If you’re looking at this word and trying to remember what on earth it is, don’t worry. You know it.

It’s pronounced “Fye-ee.” We usually do it conjoined with an assamble. Here’s a video (she starts with a sousus, then plies into it):



Here’s what I’ve discovered about failli: Many people confuse Sissone with Failli. Think about this: Failli means “Falling through.” the failli part of the video above is the part where the leg in the air comes through and crosses. Failli can be done without a jump as well! It can be done out of a releve, it can be done out of a pirouette, it can be done out of an arabesque. Usually we just say “cross” or “cross over.” But that’s technically the Failli part.

So when you see someone doing the thing above in the video, that’s technically “Sissone Failli Assamble.”

So there you go. You learned something new!

Every time I teach sissone, I start by saying, “Does anyone know what sissone means?… and if you say “scissor,” I will make you do push-ups.”

The french word “Cisuaex” (pronounced see-zoh) means “scissor.” the word Sissone doesn’t actually mean anything, it’s the name of the man who invented the step.

The step goes like this: you start with two feet on the ground, plie, jump up in the air, and land on one foot. Then you either leave the foot up in the air (overt meaning open), or you close it (ferme, meaning closed). See the video below for a demonstration.

The first thing they do is two sissone fermes, then one sissone overt, pas de bouree. Then they do sissone simple and finish with some assambles.

The important thing to remember about sissone is it’s a jump, not a leap. Remember this post about the differences between jumps and leaps? if not go back and read it again. Keep it in mind as you jump up in sissone before you land. Every student I’ve ever had who has had problems with sissone, their problem was that they were leaping (going from one foot to the other) instead of jumping.

Knowing whether or not a step is a leap or a jump helps you know where to put your energy. Do you go up in the air, or travel across the floor? Where is your focus? And how does changing that energy affect the combination/choreography?



A leap is any step that moves through the air and goes from one foot to the other. Your focus is movement across the floor.

Grand jeté: you brush one foot up into the air, and leap onto it.
Petit jeté: you’re brushing one leg and landing on it (though in coupe).
Glissade: you brush one foot, leap onto it, and then close the other one.

Jumps are a little different. They usually don’t travel (or they travel only a little) and the focus is getting up in the air.

Sissones jump up into the air and land on one foot.
sauté jumps up and lands, and doesn’t travel at all.
Temps levé jumps up and down on one foot only.
Assamblé under jumps up off of one foot and lands on two feet.

But there’s one that doesn’t fit.. Assamblé. (It's special, it gets it's own post.)

Dégagé is a very important step, because not only is it a good warm-up for the feet, and a strengthener for pointe, but it’s a preparation step for later steps in the center, like glissade, sauté and temps levé, and jetés.

The word degage means “disengaged.” The American and Italian school tend to call the step this because we’re focused on disengaging from the floor. However the French school tends to call it battement glissé, which means “glide.” They want this step to focus on the gliding graceful aspects of the step. The Russians school often calls it battement jeté, which means “thrown.” They look at the sharper components, and want the throwing out and pulling back in.

It’s important to know all these different versions so that a) if you ever go to a different class and the teacher says one of them, you know what they’re talking about, and b) good dégagés combine all three of these different components. Disengaging, throwing, and gliding. See if you can get all three of those adjectives into your dégagés!

Why is vocabulary important? I mean, if you know how to do the step, why does it matter what it’s called, what it means, and what all the variations of the word means? Just do the step, right?
Not really. Yes I can brush my foot out of fifth position and put it back in without knowing it’s called a degage, but if I don’t understand the vocabulary, I lose quality of movement.
That being said, I’m putting together a series of blog posts where I take you through all the basic ballet steps (barre and centre) and explain what they mean, and how that should affect your dancing them.
Here is the list (and I’ll hyperlink each one as they go live!)

• Plie
• Cambre
• tendu
• degage
• pas de cheval
• passe
• en cloche/ballencoire
• rond de jambe
• fondu
• developpe
• frappe
• grand battement
• adagio
• saute/temps leve
• sissone
• Jumps and Leaps
• failli
• glissade
• assamble
• jete
• pas de chat
• grand jete
• pas de bouree
• pique

That’s a lot, right? But don’t worry, it’ll be awesome! I think this will be very helpful for everyone, and I’m excited to get started on this project! There will be a combination of text, pictures, and videos.
So warm up and stretch out, and let’s get started!

Remember this article, about how to lose weight and get all your nutrition? I’ve had people ask me to give examples about what kinds of stuff to eat when you follow that diet, so here you go!

Breakfast

• ½ cup oatmeal, milk, chopped apples or dried fruit, nuts, and sprinkle of cinnamon 
• 1 biscuit of Shredded Wheat (plain flavor) 
• 1 cup Fiber 1 Cinnamon O’s 
• Cup of yogurt with fresh cut fruit only (no fruit yogurt or sugary yogurt) 
• 1 Health-nut muffin 
• 1 pancake made with peanut butter, apple sauce, and wheat germ
• ½ bottle Naked © juice 
• 1 cup of fresh fruit 
• ¼ cup granola (no sugar! Just plain granola) with milk or yogurt 
• 2 eggs and one half of a whole grain bagel

Lunch or Dinner

• 1 cup brown rice, ½ piece of grilled or baked chicken (or fish)
• 1 cup brown rice, 1 cup black beans (or other beans) on top (add tomato, pepper, onion, little bit of cheese, etc)
• Wrap with turkey (or ham), provolone cheese, hummus, spinach, and tomato
• Bagel sandwich (bagel, 2 pieces of meat, lots of lettuce, 1 piece of tomato)
• Bean and rice burrito with veggies
• Half a yam or sweet potato (just cook until soft, then slice open and eat).

Snacks

• Half an apple, tablespoon of peanut butter
• Plain rice cake, tablespoon of peanut butter
• String cheese
• ½ bottle Naked © juice
• veggies and hummus
• Cucumber, cheddar, and turkey sandwich (stack it up and use the cucumber slice as the bread)

There are a lot of different kinds of rond de jambes, and today, I’d like to take you through all of them, one at a time, in intricate detail. (I’m working on a video of all the different ones, so stay tuned!)



Rond de Jambe – circle of the leg. Most rond de jambes draw a half circle or a circle. try to visualize the half-circles in all these different kinds.

a terre (or par terre) – a rond de jambe on the ground. tendu, circle to the side, circle to the reverse, and close in first.

petit – small rond de jambe. Tendu front, circle to the side, and close. (Or reverse.)

demi (a la second a terre) – small rond de jambe (to the side). makes a circle, but stays in second. (imagine an a la seconde rond de jambe oval that you draw with your foot… but do it on the ground.)

en l’air (or a la second en l’air) – battement to the side, and circle back in to retire

grand – large rond de jambe. battement, passe, and developpe to the opposite direction, and brush back through. (Imagine a half-circle turned on its side).

grand en l’air – Large rond de jambe in the air. battement, carry to the side, carry to the other direction.

grand battement en rond (or grand rond de jambe battement). from coupe or attitude, battement out to a degage, carry to the side, and carry to the opposite side in tendu (this is a Russian step).
Photo credit: mkd. via Visual Hunt / CC BY

Protecting your feet in pointe shoes is not just about avoiding pain. Sure, pain sucks, but you know what sucks harder? Ingrown toe-nails. Stress fractures. Actual broken bones. Bleeding through your pointes. Toes growing in weird directions due to shoes that don’t fit right. Now that, my friends, sucks.



There are ways to avoid said discomforts and injuries. Enjoy the info below, and if you have anything to add, please leave a comment! I might add it to the post.

Prevention

The best way to avoid pain and injury is to be proactive in preventing it. Here are a few tips for before you put on your shoes:

• Cut your toenails a few days before class, not the night before or the morning of. The skin under the toenails is soft, and if it’s freshly exposed, it hurts a lot when you put your weight on it!
• If you forget to cut them, don’t cut them before you put your shoes on. Dancing with long-ish toenails is better than dancing with ones that are too short. Cut them as soon as you take your shoes off so you won’t forget next class.
• On that note, if you do tend to forget a lot, keep a nail file in your dance bag. That way, you can file your toe nails down a little bit every time you notice they’re a little long, and you don’t have to worry about when is the best time to cut them.
• If your toes are a little soft, soak your feet in a combo of water and rubbing alcohol, or use the rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and rub your toes down. Do this a few times during the day, and for a few days. It’ll dry out and toughen the skin (and while you’re at it, get rid of any infections that might be starting without your knowledge), and you’ll be more likely to get a callous (good!) than a blister (bad.).

Serious callous:

It’s ugly… but it’s the body’s natural protection method. That person won’t have pain in that area of his/her foot.

Blister: soft skin with either liquid or air under it. Painful. Yuck. bad. Poke it with a sterile needle, put rubbing alcohol on it, and wrap it in a band-aid.

Tape

I use two kinds of tape: foam tape, and athletic tape. I use them for different things.Athletic tape

If you know you have a long rehearsal ahead of you, tape your toes with athletic tape or cloth tape. Tape them individually, so you still have flexibility and freedom of movement, but cover all the important areas so you can protect yourself from blisters. Don’t’ wrap too tight, or you’ll cut off circulation.

Foam tape

I love this stuff. I should buy stock in this stuff. This is great if you have that one toe that just keeps getting crushed against your box, or if you just cut your toe-nails and your toe pads just aren’t cutting it that day.

Even better, if you do somehow get a blister or a scab or a rip, wrap this stuff around the toe in question reasonably tight. It’s elastic, so it’ll reduce the circulation in that toe. It’s uncomfortable, but it keeps that toe from hurting too bad. (note: this is for short term only! take the tape off as soon as you can.)

Besides taping toes, you can do a lot with tape. I use athletic tape to keep my drawstrings in my shoes. Since it’s heat activated, I can position and re-position it until it’s right, then put the shoes on. By the end of the class or rehearsal, the glue has set, and I don’t have to worry about drawstrings popping out.
Also, if your h
eel tends to pop out of your pointes, or if the drawstring is cutting off your Achilles tendon, put a little foam tape either on your heel or on the shoe, and it takes care of the problem! (as demonstrated here in a pair of heels.)

Lambs wool

One of my teachers was die-hard old-school. She made us use lambs wool for the first year. Pillows for Pointe, one of my favorite brands, had just come out with a lambs wool toe pad, a brilliant creation if I do say so myself. However, it was still uncomfortable. I did manage to discover a few tricks on how to make it work surprisingly well.
First, tape your toes if necessary (see above).
Second, go to Walmart and find a pair of soft, comfortable, thick, squishy, but reasonably inexpensive socks, and cut the toes off.
Third, place your chunk of lambs wool over your toes, and then put the sock over the wool. It keeps the wool from sliding around too much.
This was the only way I was able to NOT bleed through my shoes my first few months en pointe… (before I started sneaking my gellows into class…)

Gellows

Ah, Gellows. I love these things. They’re made of a special gell that is designed with students in mind. They’re the right thickness, so you can feel the floor, feel your shoes,and feel your toes, but they do not hurt. Also, they’re reversible, with gell on one side and cotton lining on the other.  The gell absorbs shock so you don’t have too much pain in your joints.
I would recommend you pick up a pair immediately. They’re also one of the less expensive types of padding out there… aside from the absolute cheapest… which brings us to:

Paper towels

I know what you’re thinking… “Haley, are you serious? that’s got to hurt.” But actually, it doesn’t.

The paper towels actually absorb a lot of stress, they’re easy to mold and control, and they absorb sweat and don’t slide around like gell pads. You can only use them a few times, and once they start to shred you have to use new ones, but obviously, they’re super cheap. In fact you can probably get them for free, if there’s a public bathroom around your studio or facility.

Ouch! Too late!

Cuts/Scrapes/Burns

Ingrown toe-nail

Stress Fracture

That’s it for today, folks! If you have any tips, questions, or advice, leave it in the comments!

~Miss Haley

Oh if I had a penny for every time I got this question....

The answer is always the same: “The right ones.” I mean, what else can I say? “Go get this type, this size, this brand, they’re my favorite”? I don’t think so!



I’ve decided to write up this post because of the amazing amount of times I’ve heard this question, and maybe it’ll help some other confused parents and students out there.

Here’s how pointe shoes work: A company decides to make pointe shoes, so they develop their own shape, hardness, material bank, and signature look. Bloch shoes are a little… well… blocky. Grishko has narrow heels and wider metatarsals, and tapered toes. Capezio is round-ish. Russian Pointes are very very very hard and usually fit someone with a super narrow foot and a high arch.

That being said, there are many little variations in each shoe. For instance, here is a list of all the different components of a pointe shoe:

• Length
• Width
• heel height - how high they sit on your heel
• height on the instep: how high they come up on the side of your foot
• shank hardness - how hard they are to bend
• shank style - full, 3/4, half, demi-pointe, super soft, graduated shank, etc.
• vamp height – how high they come up over your toes
• wing – how high/low/hard/soft they are on the sides of your metatarsals
• platform – the flat part you balance on
• drawstring – some have them, some don’t, sometimes they’re elastic, sometimes they’re cotton…
• vamp cut – u-shaped, v-shaped, square-ish…

I could keep going. but I won’t.

Not only that, but each brand of pointe shoe (the company) has different styles of shoes within the company. For instance, Grishko makes an Elite, Maya, Maya II, Nova, Ulanova, Ulanova II, 2007, pro-2007, pro-flex 2007, and a few more I can’t recall off the top of my head. Bloch, Capezio, Russian Pointes, they all do the same thing. So not only do you have all the above choices, but you have the slightly different shoe shapes within each company.

This means there are hundreds of thousands of different possibilities.

And (not that I’m trying to freak you out) sometimes one shoe fits one foot, and another shoe fits another foot! Luckily there is no Right or Left until you break them in, so if you buy two pairs, you get two pairs.

Lastly (I know, right??) sometimes the padding you use changes how the shoe fits! I have to wear a paper towel in my left Maya I shoe, and a bit of lambs wool in my Gaynor Minden shoe to make them fit right. I had one girl whose shoes fit with Ouch Pouches, but not Gellows.


If you don’t, you could seriously injure your feet! Dancing en pointe is dangerous unless you do it right, and you can’t do it right with a pair of shoes that don’t fit.

Usually, for the average dancer, there are about 3-7 different kinds of pointe shoes that will fit them. They should try on as many pairs as possible, and pick the one pair that:

• fit the best (no squished toes, no sinking in, no sickling or twisting)
• make their feet look prettiest (arch, toes, vamp, etc)
• make the dancer feel most secure and confident en pointe (very important)

Below is the paper I give my students before they get fitted.

Pointe shoe fitting requirements

Student:

• Please only go to one of the following stores: Dance Max Dancewear (Marietta, GA), The Sock Basket (Asheville, NC or Greenville, SC) [**obviously if you live in a different area you’ll go to different shoe stores. Find out which stores have the best fitters. An inexperienced fitter is just as bad as a bad pair of shoes.]
• Call the store before you go! Some stores only fit by appointment, and some require you to be there by a certain time.
• Shoes should fit tight around the foot. They will be hard and uncomfortable, but they should not cause a pinching or searing pain.
• Your toes should be secure in the box, but not scrunched up against the bottom or sides of the shoe
• The outside sole should end right before the edge of your heel. Avoid getting a shoe that’s shank extends the whole length of your foot if at all possible, unless it’s the best fit.
• Cut your toenails two or three days before your fitting. If the skin is still tender, use a little bit of rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and rub the skin to dry and toughen it. [I’m going to highlight this, it’s very important!]
• Do some warm-ups before you get fitted, or wear tennis shoes for a few hours. Don’t fit shoes with cold feet (dancing makes your feet swell, and if you get a fitting with cold feet, they may not fit when you try to dance in them)

For the fitter:

• No Gaynor Minden shoes please! [for notes about this, see my post about Gaynor's.]
• Fit the shoe for their foot now, not for their foot when it grows. It is okay if they grow out of their shoe.
• They are to use Gellows gell toe pads (Pillows for Pointe) unless their shoe fits best with a different pad. Lamb’s wool is not required.
• No super-soft shanks or super-hard shanks. [this is for beginner pointe students, so if you need a harder or softer shank, disregard this.]
• Inch-wide ribbon and single-band elastic (unless their foot requires criss-crossed)
• Bunheads pointe shoe sewing kit or another similar kit with waxed thread and heavy-duty needle
• The student is responsible for sewing their own shoes. Please do not sew their shoes for them.

I hope this helps you choose which shoes you want, and I hope you decide to go to a fitter the next time you need pointe shoes! It’s worth the drive/retail cost! not only that, a lot of stores will offer discounts on shoes if you dance with a studio, or if you buy a certain number of shoes, or something like that. Ask about discounts. Thanks, and Happy Dancing!
~Miss Haley

I bought a pair of Gaynor Minden pointe shoes.

I hate them.

Okay they’re not too bad, but let me explain.

I love Grishko. And Bloch. And Capezio. And almost every other kind of shoe. I just love pointe shoes. I love working in them. I love pushing under my toes. I love the control I feel in my fibularis brevis (the muscle that runs up along the outside of your foot… think of it as the muscle you use to wing your foot, or hit sur le coups de pied).

My Gaynors look great on my feet.
But honestly, I was rolling up, and I just bounced up! It was like I didn’t even have to try. Because of that, I immediately lost a significant amount of control over the shoe, and even though doing pique turns and echappes was easy as pie, pirouettes and chasse releves and releves on one foot were almost impossible. It was like I couldn’t use the muscles I was used to using.

Also they hurt like the dickens. I can’t wear my gellows, so I tried just wearing them without extra padding, like the fitter recommended. I tried taping my toes, and it was just as bad. Finally I went back to my old habits and wrapped my feet in paper towels.

Pain gone! funny how that works. Though it only lasted for about an hour and then I was toast (here’s the proof… I didn't even get to centre work!)

Eventually I talked to one of my friends who used to wear them, and she said it is possible to pull out the padding… so I did. I ended up pulling out the whole lining (and having to stick it back in, which was complicated) but with the help of an exacto knife, a box cutter, and a pair of very sharp scissors, I managed to get the box liners out, so the plastic was exposed. Now my gellows fit, and I’m enjoying them a lot more.

I shall update you if necessary.

Keep in mind though, when the Grishko Nova comes out, I’m trying those suckers on. Because I know they’ll fit… and they’re practically made for my foot. I know this because I tried them on a few months ago when I didn’t have the cash to buy them, and by the time I came back, they had sold their only pair in my size (the Nova hasn’t officially come out yet, much to my dismay).
I don’t know about you, Gaynor Minden… I just don’t know about you yet.

I’ve trained under several different teachers, all with different teaching methods. I have my own ways of teaching barre, and the way I teach it is different from the way I do it on my own.

You should always have a good mix of simple and difficult combinations. Simple ones are great for focusing on technique, transitions, arms, placement, foot alignment, and artistry. But complicated ones are great exercises for both your body and your brain. They’re also really fun.

I had one teacher who used the same combinations every single day in class. She had several degage patterns, several rond de jambes, several grand battements. She’d rotate them now and then, but for the most part, barre didn’t change much. While it was boring, it was also very good for me. I started dancing very late (around 13 or 14) and consistency was the number one way that I was able to improve my technique as quickly as I did. Here’s why: Teachers like to say corrections during the combinations (I know I do, and mine did as well). If you’re hearing the same correction as you’re doing the same combination every day in class for a week, by the third day, you’re going to remember “Oh, she always tells me to drop my hip for this part.” And so you drop your hip.  Another great reason is when I turn on the music to do what I call a “power-barre,” I can just dance for 30 minutes, and get barre over and done with. I can do the same with my students. If they know the combos and they know what’s coming next, you use less class time teaching the combo, and you can do more. Going from one combo/side to the other without pause is also REALLY good for your stamina. Ever tried to do the first five barre items (plie, tendu, degage, rond de jambe, and fondu) without pause in between? It’s nearly physically impossible.

But it’s also good to have something new every once in a while. A lot of dancers who use the same combos every day aren’t great at picking stuff up quickly. Another one of my teachers would turn on the music, rattle off a combo (in her thick Russian accent), demonstrate it once, and then turn around and expect us to go by the beginning of the next phrase. She was brutal: but I learned to pick stuff up very quickly, which is extremely convenient in an audition or when someone is putting together choreography!

Music is a whole other can of worms. That same teacher I mentioned who used the same combos? She used the same music, too. For four. whole. years. As far as I know, she still uses it. Now mind you, the pianist is fantastic, and I own three of his CDs and am saving up to buy more of them, but using the same music in class can get dull. On the other hand, if you’re like me and like to mix up old and new patterns, I’ve learned that using the same music helps the students remember the combo you’ve just given. They tend to associate this combo with this pattern, that combo with that pattern, and then telling them to criss cross and mix them up is good for them.

This is all to say one simple thing: Teachers, try not to get stuck in a rut. It’s bound to happen, especially now as we’re in the middle of audition season and are preparing for spring recitals and competition, but remember that class time is vital, and all those weeks are going to count for something… so make them count, and be smart about how you use your time.

I made a video on how to sew pointe shoes! Enjoy!

A ballerina standing en pointe is debatably one of the most beautiful sights in the world. In my mind, it doesn’t matter whether you have a high, medium, or low arch.  This is really kind of a silly question, like asking “what’s better, flexibility or strength?” There isn’t an answer.





Many dancers or teachers though prefer dancers with a higher arch. Their feet naturally look amazing and their lines look more graceful than those with a lower or flat foot. However as both a dancer and a teacher, I believe that neither is better or worse. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.










Dancers with a naturally high and flexible foot tend to get all the way up—or too far over—their shoes. Many will stand up on the whole platform of the pointe on their first try. They have an easier time finding their balance and don’t have a problem getting up on pointe. They do, however, tend to have more trouble controlling the process of going down. I see a lot of new pointe students with high arches go up no problem, but then clop down on their heels, or shake when they’re up there.

>>>>>You might like: Everything you need to know about Pointe. 

Dancers with a lower arch, however, have the opposite problem. Many of us (yes, I’m one of them!) have to work very hard to get all the way up on our shoes, and we tend to dance behind pointe, on the ridge of the shoe rather than the platform. It requires a lot of strength to get all the way up (and sometimes some shoe alterations. More on that later). However, because the dancer has had to gain the strength to get up, they don’t have as much trouble rolling down with control as a high-footed dancer.

Another interesting thing is an action called “breaking at the ankle.” This is where you go up onto pointe and bend your knees, but instead of pushing over on the box, you hold your ankle where it is. Dancers with flatter feet have no problem with this movement, and toe hops and promenades and most partnering come very naturally to them. However, dancers with a higher arch find breaking at the ankle nearly impossible because their feet are already curved so far over.

>>>>>You might like: Pointe Readiness

Both high and low arches look beautiful in pointe shoes. Neither is better than the other. However, know that dancers with high arches can learn to do difficult things like toe hops, and dancers with lower arches can improve their arch.

1. Do some snakes in demi-pointe, pushing your feet over on demi-relevé instead of a full relevé. (see video)
2. Releves in coups de pied, getting high up on your foot and lowering the heel slowly
3. tendu to the side, roll the toes down onto the ground but keep the ankle pointed, press the arch and bend the working leg, straighten again, and close your tendu articulating through your feet
4. Roll your foot on a tennis ball or golf ball (gently massaging the tendons) to slowly loosen the muscles.
5. Watch this video
6. And this one.

DON’T:

1. Use a foot stretcher
2. Ask someone to sit on your feet
3. Force your arch against a wall or a stair
4. Any other myriad of dangerous stretches.

These dangerous yet tempting stretches can potentially hurt your feet rather seriously, and do anything from rub out cartilage, bruise or break bones, stretch and tear ligaments\tendons, or dislocate things. Remember, flexibility is gained slowly, not through forcing.

Good luck, happy dancing, and don't use a foot stretcher!