Pointing Your Feet
Check it out! Ballet Misfit has a nice video about how to point your feet correctly, in ballet. Pointing your feet correctly helps strengthen the muscles in your calves, ankles and feet. It is also a foundational skill needed to prevent injuries when landing from jumps.
Key things to remember:
- You're actually pointing your whole foot, rather than just your toes.
- When progressing from a flexed to a pointed foot, you don't want to just "flap" your foot back and forth. Always articulate through the arch and ball of the foot until it is fully extended with your toes lengthened.
- Make sure not to curl or crunch your toes under, when pointing your foot. Instead, reach your toes long and forward, extending them as far as possible.
- How you "unpoint" your foot is just as important as how you point it. "Unpointing" reverses the process, and articulates your foot flexion backward through the ball, then the arch, then the heel. This fluid "unpointing" motion is what you use to catch your body weight when landing jumps. It softens your landing and prevents impact into your heels, knees and back.