On top of toes with no point shoes on? safe?

Question:Okay i havent even started point yet (im 13) but im taking it next year.. on day i was practing ballet and tried to go up on my toes(like on the very tip) well i did and now i can walk around on the very top of my toes with out it hurting much(i do it in my regular ballet slippers) I was wondering if its okay for me to continue practing do that? is it normal to be able to do that? and what will happen if i keep doing so?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Okay i havent even started point yet (im 13) but im taking it next year.. on day i was practing ballet and tried to go up on my toes(like on the very tip) well i did and now i can walk around on the very top of my toes with out it hurting much(i do it in my regular ballet slippers) I was wondering if its okay for me to continue practing do that? is it normal to be able to do that? and what will happen if i keep doing so?

When i first started dancing at the age of 2, i could walk on the tips of my toes too. however, one day at dance class I was walking around and my teacher told me that if i continued to do that i would have trouble in pointe when i was older, and i would have arthritis afterwords. Apparently the cartilage in your ankles will start to wear away and hurt you later on. the shanks, or metal pieces in the soles of your future pointe shoes, Provide most of the support you need to keep you from hurting yourself. so wait until you have your pointe shoes before you get on your toes. Good luck with dance.

You must be very strong to do that, BUT your feet NEED
the support from the pointe shoes. Pointe shoes have you
standing on your metatarsals NOT your toes. What you are doing could damage your feet!! Please talk to your teacher!

no, its not good for your toes or your ankles. I don't mean to be hypocritical b/c I do it too for extra height, but its bad b/c you don't have any support for your toes supplied by the blocks or arch support. Without those, its easier to break a bone.

no thats actually horrible for your feet
so i would stop

It's ok to go on your toes in flats to make them stronger, but you couldn't and shouldn't ever dance on them. If you do go up on them hold on to something while you do to make sure you don't put to much weight and pressure on your feet.

You shouldn't really be doing it without the point shoes. In point shoes you don't actually walk around on your toes, so it won't be much of a benefit when you actually do it with the shoes. People can do it, so I suppose it's normal. I advise not to because your toes aren't built to keep up the strain. By the way, don't try it with the normal ballet shoes off. It hurts even more. :)

that will hurt your toe very badly in the long run if you continue to do that. if you want to practice, do some relevees and arch exercises. that will help you practice, not killing your toes.

Its honestly not a good idea. it can permanently damage your toes. Its great that you have that kind of foot strength but i don't think you should continue. If you accidently came off of them the wrong way, stumbled, or anything, you could break or dislocate a toe, or bruise a toenail. its no fun. is it normal to be able to do that? well, it depend on your foot type and strength. I think that if you want to strengthen your feet for pointe. regulary do foot rolls and releves/eleves.

No. That's terribly unsafe. Don't do it. You can go on demi-point with regular slippers on to strengthen your feet, but it's terribly dangerous to go on point without shoes made for it.

I'm an Irish dancer. We go on point too (even though people don't know that and we're also ALWAYS on demi-point if we're not on point)...something in common with ballet point? We've got shoes for it. You need the shoes. They are the important thing. In the evolution of ballet, dancers would destroy their feet until they started putting wood blocks and such in the shoes.