No Pleasure, Just Pain

Pointe class. It's gradually becoming the bane of my life. Not because I don't enjoy it, because I do, infact I love it with every fibre of my being, but it's more to do with my feet. My useless shaped feet.

Every class I go though crippling pain and usually can't do the full class. I have the unfortunate 'Egyptian' foot shape, meaning my big toe is longer than all the others. This means all my weight is baring down on a single toe, rather than spread evenly through them all. The ideal foot shape for ballet is even length toes, called the 'peasant' shape. The worse foot shape is those with a longer second toe. I have the second worst foot shape, combined with high arches, which results in me going too far over onto the box. I'm at my wits end with it. On Monday night I ended leaving class after 15 minutes, the pain had become too much I had to give up. This isn't the kind of pain you can just power through, it feels like your toe nail is being slowly ripped from it's bed whilst you toe is being crushed by a car.

I admit, I left class, went to the loo and had a good cry. I may have to face up to the fact I might need to quite pointe. I find it doubtful there is a shoe out there that can alleviate this pain. I have tried eveyrthing from extra padding on my big toe, to 'building up' the second toe so it's the same length. I've tried no padding, I've tried 'powering through', I've tried everything I've read about. I've tried every shoe they tell you to try when you have this shape of foot, but nothing helps.

Last night, when faced with the possibility of actually having to give up my dream of dancing en pointe, I felt more heartbroken than I've felt in years. 

I'm having one last ditch attempt at a shoe fitting at the weekend, where I well tell the fitter all my woes and see if she has an answer. 

Dear readers, wish me luck.

Queen Michelle