Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Blisters, bunions and ballet


Do you see this instrument? We used to be friends. Actually… friend is a strong world. It was a hate/love relationship. It’d name is the ‘foot stretcher’. Not particularly exciting. How bloody ironic.

This instrument is for ballerinas, or gymnasts. It seeks to stretch your foot, and improve the line of your arch.  Basically, you place your foot in the triangular prism hole, and attempt to straighten your knee. In doing this you will experience extraordinary shooting pains up into your ankle, and get cramps in your Achilles tendon.

In doing so, it’s meant to make your feet look like this:


However, it made them look more like this:


The pain was excruciating, and for the ten minutes after you’d used the ‘foot stretcher’ you couldn’t put any pressure on your feet. Dancer are under enormous pressure to achieve physical perfection, but have we gone too far?

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