Ballet en pointe?

Question:

Ballet en pointe?

what are some characteristics you need to have to starts on pointe? (splits, arch strength, etc)

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: well, a thing you really need is STRONG ANKLES AND ARCHES. I can't stress this enough. Also, you need your bones to be formed. It changes from school to school, but all in all, you need these three things.
strong ankles-your ankles hold you up when you go en pointe, to strengthen these, you could do releves every morning, starting with 20, then increasing by 5 every day, in each of the 5 ballet positions, also in coupe and passe positions. Ask your dance teacher for more.
strong arches-your arches show how flexible your feet are. Pointe shoes are very thick, it will be a lot harder to bend your foot in them than in normal dance shoes. That is why you need to do a lot of excercises for them. something you can do is to "pop" your arches while doing releves, namely, instead of going straight up from flat foot to demi-pointe, you bend your knees and plie in demi-pointe. It looks a little strange, but it helps a lot. Do around 10 of these a long with your usual releve excercises,and increase by 5 every week, since your arches are rather delicate muscles and need careful handling.
formed bones- I'm afraid all you can do on this one is do the other 2 steps and wait. Usually your dance instructor will tell you when you're ready to go en pointe, and in the meantime all you can do is have a lot of calcium and other bone-enriching minerals to help your bones form well. This is something your body just does naturally, you can't do any excercises to help it a long.
hope this helped, and good luck!