Ever wonder? :)

This post will be about.....SHOES !! But first let me clarify something, it is not about the normal kind of shoes you wear everyday..... :) Ready? haha..
Have you ever wonder how ballet dancers dance on the tip of the toe? It's actually not a "miracle" as most of us would think. Here's the secret, if you carefully observe the ballet slippers below, there is a tiny box forming at the tip of the shoe. Made of metal, covered wt pink satin material. The sole is supported with a thin material of metal too ie for beginners who started learning pointe work. Looks helpful,but there will be other problems arising from that.
F.r.i.c.t.i.o.n causing ~b.l.i.s.t.e.r.s~ even though ur toes are wrapped wt many layers of cloth(cheap method) or by wearing toepads which is very expensive! For any girl who wants to be a ballet instructor, examiner and professional dancer, pointework is the essence for classical ballet. Unfair, isn't it?
Personally, it is a painful process going through all this. Blisters will be there all the time, it takes maybe 5 days at least to heal but you will be getting new blisters when you attend another lesson,especially on your big toe where your whole body weight 39 kg relies on that toe. Toe nails must be trimmed properly, else it would result acute pain. There was once my friend's toenail snapped ( maybe she didn't keep it short) while doing pointe work. You can conclude that ballet dancers' feet are not as "nice" as it seems.
To avoid slipping off, we usually rub the tip of the shoes wt "frosin" powder, the coarse kind of powder for strong grip before starting off. To prevent the tip of the shoe from tearing to pieces ( the material) we protect it by glueing a "crochet" cap on it. New shoes come in dark pink colour and usually, to make it look faded, we apply powder. I hate this idea because this will make the shoes very powdery and slippery.
Tap shoes on the other hand can be polished to make it shine. Notice that underneath the shoe there are 2 tiny slabs of moderately thick metal nailed to the shoe to create the tapping sound when you dance. Erm...looks tiny cos that was the shoes I wore when I was nine. =)
Pointework is not compulsory for grade syllabus(ideally as a hobby) but it is for major
syllabus. Think that's all for this post.*No connection wt this post: For the past whole week, I am troubled with this incident narrated in this blog. Got to be extra careful in future.