I have danced for MTV, Diana Ross, Marc Jacobs and have appeared in many music videos. You

can find more information about me and my career, as well as photos and videos, at www.dgtnyc.com.

I'm going to be talking to you about ballet. Breaking in pointe shoes depends on the individual.

And you're trying to mold the shoe to fit your foot. If you've never been fitted for

pointe shoes, make sure you go and see a professional and they can help you make sure that the shoe

fits correctly on your foot. This is very important if you're going to be doing pointe

work and you wanna make sure that the shoe is not too big or too small. And the box is

not too wide or too narrow for your foot. Some dancers like to have a softer box which

is this area right here. So many dancers press on the box with the heel of their, the heel

of their foot, or they can also put it between the hinge of a door and slowly close it making

this become softer. You can also put a dish towel on top of the shoe and gently hammer

it. But not too hard because you wanna make sure you still have support in this. This

is a shank right here. And you can actually peel the shank from the bottom of your shoe

off, which is totally fine. And depending on where the arch of your foot is and how

strong your foot is you might want to have a softer or more stronger shank. So you can

bend where the shank is, bend the shank gently with your fingers. You don't want to break

the shank or else your shoe is no longer useable. There's some simple exercise you can do that

helps break in your shoes. If you stand at the bar, you can stand with your feet in sixth

position, or parallel, and you're just gonna take simple prances up and down. Making sure

that you're slowly rolling through demi to full, demi to pointe. You can also do simple

releves,. Slowly rising up to the box of your shoe and going through demi all the way down.

This can also be done in first position or it can be done just with one foot. Rolling

up and rolling down.