Over the past spring and summer, I became increasingly dissatisfied with how my pointe shoes felt on my feet, and how that was impacting my pointework. The narrower size of Grishko 2007 felt better width-wise on my right foot, but was tighter-fitting overall than I preferred, and it still didn't feel very nice on my left foot. The narrower box actually accentuated the twisting problem I have with my left foot in any pointe shoe I've ever worn. The shank has a tendency to twist off to the side, resulting in a very unstable feeling whenever I go up on pointe. I stopped by Motion Unlimited and had myself re-fit for pointe shoes, and ended up getting Grishko 2007 in size 4XXX (so, up one size, but down a width). While that did feel a little better, it was still not really ideal.
In search of a better-fit pointe shoe, I decided to try Russian Pointes. Luckily, I decided just in time to get an in-store fitting just before their flagship store closed down. The lady who did my fitting was very nice, and did a very meticulous job. Unfortunately, my twisty left foot defied all of her fitting efforts, and she had to call in some additional consultation. I tried on every single model that they had, some in multiple sizes and widths. Finally, we did find one that felt good, and had the least twisting on my left foot: the Dolce! Unfortunately... that is the model they just discontinued... I bought the one pair in my size/width that they had left in the store for a huge discount, just to try it and see if I really wanted to keep using them.
After about a month of wearing those, doing more pointework than I had been before, since I was taking variations and partnering classes all of July, I decided that the Dolces were definitely the new preferred shoe. Miss M thought they definitely looked better on my foot, and that I looked more stable on pointe too. Cue scouring the internet for dance supply stores that still had stock for my size and width. All of the sites I found had them on clearance sale, which was good news. I snagged two more pairs, which hopefully will last me for a while yet. After that, I will have to resort to finding either a European, Japanese, or Russian shopping service to get my Dolces TT_TT
The first pair lasted me all of summer, and I started in on the second pair about two weeks ago. The pointework load is even higher now though, so I'm expecting the second pair to wear out faster. The first pair is actually still usable, so I've been rotating the two pairs in hopes of prolonging use of both of them. *crosses all fingers and toes*
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