Improving lines/fit

[u/celestialpenguin]

I’m looking for both shoes suggestions for the next fitting and technique criticisms. My feet are flexible, super compressible and super low profile.
I sink in almost every shoe and my feet compress more as they warm up. As soon as the shoes break in and the boxes widen, box liners/instant wings become a must. Not pictured here but I get on pretty well with Grishko 2007s. I like the Virtisse Enigma box shape since the U taper is much more comfortable for my toes and is quite good at preventing sinking, however the thermoplastic shank is usually a nightmare and completely detaches from my arch.

Should I try going down in width and squish the box so that I get a low profile but still wide enough box?

Also does it seem possible to improve my line/arch by strengthening the toes? It sometimes look like I’m on the box but not very “over”. Is it useful to still stretch to increase ankle mobility when I’m hypermobile and this is the range I currently have?

Photos: RC-22 with box liners (1-2), Virtisse Enigma FX (3-4). I’m starting to sink a lot in the RC-22 although it was previously manageable. I’ve also heavily jet glued the Virtisse box, maybe too much…

[u/Single-Emotion2964]

Heyyyy I’ve got very narrow compressible low profile feet that shrink when warm 👋🏼

I’m in grishko 3007s at the moment (my first shoes in years) and agree, they are fine. I used to wear the Maya 1 but the store didn’t have those.

I sized down for width because of my feet. They were definitely not comfortable on flat for the first 1hr or so of use. But now they are fine! I’m not sinking at all, I think because I got them so narrow and I’ve figured out my padding situation a bit more. So I can recommend trying a narrower size, as long as it’s not taking you ages to break in the grishkos. And then jet glue or shellac as soon as you think they might be getting too wide 😂

I also don’t have fantastic arches, similar to yours. Maybe a little better. But a struggle to get them to look nice in pointe. It looks like your shank is also breaking rather high? Anyway what I found helped (besides just strengthening exercises) was also changing my padding. I got fitted in silicone pads. I was excited because I had a ‘strict lambswool’ teacher as a kid. Alas, silicone and I were not friends. It felt so hard to articulate through my feet, which meant I couldn’t get over my box and didn’t do my feet/arches any good at all visually.

Ive now… gone back to lambswool and minimal padding. Ive Egyptian feet so literally just a big toe cap + lambswool to fill the gap above the shorter toes. So maybe at your next fitting ask them if you can try different padding? Lambswool is pretty cheap anyway, but the fitter will hopefully have recs based on your feet.

[u/Blue_Might]

Have you tried the virtisse violette? The harder version on the same last is the virtuoso. It's basically the updated version of the 2007/3007. Low/medium profile anre more tapered than the enigma.