Ballet Dance Shoes
Find Your Perfect Fit

Dancers spend hours on their feet and practice every week to perfect their footwork. You absolutely have to maintain your feet and look after them, so your dance shoes are an essential part to dancing to your best.

There are many types of shoes for ballet dancers.

The most important are your soft ballet shoes and of course your pointe shoes.

As well as this, ballet dancers will also wear character shoes in your classes.

Or even dance sneakers and tap shoes if you do other dance styles too.

Here is a list of ballet dance shoes you will certainly need when you study ballet or dance for several years. Well, I definitely owned at least one of these shoes in my lifetime as a dancer! -

Ballet pointe shoes
Ballet flat shoes
Demi-pointe shoes
Jazz shoes
Character Shoes
Tap Shoes
Dance Sneakers

So, lets start with your soft ballet shoes. This is what you wear everyday in ballet class from the very day you started ballet, and right until the end. Whether you are a toddler ballerina, or a big star ballerina... you will wear ballet flat shoes!

You may also see more advanced dancers wearing soft blocks as ballet flat shoes. At my school we called them soft blocks, but they can also be more formally known as demi-pointe shoes. They are like pointe shoes but without the strength in the sole.

I started wearing demi-pointe shoes when I was about 13 or 14 to get my feet more strong for pointe shoes. The ballet teachers at my vocational dance school said we had to wear them at this level, because it made our feet work more for pointe.

The soft blocks were definitely not as popular with my class and most of us would have done anything to wear flat shoes again!

The reason why is because soft blocks are just not as comfortable nor as flattering for the feet and they also cost more to buy... No pain, no gain!

However, when the budget just gets too much, you can make soft blocks out of your old pointe shoes.

All you have to do is take out the sole of the shoe and really break in the box so they are softer. Many of us did this at school, as it saved both money and time to keep sewing more shoes.

Ballet pointe shoes are what most people are fascinated by though. People just seemed to be amazed that we can dance on our toes! Yet although professional ballerinas make it look effortless, it is actually very tricky to master.

One major thing that can absolutely help your dancing on pointe, is the fitting of your shoes. If they are too small, too narrow or just do not fit you correctly it can really affect your dancing.

When you have pointe shoes that feel almost perfect, it can make a surprisingly big difference to how you dance.

Although, I certainly do know it takes time to find the right pair. After six solid years of training, I finally found my perfect pointe shoe towards the end of school... just in time for when I became a professional.

Your pointe shoes MUST be fitted exactly to your foot shape and I can not emphasis this enough. They have to fit your length, width and make sure they are not too small to damage your toes.

Pointe shoes are not always the most comfiest of shoes, but once you get used to pointe you won't even feel it.

You will definitely need character shoes if you are studying ballet too. Character dance is included into many ballet exams when you are younger and a lot of vocational dance schools include character classes into their weekly schedule too. Even as a professional dancer, you still perform character dance in pieces like mazurka or mime.

There is not much you can get wrong with the fitting of character shoes and they do last a long time, so just make sure they don't get too small if you wear them for a lot of years.

There are a lot of online dance stores, or local dance shops which stock all these styles of ballet dance shoes. I would advise to get any type of dance shoe fitted at a shop, unless you are absolutely certain of your size.

As a young dancer, your feet are constantly changing and developing so you have to keep aware of your ballet dance shoes and make sure they fit properly. Incorrect fitted shoes can cause painful blisters, sore feet and can also lead to bunions.

Look after your feet and supply yourself with the best ballet dance shoes!

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