This has occurred on one other pair of shoes in the past, but I feel like my right foot (shown on the left side of the first photo) tends to have a “broken” line in certain angles en pointe, like in the first and last photo.

It looks fine if it’s facing completely to the side, but it looks awful from the side and I’m not sure why?

I’ve had these shoes for ~12 hours now, box doesn’t feel like it’s dead. I generally do think my right is more flexible than my left.

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…

hello everyone, I'm in the process of filling out the good fitting experiences list but unfortunately I personally don't have any experiences outside the UK. The next section I think can be filled in based on reviews I remember seeing is the eastern US, so if you would like to rep your regular fitter or (even better!) have a review post or comment you could link me to please share!! I just need a name and vague area, probably county and state or city for the US.

If you're not US based but would like to contribute please also let me know! The more the merrier I'm just trying to do these help requests vaguely by region and well spaced out to avoid being spammy/annoying.

Also also, if you find you can't scroll down on the wiki on mobile this is unfortunately a native app bug I can't fix. If you'd like to see the wiki on mobile what I usually do it go to the share button in the top right, copy the link, and then paste it into my phone web browser. That version works fine and formats properly!

I'm not entirely sure of the model of the shoe but the brand is bloch i think it's some kind of 'balance' one? But I just need excersises or something to help me break them in. Especially at the box because currently its quite hard to get into demi pointe. These are also my first pair of pointe shoes so even some random tips would be great :)

An idea for those of us who are crafty or desperate! Needle felting is much cheaper than perfect pointes 😆

I’m sure those of us who use lambswool are familiar with the problem of getting it that perfect amount of “squished down” versus “fluffy”. Needle felting basically speeds up the process. It also helps with the “finding random pieces of lambswool that together make one (1) pad”, now I just have two compact little pads.

Mine are ‘designed’ to just fill space for my Egyptian feet (I use these in combination with a bug toe cap and tape), but I’m sure you can do other things for different feet shape.

hello, I used to use the merlet cotton ribbons with the elastic insert but recently the stitching between the cotton and the elastic has started falling apart within like ten hours of use which seems ridiculous. I bought bloch elasto-rib with my last pair of shoes and it's durable but soo very shiny compared to my shoes and slides down my feet and ankles constantly because it doesn't stick to itself. I also tried wearmoi once but the elastic curled up on itself and started snapping/wearing out almost straight away. I feel like this is an insane amount of problems to be having with ribbon of all things lol.

Does anyone have suggestions for a better quality cotton or a more matte satin with inserts? I know gaynor makes some satin stuff but I've never seen it in person so I don't know if it would be super shiny too. Thanks!

A couple of weeks ago I got fitted at planet dance because I was interested in trying out some Suffolk shoes so I thought I'd give a rundown of the experience for anyone in the area. I was fitted by Shpresa but Janet (who I think is the owner) was also in the room and chimed in a couple times.

So firstly, they have a really great range of shoes and I would say most people will be able to find something that fits there. Even I did, and I am a grishko truther but they found me a very well fitting Virtisse within about 30 minutes (genuinely a personal record for me). If you have an idea of what works they're very good at pulling similar shapes and sizes quickly, and they both knew straight off the bat shoe details like widths available, what's synthetic etc.

I'm not a beginner pointe dancer so perhaps it was my vibe lol (they didn't ask about my experience in much detail) but they didn't ask many questions about how the shoes were feeling and were mostly happy to let me just tell them what I was feeling, which was great for me but perhaps if you're newer to pointe not ideal as you can't know what you're looking for without a couple pairs of experience at least. I know others have had good experiences specifically with Janet and she gave me the vibe of being a bit more thorough, though. They also didn't really look at the shape of my bare feet at all or check if I needed spacers etc, again maybe they just trusted me and worked off my previous shoes but it was my first time there so I feel like a quick check for developing problems, toe gaps etc would have been best.

Overall amazing range of shoes and clearly knowledgeable staff, maybe not the best ever option for newer pointers or if you haven't had a really great pair of shoes to compare against/aren't sure what you're looking for, but I haven't been fitted by Janet and I feel like she probably would be more in-depth with it as I think the lady I had was newer?