What's the pointe anyways?

So this post is pretty much just to share some thoughts I've kinda always had about ballet.

I started ballet at the ripe-old-age of three. I was always tagging along with my mom when she would take my older sister Madeline to her dance classes. The moment I was old enough for classes myself, I was in them. I started in "creative dance", which was basically ballet, but with props and costumes. So now that I'm eighteen, I've been taking ballet for fifteen years.

When I was in seventh grade I got my first pair of pointe shoes, which was a Seriously Big Deal. Getting them fitted properly, sewing on the ribbons and elastics, and beginning my first few months of excruciatingly painful pointe classes.

This brings me to my main point.

Ballerinas are masochists. 

Plain and simple.

Pain is our body's way of telling us that something is wrong. If you ignore it long enough then the pain might go away, but the problem is probably still there. The first few weeks to months of pointe work is usually quite painful. Lets be honest here. The human body was not designed to have all of your weight put on the tips of your toes. Your feet are, quite frankly, not supposed to do that. And yet, it is respected as a high achievement in the world of ballet to be able to dance proficiently "en pointe". As time goes on pointe work becomes much less painful, but it's still anatomically contradictory. 

There are other reasons that proves why ballerinas are masochists. Like, how we force ourselves to be able to to the splits, or hyper-splits - when you are able to do the splits with your front leg propped up on something, thus ensuring that your splits are more than 180 degrees - in every direction (Yea, no, I'm serious). How we wear ourselves out with rehearsal schedules and crazy classes at 8am, or 9:30pm. However, the title of this post is "What's the pointe anyways", so judging from my obvious word-play, pointe is the main point here (pun completely intended).

When starting pointe, you have to start training an entirely different set of muscles than regular "flat" ballet work requires. And every time you spend an extended amount of time off of pointe - like say, for an injury - you have to retrain those muscles all over again.

I have had to go through this process four freaking times now.

Effing joy.

It is exhausting and discouraging, and every time you begin to retrain for pointe, it is pretty much just as painful as the first time was, until it once again eventually goes away. I could have given up on pointe at any time, especially after my ankle surgery, which has been the most annoying, and most complicated recovery yet. However, I didn't decide to quit doing pointe work. In fact I have gone out of my way to get back to pointe work even though it's taken me close to six months now.

Hello masochist!

I rest my case. Well, happy trails.