Embrace your strengths, friends. Generally speaking, my flexibility is shitty. My left and right splits are meh, my center splits do not exist, and my backbends don’t. HOWEVER, I have good feet. As some element of all flexibility is, I’m sure part of this is genetic, but that brings me cleanly back to my opening: embrace your strengths! I have developed a new and deliciously torturous foot point training utility. DISCLAIMER!!! This is not passive, benign foot point training, so my official stance is that you should not embark on it if your foot bones are still growing: this is adults only foot training! >:-(
Get a strip of broadcloth: something about 4 inches wide and like 4 feet long. Broadcloth is nice because it’s not stiff, but it also doesn’t stretch. I tried about 6 different kinds of fabric and this was definitely my favorite. Anything stretchy makes you cramp and anything too stiff digs into your achilles tendon.
Fold the strip of cloth in half lengthwise and place the folded edge toward your toes.
Pull the toes into a curled shape with the foot wrap, making sure that the end of every toe and your toe cleavage is covered with the wrap.
Press your toes into the floor to curl them as much as your flexibility will allow and cross the wrap behind your heel. Make sure that when you do this you are not sickling your foot!! 
Cross the wrap over the top of your foot, keeping it low on the foot (toward the toe side).
Cross the wrap under the arch of the foot. As you pull the wrap tight, it will cinch and tighten the wrap pulling the foot into a tighter arch. The best part though, is that the support the cross in the arch provides will prevent the teeny muscles there from cramping, which is magic!! …also, please ignore my loooong overdue leg shaving. Also, shut up.
Now proceed with your normal stretching routine and notice the CRAZY difference in how much your foot, ankle, and shin are involved in new and alarming ways. As an aside, my goal when foot stretching or foot pointing in general is to not see my toes in a pike. Then I get to pretend I’m a Roald Dahl witch with silly square feet. 
Le point! Once your feet are wrapped, try to point/toe curl as hard as you can: beyond the position they’re held in. My favorite way to do this is to sit in a pike, point my feet as hard as possible and try to touch the floor with my toes. I am SO STOKED to announce, by the way, that yesterday I totally freakin got my toes to the floor for the first time! Wah!!!! 😀
Also, try footless maneuvers on your apparatus with your feet wrapped: things like knee climbs, hip key sequences, beats, lyra/trap mounts, planches, roll ups, and split sequences. You’ll notice the little places where your foot point suffers that slip past you when you lack a physical reminder of what the heck your feet are doing when they’re all the way over there.
Lastly, pay attention to unattractive anatomy and accommodate. For example, I have a snaggle toe. Medically it’s called a Morten’s Toe, but colloquially it’s called gross. It’s the footweird where your second toe is longer than your big toe. In every day life, this can be mitigated with adorable closed toe wedges and ankle boots, but in circus life your piggies are functional and must be set free. Therefore, when you train your foot point, whether it’s with wraps, straps, bands, or ballet torture devices, make sure that you train your bunions, snaggle toes, claw nails, and other footgross to not look freakin nasty when you point your feet! Mash your foot bones into a pretty little half moon shape, then keep them there until you develop the muscle memory and motor control to make that shape voluntarily and at will. Lastly, remember: pretty feet are trained not grown, and we all have super nasty dancer feet. <3
P.S.
These photos were taken at the Albuquerque Aerialist Collective. Thank you to the lovely acrobats there for your hospitality and for the opportunity to offer workshops again! You ladies are awesome!!
5 Responses
We loved having you, lady! You were full of information and fun stuff, as always!
Thanks for keeping such a great blog! I missed your workshop at the ABQ Aerialist Collective last time you were in town and would love to catch you next time.
The Greek foot (longer second toe) contrasted with the Egyptian foot (First toe largest then diminishing to the fifth) reflects difference whose origins remain unclear. About 10% of Caucasion European-Americans have this shape commonly attributed to a genetic branching, sometimes critiqued, but often admired. Note Classic Greek statuary and painting, and Rennaissance rediscovery of Greek Idealism in Old Master sculptures and paintings. Bill Rogers, America’s greatest marathoner had flat feet with a longer second toe, perhaps his exceptionalism proves nothing, However, the old Chinese spoke of a woman with a longer second toe leading the home, and a man with a longer second toe being led so to speak. The Greek foot shape was considered so beautiful and perfect that it was royal, angelic or divine. This characteristic has also been associated with high intelligence and shall we say an indifference to rules. I recall that this shape may be seen on the Statue of Liberty and the Sistine chapel ceiling. As an aside, primates such as monkeys, chimps and apes have long toes, but lack the human characteristic of Large first toes, and their first toe is prehensile (like a Human thumb), they were certainly never us, nor we out of them. Being fair, there is a range of variation in toe and finger length s mong humans. There may be an in utero factor as well, regarding maternal blood level testosterone, linked with finger length, fertility and possibly sexuality. I’ve said a bit to much, but I have a motive. Cordially, Frank
Love the idea, but 48″ is too short for both my feet (10 in men’s), and my partner’s tiny feet (5.5 in women’s). We’re headed back to the fabric store tomorrow.
You could add a seam, or cut strips along the length rather than the width. Honestly though, it doesn’t really matter so long as it works! I liked the broad cloth texture: I tried a bunch of different fabric types and it felt the best. If you find something else that works better though, let me know! Constant improvement, etc! 😀