Bloch Pointe Shoes
Starting a new series on shoes this week. The first shoes I’m going to talk about are Bloch shoes.

All of my Bloch shoes.
Bloch shoes were my first shoes. I wore Bloch European Balance, like many starting dancers. They were a great starter shoe. Not that these shoes aren’t good for wearing as a more experienced dancer, but they are better as a harder shoe. The reason they are better starter shoes is because they are very hard, which I personally think is a good characteristic for dancers new to pointe.

First pair’s box.

First pair of shoes.
One thing I really appreciated about these shoes is that they helped my feet not twist. My feet tend to twist in shoes and there are few shoes that fit right and can stop it. Of course as my feet grew stronger and more accustom to pointe the shoes weren’t able to prevent twisting as well.
I always felt very supported on these shoes and enjoyed wearing them. My first ever on stage pointe performance was in European Balance and I’ll always have special place for these shoes.

My one and only non European Balance shoes that are still Bloch.

The box, that doesn’t even go with the shoes.
I did wear one pair of Bloch shoes that weren’t European Balance. These shoes were ones that my studio was selling along with other custom shoes company members that were no longer dancing had order. They fit just fine, but I have no idea what they are because they are custom and the box doesn’t go with them.
Well, younger, not as experienced Ella had decided she really needed to break in these shoes. I over broke them in, so much so that the nail in the shank actually came out. Now this isn’t much of a problem for older dancers, but for twelve-year-old me it was.
I hadn’t even had one class in them and they were useless to me. When I did take class in them, it was no easy task. I soon got rid of those shoes and that has to be my most embarrassing mistake with pointe shoes, so to any newcomers pointe, be careful when you break in shoes!
I hope you enjoyed reading about Bloch shoes and my embarrassing mistake. Come back this Friday for a post on flat shoes and don’t forget to follow, like, and comment!