg. Unless otherwise choreographed, you should keep a very straight support leg with knees pulled up by your quads and hamstrings. As you turn in place, do not allow the support leg to bend or the knee to go soft. Maintain the position you are turning in by lifting and lowering the heel by about 1/4" or 1/2" but not usually more than that.

2. Intermediate:

Pirouette arms - in my ongoing quest to dissect and diagnose pirouettes and to offer guidance to students who struggle, I would have to say the #1 problem I see is the arms are not held in front of the body for the entire turn. Whatever position you are taught (a classic first position, a higher first position, a portrait style low first position, crossed arms, etc.) you must keep them in front of you until you finish the turn and roll down.

Pirouette anxiety, whether you are working flat or en pointe, usually causes us to pull back with our upper body. We fear falling which often makes us collapse in our centers. Our shoulders slump or roll and our arms droop or get left behind during the turn. Some of us fling our arms open to second long before the turn is completed.

Instead, try to bring the arms very quickly to your first position as you push up to releve and hold them there! Don't let them open or drop until you have completed the turn and can see yourself in the mirror in retire before you open the arms and roll down. I can virtually guarantee you that your turns will improve if you do this.

3: Advanced:

Finishing the lines - some of the most beautiful things in ballet are the lines that are created on stage. For example, an arabesque does not need to be higher than ninety degrees to be gorgeous but it does need to be finished. Same with arms: they may swirl and swish through the air but when they are posed, they must be finished with fingers extended and elbows lifted. How many times have you been in the audience and gasped at the stunning lines of professional ballerinas? They know how to get very last inch out of their legs and arms.

You can too! But you must focus on arching the top and bottom of your foot, reaching through your back to the palms and fingers of your hands, lengthening the back of your neck and holding a strong core. When you practice these things at the barre (rather than simply flinging your arms and feet away from you), you will have beautiful lines in the center. Your movements will be complete and you will avoid that weird strobe effect that you see on stage. If you are in the corps, you absolutely must finish your lines or you will look out of sync with the other dancers.

Hope these tips help you! Happy dancing~

Improving your arch - actively!

100% True story: when I was in college, a fellow dancer who wanted a better arch used to place weights on the tops of her feet at night while she was studying and let them pull her toes forward and down to the floor, stretching the muscles and ligaments in the hopes of creating a more pronounced lateral arch (i.e. the side view of the foot in which the top rises like a mountain, what people in the ballet world call "a good foot").

We scoffed at her. How on earth could that passive stretch do anything to her arch, which was primarily due to bone structure? If anything, allowing weight to pull your foot would simply result in overstretched ligaments which - PAY ATTENTION HERE - do not snap back once they are overstretched.

Let me say that again: Overstretched ligaments do not return from whence they came. Unlike muscles, they do not have the same amount of give. DO NOT passively stretch your foot like this - e.g. using an arch stretcher. DO NOT. Bad dancer, bad, bad dancer.

It worked. I can't recall how long it took her but one day we noticed, "Hey, she's got good feet." She never had them before. At the time we all attributed the change to her nightly regimen. Fortunately we were all smart enough not to attempt to replicate her success. Today she probably has really weak ankles and wobbles in her releve.

HOWEVER - thinking back on it now, and with my years of experience as a teacher, I doubt the veracity of this. Instead I think she probably just learned how to get up on her releve and to use the floor and point her feet properly.

Some people have naturally beautiful arches and that's great. Some don't and that's great too. How feet work is far more important (as an adult or recreational dancer) than how they look. As a teacher, I show people how to get the most from their feet, how to work the floor and pull up, how to keep the bones in line and use the right muscles to lift, and so on.

But there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve your arch. And in doing so, increase your strength and range of motion.

In this post on her blog, The Healthy Dancer, Diana Harris writes about the best exercises for dancers to increase their arch. I think they are all terrific suggestions and I highly recommend students who want to improve their arches take a look for themselves and try to incorporate one or two on a regular basis. Thank you, Diana, for letting me include your post! (You can also click the caption below the photo to get to the article)

From The Healthy Dancer, "Exercises to Improve the Arch of Your Foot"

Happy dancing~