Welcome to the program!

The Advanced Foot Control course is a follow-on from our original book for dancers called ‘The Perfect Pointe Book’, which teaches the basic anatomy and understanding behind training the dancers foot, and prepares the whole body for progressing onto pointe. Once you have grasped the basics of working your feet and ankles correctly you can start to do some more specific and targeted exercise to further improve your strength and control. This is especially important if you are starting to learn harder steps en pointe, performing in bare feet at a high level or recovering from injury.

In this course we go into a lot more detail about the anatomy of the foot as you need to know it from a dancers point of view, whether you are a student or a teacher, or even a therapist learning to work with dancers.

We will not discuss EVERY muscle in the foot in this course, just the ones that you really need. It is very important for any dancer to learn about the anatomy of their feet and ankles, and what they are designed to do. If the muscles in the feet and ankles are not working in their optimal way, the alignment of the bones in the foot and the biomechanical function of the foot may suffer. Often we can carry minor weaknesses for a long time without realising that anything is wrong, however when the foot is stressed more the strain begins to be felt. This often happens just before performances or exams when you have increased rehearsals, and need your feet the most!

Getting Started

Step 1:

First of all, download the course manual by clicking the link below. Make sure to save it to a safe place, as it contains all of the details of each exercise, and handy hints on what to watch out for.

DOWNLOAD THE MANIAL

Step 2:

Print out a copy of the manual so that you can take notes as you work your way through the program. If you would prefer a professionally printed version of the manual you may order this directly from Amazon.

HARD COPY ON AMAZON

START THE PROGRAM

The Advanced Foot Control Program

While you do not need to know all of the details of exactly where each muscle attaches - as we go through the program try and create a mental picture of where the muscle lies and how it is designed to move your foot. Sometimes it takes a little while to learn the names of these muscles, however it does make sense when you learn how they are named (included in the description of each muscle). Learning this will make it much easier to talk about them with any therapists you may have to see in your dancing career.

For each muscle that we discuss in the course we will look first at its anatomy, from a dancers point of view. We will then go through some graded activation and strengthening exercises, and then finally some massage and stretching ideas to help release any excess tension that may be building up. By following this program, you will soon begin to feel very differently about your feet, and how they can help you in your dancing.