Back to the pointe: a long, drawn-out story that does not get to the point

Yesterday, I did my first pirouette en pointe since 2006.  

Last summer, I saw on Facebook that one of my friends, who had also been a ballet dancer in her youth, was going back to pointe work.  I snickered to myself and commented something like "I've restarted ballet again, but that's the one thing I'm not ever going back to!"

Feeling quite confident and content with my decision to never put pointe shoes on again, I continued taking classes at my studio (Ithaca Ballet).  In December, I went to see their production of the Nutcracker.  Apparently, this triggered some kind of mental break.  At the first notes of the Overture, I was pulled down into the greatest possible depths of nostalgia (oddly, the same thing happened when watching Black Swan, and the girls said "merde!").  And by the end of the Waltz of the Snowflakes, I was completely gone.  I knew I had a brand new pair of pointe shoes tucked away at home.  I was going to go back en pointe.

Being in the throes of final papers and grading final exams, I didn't actually dig out those shiny satin shoes.  Two weeks later, however, found me back at my parents' house for the holidays and rummaging through my closet for my already broken-in shoes.

Definitely the most elegant way to wear pointe shoes.

At this point I had neither toe pads nor good tape, so I just kept my thick wool socks on to put them on for the first time.  With the slight crunching feeling in my toes I also remembered the reason why I had become so disillusioned with pointework--the pain of the foot being crunched.  The summer after I turned 13, I grew three inches in three months.  My feet apparently were a little behind, but they too crept up in size.  I was between sizes in street shoes, which is probably why I didn't notice immediately.  However, pointework suddenly became very painful when I was 14.  My toes were fine--the skin was intact, I had no blisters, and absolutely no pain in technique shoes even after very intense classes.  But my feet hurt, somewhat when I was on flat and rather a lot when my feet were actually bearing weight on pointe. 

The pain got worse and worse, unfortunately during rehearsal season for the Nutcracker.  I was doing the Chinese character dance, which at that studio had a lot of pas de couru, as well as 12 pirouettes from fifth at the end.  I was in agony.  If it wasn't specified, I did rehearsal in technique shoes, mostly when we were just learning choreography. 

Madame did not like this at all, and thought I was slacking off (to be clear, I am not, and never have been the type of person to not put in 100%).  She got mad.  However, midway through the rehearsal season I figured out that my feet would stop hurting if I took the heels off--so the shoe was on, and I was dancing on pointe, but the back of the heel was down below.  Madame still didn't like this, so she talked to my mother.  My mother was very angry at the suggestion that I was trying to get out of work.  My mother talked to me.  The next rehearsal, I had new pointe shoes--and they were a size bigger.

It was magical!  The pain went away.  (Madame remained doubtful that it was actually a problem with the shoes, and not with my mentality.)

Anyway, it was these bigger and broken-in shoes that I put on with wool socks this last December.  The wool socks, of course, made them slightly too small, and really offered minimal padding.  But it was good enough for the amount of pointework I was going to do. And I have since acquired ouch pouches, which always worked for me in the past (as well as a jelly pad to let my big toe bear some weight--I'm one of the weirdos with a really long second toe). 

To clarify, I do NOT recommend that people start pointework--whether it's for the first time or restarting--by themselves!  I know that it can be very dangerous.  Nevertheless, being still young and dumb (no worries, this story does not end with a broken ankle), I started doing releves at my bureau. 

Now, dancers get upset when "lay people," for lack of a better term, dismissively say that dancers aren't athletes; they point out all the muscles that are working and the height of jumps (and for scoffing men, show them videos of male dancers carrying women around on their shoulders).  As a dancer with non-dancer friends, I've had to do this.  However, I had completely forgotten the intensity of muscles that are used in pointework.  I started pointe when I was 10, and probably weighed under 100 pounds.  Between ages 10 and 15, I certainly grew and gained weight, but of course did not notice when I was doing pointe all the time.

A smaller, whippier me on the far right, I think about six months after starting pointe

Since quitting pointe seven years ago, I have both grown upwards and gained hips.  So going back on pointe was interesting.  Releves while clutching my bureau were a challenge.  About two eleves made my entire foot tired.  And putting weight on one foot?  Forget it.  And!  Things that I can get away with in technique shoes, like not pulling up all the way through my leg or my sides--well that's just a complete disaster on the tips of your toes.  

I had about two and a half weeks at home, so I resolved to do about 20 minutes of work every night, plus theraband exercises.  After about a week I was up to doing releves without the bureau.  I found out that my weight is indeed carried very far back (as has been pointed out to me by my current instructor), but while I have no problems balancing or shifting weight in technique shoes, it is quite a challenge en pointe. 

I generally have a very good feel for "what would happen if I tried this?" regarding dancing, and in this venture so far, I have not been wrong (knock on wood!).  After another few days I no longer felt that I would come crashing down if I did a small pique to the right foot.  It took my left foot a couple of more days to feel secure.  And bourres took a surprisingly long time to start. 

Anyway, I came back to my studio last week and did just a few exercises of my normal class en pointe--grand battements at the barre, releves and eleves at the barre, tendus in center with some pirouettes that I did as simple releves, and the adagio in center.  Because the hidden challenge in pointe shoes is, of course, balancing on the flat on one foot! 

The rest of the class, my leg muscles were vaguely trembling.  They were NOT used to that kind of abuse!  Pointe work alone, great.  Ballet class alone, just dandy.   But both in the same day?  It's just inhumane (they protested). 

I was bad about keeping up with my ankle and foot exercises this week, but I did two yoga classes so I will excuse myself.  Clearly, I need stronger hips and quads anyway in order to pull up out of my shoes.  But this week in class, I kept on my shoes for longer, through the waltz combination.  We did a very simple one, with only two pique turns en dedans and one pirouette en dehors (and chaines).  For the first round, I just did the pique turns, because they were slow and my "spidey senses" said I would be able to hold myself securely.

But then my spidey senses started tingling.  I had done some passe releves in the center during the tendus, and my right leg and ankle were feeling really secure.  Why shouldn't I try a pirouette?  Just to the left?  (I'm actually better at turns to the right, generally speaking, but the difference in pointe shoes is of course that en dehors to the left means the weight is on the right foot.)  I didn't feel up to the one-legged nature of the pirouette from fourth so I did it from fifth.

And I totally nailed it.  :D  It was just a single, and it was rea-l-l-y slow, but it was a pirouette!  I even rolled down correctly after.

We'll see where this pointe stuff goes.  Maybe I'll be able to perform next year :)

Dancing as an adult: technique

Compared to a lot of adult dancers, I'm a baby.  I acknowledge this.  I'm in my early 20s and a lot of the physical complaints that adult dancers have to work through have not yet settled into this sack of bones.  I also have the advantage of having danced since I was young: at 2 and a half I had my first tap class, and at 7 I started classical ballet training. 

I'm still pronating in this picture. Note: forced turnout in front foot, knee in front of toe, arch collapsed. Tsk tsk. 

In there, I had a hiatus from ages 15 to 18.  Even though that is a very short hiatus, and even though I am admittedly still a young dancer, it's quite different dancing "post hiatus" as compared to pre-hiatus.  

The most significant difference is the self-discipline and attention to proper technique.  This is probably true for anything done as a young kid and then again as an adult: adults tend to care and want to work to get better.  Why else would they bother taking ballet?  Or riding horses?  Or learning an instrument? 

Furthermore, adults are more motivated to gain proper technique to avoid pain and injury. 

Even as a young kid, my joints were not exactly well-oiled.  I had knee pain, a neck with uncertain wonkiness, and rollin' and rockin' hips (as well as snapping hip, as I have recently learned).  But, you know, young joints, young muscles, young connective tissue, all that meant that my technique could be so-so and I still wouldn't be in significant pain.

When I was 15, I went to a physical therapist for my knees.  I think that the experience did not push me in the right direction.  The first therapist informed me that my knees hurt because I had flat feet--this was a surprise to me, as my ballet teachers had always said that I had nice arches.  The second one decided that my knee pain was due to weak quads, which also surprised me, given the whole running-jumping-pliéing thing that I did for hours and hours a week.  So I was assigned some essentially useless exercises, which didn't address the root of the problem, and I went on with so-so technique that still enabled high jumps and smooth turns.

However, after a few weeks of a fairly intense ballet class in college, I developed shin splints.  They weren't terrible, but petit and grand allegro more often than not had me walking away wondering how to make it stop.  During my first conference with my instructor, even before I mentioned my shin and knee pain, she very simply said, "Well, you have lovely jumps, but you tend to pronate.  That puts a lot of stress on your knees."  My eyes got starry, and I told her about my shin splints.  She nodded and said, "Yes, that is probably because of the pronation.  Do you have knee pain as well?"

Ohhhh.

That explains it--why the first physical therapist saw me walk five steps and declared me flat-footed, and why the second physical therapist was, without actually telling me the specifics, trying to work muscles that would pull my knees over my ankles.  But without results--because strength does not equal technical employment when you're doing saut de chats from the corner--I stopped. 

My goddess instructor had me jump in parallel with strict attention to my pronation and knee placement, and--whaddya know--no pain!  Not from the shins, not from the knees.  It was amazing. 

After that I was super motivated to banish my pronation forever, so I started walking with attention to the outside edge of my feet.  When I was brushing my teeth I supinated, went back to flat, and supinated again.  I pulled up through my arches when standing in line. I practiced a lot of very careful pliés and sautés with great care to my knee placement.  And I got better at not pronating, my shin splints got less severe, and ultimately went away permanently after a 2-month rest and return. 

This is just one example of dedication to better technique, but for me, probably the most significant.  It has also led to better-balanced and stronger jumps.  Amazing--good technique gets results.  I think this isn't stressed as much in most ballet studios, possibly because kids can get away with it.  "Technique" at my old studio was spotting and posture.  Spotting, because otherwise you fall over; posture, because otherwise you don't "look nice."  Pulling up through your ribs in a one-legged balance wasn't for support and stability; it was because the line didn't look nice when it was sunk. 

I imagine that kids, through the sheer fact of being kids with still-gelling motor systems and still-spongy brains, can "pick up" a lot of technique, just through experimentation.  What makes you fall over, what sustains a balance?  It's like language--bear with me here--small children use different acoustic cues to distinguish "s" and "sh" than adults do.  Apparently, it's good enough and produces results that are pretty close to adult differentiation.  But at some point they switch to acoustic cues that are more reliable.

In ballet technique, then, for example, I can learn to have decent extensions via clenching muscles in my hips and thighs.  My line isn't as pretty as the girl next to me, but hey, she's more flexible, maybe that's why.  But in the end it's kind of painful and a lot of work.  To develop the proper technique and strength, it takes more work and thinking, and undoing the habit of clenching.  And for a kid that's just bouncing around because dance is fun and they're not in actual pain, where's the motivation?  However, technique is really important for longevity and also, of course, for long-term enjoyment. 

Tip of the tongue, tips of the toes

I personally think that my blog title is quite clever, but it might need some explanation.

First and foremost, I'm a linguist.  I'm a PhD student in linguistics, studying phonetics and phonology.  Just a few hours ago, I was writing a brief lab report, and I couldn't remember the name of the bony protrusion behind the ears.  Mast-something process--masticatory?  Masticle?

After writing an email to my labmate I remembered: mastoid process!

I'm sure everyone reading this has experienced this problem at some point, where the word is at the tip of your tongue but you can't--quite--spit it out.  Linguists like to call this "tip of the tongue syndrome."

I changed "tongue" to "toe" and giggled because, of course, toes are important in ballet, particularly when we are dancing on the tips of them, en pointe.

So that's me: nerd, geek, dancer.  I also add equestrian, fishkeeper, novice knitter, and baker to the list.  I'm writing this blog because I've recently restarted ballet in a fairly serious way, venturing back to pointe shoes for the first time since I was 15.  I make it sound like it was eons ago--in reality, I stopped just 7 years ago.  However, as I have been discovering, seven years is plenty of time to lose muscle, coordination, and confidence.  But onward!  And importantly, upward!