[classical instrumental music]
[exhales deeply]
- Hi, my name is Scout Forsythe.
I'm a professional ballerina with American Ballet Theatre.
And this week I'm gonna show you how I customize
and break in my pointe shoes, oh. [laughs]
[classical instrumental music]
The life cycle of my shoes
is pretty short, I've got three days.
I usually spend about a half hour getting
a full pair of pointe shoes ready.
The first day is when I take them out
of the bag, I customize them, I sew them.
I do want I need to break them in and get them ready.
By the second day they're in the sweet spot.
And I'm wearing them throughout the whole day not worrying
about how they feel because they're perfect.
And then on the third day is when I notice the breakdown.
I start to feel the floor, my shoes aren't as supportive.
And it's time to sew a new pair of pointe shoes.
There's no other shoe in the entire world that can do
what a pointe shoe does, not a tennis shoe,
not a flat shoe, and not even heels.
There's nothing that allows you to go over
on your toes unless it's a pointe shoe.
I've had about 700 pairs of pointe shoes in my career.
And I know ABT spends about half a million dollars
annually on pointe shoe budget alone.
That's because each pointe shoe is handmade.
And they cost close to $100 per pair.
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Here's what I use to prepare my pointe shoes.
I have floss, scissors, a knife,
needles, a pen, and darning thread.
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The first thing I do is grab my elastic.
I sew it into the back of the heel.
The reason I use this elastic and do the criss-cross method
is so my shoe is super secure to my foot.
The reason we have floss is I use it instead of thread.
Floss is way more sturdy and way more cost-effective.
I do one, two, three arms length of floss
for usually one pair of shoes.
I take the elastic, and I line it up perfectly
with the middle seam of the back of the shoe.
And I just take it and I sew all the way around it.
The tricky part about this is there's
a elastic drawstring that runs around the shoe.
And you have to make sure when you're towards the edge
of your shoe that you don't catch the elastic drawstring.
Because if you do it hinders the drawstring
from moving forward and scrunching up,
which is what it's purpose is.
I stitch all the way around here.
This is what it looks like on the inside.
And you're ready to measure and sew these bad boys down.
The wings of a pointe shoe are where the vamp part
goes soft, and it starts to become more flexible.
I know for me I like to put it about
a pinky nail's length behind the stitching on the side.
The reason I like it in this particular area
is it's exactly where the highest part
of my arch hits on the shoe.
Where you have your elastic positioned
kind of changes how the shoe feels.
If your elastic is maybe further down
you're not gonna get as much movement within the shoe.
And it's not going to bend as much.
Where the further back it is
the less support you have basically.
So I like to find that sweet spot and exactly
where my arch hits the shoe is where that elastic goes.
That's where it pulls the shoe to your foot.
And it bends in that perfect position.
And it's the most secure for dancing as well.
The shape is the internal support system
that helps you stamp on releve.
I don't know if you guys have seen that scene in Black Swan
where Natalie Portman is de-shanking her pointe shoes.
But some girls actually do that.
And some girls half shank their pointe shoes.
And what that does is it allows
for less support under the arch.
So, I think a lot of women who don't have
the most flexible arches or want to have the appearance
of their foot being even more pointed tend to take that out.
So it bends more, and it's easier to maneuver and control.
If I did that I would be falling out of my shoes
and have absolutely no support.
[classical instrumental music]
All right, ribbons, I use elastic ribbons
instead of satin ribbons.
For me, elastic ribbons give more mobility,
a little bit more comfortable for me.
The satin ribbons were giving me
a little bit of achilles tendonitis almost.
The reason I fold my ribbon when I put it on my shoes,
it makes it a little bit more sturdy.
And because they are elastic ribbons pulling on the ribbon
where it's attached to the shoe sometimes causes
little abrasions and frays within the elastic
because it is a softer material.
So I've noticed when I double them there's not
so much damage that's happening to the ribbon itself.
And they have a longer life.
And I can reuse them a little bit more frequently.
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So, I'm gonna cut the vamp of my pointe shoes.
And that's the part that supports your foot
when you're on your toes and makes sure
that you don't fall out of the pointe shoe.
When you're on your pointe shoes, we're gonna pretend
like this is the floor, and this is your pointe shoe.
You don't just hop up to your shoe like this.
You have to roll through your arch up into pointe,
and then coming back down you roll back down.
And that's a safety thing, especially from big jumps.
It's almost like your shock absorbers,
but you're using your feet.
So, for me, when I cut my pointe shoes
and then restitch them together it allows
for the mobility of going through that demi-pointe
and rolling through without taking away the support
and the original shape of the shoe.
I cut about an inch down in-between
the drawstring down to the tip of the shoe.
So, now this is when I take my darning thread.
And the reason I use the darning thread versus the floss
is it's a little bit closer to the color of my pointe shoes.
It's cotton thread, there's a little bit more give
to it than there is the floss.
You're almost reweaving the shoes together.
You know when you have your sneakers on, and you lace up
the shoes, and you can pull it tighter or looser?
This is basically what this stitch is doing.
It's allowing it to you to have full control
of how much space you give in there.
So I tend to just keep it very minimal
with the amount that I pull, like, taut on the string.
Even though it's just a little bit
of extra room in there it's so much more helpful
for when I'm dancing, and especially during big jumps
when I'm landing from, you know, being high up in the air.
It allows me more, like, shock absorption
by rolling through the foot instead
of just coming down and landing on the heel.
[classical instrumental music]
The box is the whole tip of the pointe shoe.
And that is where we stand on our toes.
Darning is when you sew around the tip of the pointe shoes.
The same thread that I used for this
little middle piece right here.
And it's just making tiny little knots
around the edge and the tip of the pointe shoe.
And what it does, it adds an extra little layer of support.
So when you're on the tip of your shoes you have
a bigger surface area, so you're not falling off.
And what it's supposed to really help
with is balancing and pirouettes.
So, you're basically tying little teeny knots
in sections throughout the shoe.
See how that starts to make the little Ts
that go around the edge of the pointe shoe.
Another great thing about darning
is it keeps the shoe looking nicer longer.
By darning around the tip of the shoe
when the satin does eventually start to come off and fray,
which is very normal and happens to almost everyone's shoes.
It keeps it contained just on the tip,
so it doesn't fray onto the vamp of your shoe.
There's a darned shoe.
At this point I'm done with any kind of sewing,
cutting, stitching on my pointe shoe.
And, lastly, all I need to do is
break it in before I wear it.
Because these babies are hard. [laughs]
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The first thing I do is break in the shank.
And I always go to this little line
on the inside of where the shoe has
its two separate parts of the box and the heel.
And here we go, nope, didn't make
a noise, sometimes it does.
Right where I break in my shoe
is exactly at the highest point of my arch.
When your shoe breaks lower there tends
to be less support on their.
So the higher up it breaks the more support.
And if it's right in where the arch hits that's where
you're gonna find that total, like, perfect zone.
So, then, I take the heel of my foot,
and I step on the box of my point shoe.
And I smash it flat to widen it out.
And then sometimes I don't get it enough,
so I stick it in a door jam.
And I yank it, and it gives that extra little crunch.
Okay, now that I'm finished customizing
my shoes, they're ready to go.
And I'm gonna head to the studio, and take a little class,
and finish breaking them in over there.
When I first put on the shoes
they do feel a little bit wobbly
just because they're not fully broken in yet.
And I really have to make sure that I am using
the proper strength, technique to make sure
that I'm taking charge of the shoes,
and the shoes aren't taking charge of me.
After class my shoes are in peak condition.
And they are totally ready for a full six hour day.
And I feel comfortable in them.
I feel like I could go and do any show, any performance,
any rehearsal that I need to in these shoes.
[classical instrumental music]
Okay, now I'm gonna show and tell you guys exactly
why day two is the perfect day for my pointe shoes.
Okay, these are my perfectly broken in shoes.
And watch these, whoa, I love the way they feel.
I just feel super lifted, but they're also broken in
enough that I'm not forcing them to go either way.
They're just so molded to my feet.
I noticed that lots of shin tendu
I'm able to like roll through the foot.
Okay, now I can do a full day of rehearsal.
[classical instrumental music]
[pointe shoe thuds]
[exhales deeply]
[exhales deeply] Okay, that was a good workout.
I hope you can understand why day two
is my favorite day in pointe shoes.
[classical instrumental music]
Hey guys, it's day three, and my pointe shoes
are really starting to break down.
I'm feeling my toes on the floor
in the box of my pointe shoes,
which is like for me the number one sign of, like,
hey, these things are dying, which is a bummer.
But it's starting to get a little dangerous for me to dance.
So I'm gonna take you guys along and show you
what I mean by pointe shoes really breaking down.
So, when I go up to releve this is normally
like my stopping point on these guys.
Can you see how much further over I can go on these guys?
Like, standing on one foot I almost
have to be supported by the bar.
Like I couldn't stand here like this.
We call these in dancing photo shoes. [laughs]
Like, it's just so unfortunate that, like, [groans]
I can't even do, like, ballet right now.
See how they just come back because
there's no support in these shoes.
They look pretty, [laughs] but they don't dance pretty.
[classical instrumental music]
I'm gonna show you guys how I Jet Glue my pointe shoes
and get them ready for the day. [laughs]
This is something that I do when I want
to get a few more hours out of my shoes.
Here are my shoes, they're pretty broken in.
But, like, I can fully move the tip of my shoe.
They're just definitely starting to get really broken down.
So what I do is I take my shoe.
And flip the back part of it over
so it's just out of the way.
What you're gonna do, what I do, so this is my right foot.
So, see on the tip right here,
where the left is a little bit more worn out.
Because when you're standing on this foot
like that's where your big toe is.
This is where it breaks down the most
is on this side of the shoe.
And that's where I start my Jet Glue.
And I just go on the inside.
And I just go right around this area.
And I kinda dribble the Jet Glue down like this.
Like, there's lines in there.
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Then, after I do that I peel back the leather insole piece.
So, then I take the Jet Glue, and I Jet Glue a little bit
along the arch, just until the nail.
And then I just do a little dot over there.
And that's just to help reseal this.
And then make sure it's really flat when you reseal it.
And then, voila, [laughs] voila!
Your shoes are Jet Glued.
There's definitely certain things that I do
that start to break down my shoes quicker.
If I'm doing a variation where there's a lot of bourrées,
pique menages, a lot of balancing turns.
That's where my shoes start to breakdown a little bit more.
If I'm just doing a ballet where I'm doing more
of a standing role, and not so much demand on the dancing,
and it's more of an aesthetic characteristic role
and I've got pointe shoes on,
I can make my pointe shoes last maybe four days.
So it definitely depends on what I'm doing
and what I'm dancing that makes the life
of my shoe three days or four days.
I dance in class with my Jet Glued pointe shoes.
And by this time they're done.
It's time to retire these shoes
and to start the process all over again.
And at ABT we've got a really awesome program
where we take our shoes, sign them,
throw them in the basket, and they auction those off
for donations for ABT or with certain,
like, ticket sales, and stuff like that.
So it's really cool, they kind of get recycled in that way.
I know that three days for the lifespan of a pointe shoe
seems kind of ridiculous and crazy.
And, trust me, there is a point in my life,
especially when you're a student,
and you don't have the funds to just go
and get 10 pairs of pointe shoes a week.
If you don't have the demand of a professional dancer,
you do your class in the morning,
you maybe work a private here and there,
and then you do a class in the evening.
And you're working on just solid technique,
maybe a variation once in a while.
Me, I dance six hours every single day.
And that's not including class.
I'm constantly wearing and tearing on my shoes,
so I need that support and that structure for the amount
of time I'm on them and the demand of my dancing schedule.
Keeping my pointe shoes at the optimum peak
is just like keeping my body at the optimum peak.
As a ballerina, like, my pointe shoes
are an extension of who I am and what I do.
So by keeping them in their prime
I'm keeping myself at my prime.
Thank you guys so much for following
along on my three day pointe shoe cycle.
I hope you enjoyed the video,
I certainly enjoyed giving you the information.
Thank you so much for watching, and I hope you enjoyed.
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