anyone have any good suggestions for breaking in pointe shoes(Bloch)?? I've tried wearing them around the house, and breaking them in naturally, but for some reason it doesn't feel like enough. They don't feel completely broken in. any ideas?<P>salima

Salima - I have to tell you first of all I have never worn Bloch pointe shoes - slippers yes, pointe shoes, no.<P>I always just broke in my Capezios with my hands. I could feel just how far to go with my hands without breaking the shank. I would mostly work on the wings and vamp. Sometimes I took a mallet, covering the shoe first with a piece of cloth. And sometimes I would use rubbing alchohol. But you have to be careful - you could soften them up too much. <P>Also involved is how soft you want them to be and for what purpose - class? rehearsal? performance?<P>There is an excellent book on pointe shoes that I would highly recommend:<P>"The Pointe Book, Shoes, Training & Technique" by Janice Barringer and Sarah Schlesinger. On page 39 is an excellent section on breaking in shoes. But the entire book is great.<P>And a "for fun" book is: "Dancershoes" by Daniel S. & Stephanie Sorine. This is a book that takes a number of very famous world class dancers (Anthony Dowell, Natalia Makarova, Carla Fracci, etc.) and shoes pictures of their shoes and gives detailed information on how they break in their shoes and how they prepare their shoes. It's very interesting and amusing.<P>I once read a description of how Gelsey Kirkland prepared her shoes - that would take an entire book just by itself!! LOL

Here is a link to a previous thread you might want to read:<P><A HREF=../../../ubb/Forum7/HTML/000253.html><B>HOW DO YOU PREPARE YOUR POINTE SHOES</B></A>