There are many different foot types, but most fall into one of the following categories:
- Greek or Morton's foot
- Egyptian foot
- Giselle or Peasant foot
- The Compressible foot
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Greek/Morton's Foot This foot type has a second toe that is longer than all the others. The width tends to be narrow to medium. |
Egyptian Foot This foot type has a long first toe and the rest of the toes taper. The width tends to be narrow to medium. |
Giselle/Peasant Foot This foot type has at least three toes the same length (sometimes more) and the toes tend to be short. It tends to be well-suited for pointework. The width tends to be medium to wide. |
Many dancers have fine-boned, delicate feet. These feet are usually highly compressible in the metatarsal area. If you gently squeeze the sides of the foot at the metatarsal the bones will move easily. There is not a great deal of flesh between them. Often this foot is a Greek or Egyptian foot.
Standing flat, this foot may create a relatively wide footprint, because the bones spread out to the sides. But en pointe, the foot compresses and the bones squeeze into one another. Thus the shoe that is sufficiently wide standing flat is too wide en pointe and the dancer slides easily into the box, causing pressure on the already prominent big toe or long second toe. Dropping into the box too much also causes the shoe to be too long and baggy en pointe, even though it may just barely be long enough standing flat.
