Pointe Basics

Pointe Basics!

Hello everyone welcome back to my last blog. Previously in the other blogs I talked about dance basics, placement, and positions. Now today for my final blog I’ll be getting into a fun topic. Pointe! Going on pointe is always every ballerina’s dream from the day they begin ballet. Even though pointe may seem fun it is actually a lot of work and very painful. You must have strong feet and ankles so when you go up onto pointe you will be able to hold yourself and not injure yourself.

First I will be talking about how to get on top of your pointe box. There are good placements and bad placements when you’re just standing on top of your box. A good position would be when your box is completely flat on the floor, you want to make sure you aren’t rolling over, or not going far enough.

rolling over 

not over far enough

perfectly on top of the box

If you don’t have flexible feet you will really need to stretch them to fully get up on the box, and if you have really flexible feet you need to strengthen and control them so you aren’t always rolling over your box and pushing too far to create injuries.

Normally the very first moves you learn in pointe and should practice are releves, eleves, rolling through your feet to get the box and shank more flexible. A releve is when you plie and push up onto your box, a eleve is the same thing without a plie, and a plie is when you bend your legs.

You basically do the same things en pointe that you do on flats. But it is much harder since you have to get all the way from flat onto your box. You’ll have to have lots of self control to keep your center and not fall over or roll your foot. Piroettes are faster since the satin makes it have less friction but they are harder since you have to get all the way up on your box. 

I hope you enjoyed this blog about Pointe basics. Pointe is very fun and i really recommend it if you ever get the chance and opportunity to take it you should really try it. Its very different than normal ballet. My question for you is after reading my last blog do you think pointe is hard, or would hurt? would you ever consider taking a pointe class?



Copeland, Misty, and Charisse Jones. Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina. New York: Touchstone, Published by Simon and Schuster, 2014. Print.