Have you ever eaten an orange that is cut into slices with the skin still on? An orange that is cut into quarters without being peeled? Imagine taking one of those quarter slices and peeling the skin off... then, folding that skin in half. If you took that piece of skin, folded in half, and wrapped it around your toes, that is what a lambs wool toe pad would be like, and that is what I used to wear inside of my pointe shoes.

The toe pad's insides are fluffy, like the coat of a lamb. The outside of the toe pad is flat, and that is where the stitches are shown. The toes are placed inside this pad and then into the pointe shoe. Because the pad is shaped in a sort of arc, the big toe is covered almost to its base. The pad then curves over the rest of the toes, allowing the middle toes' bases to show just a little, until it reaches the last toe, covering the entire pinky toe of the foot.

My feet always felt good in my pointe shoes. People always think that when you are on pointe that it's like standing on your toes when you are barefoot...which is almost impossible. When you're on pointe, you are standing on your toes, but it's different. It's not like your toes are doing all of the work. The box of the pointe shoe is helping you stay up because of how stiff it is, but your upper body and your stomach, or center, is actually doing all of the work.

In ballet, your stomach is always referred to as your center. It is where all of your balance comes from, it is where every movement originates. If a dancer's center is not strong, then everything else falls from there...literally. Without a strong center, a dancer is not able to balance, move from one position to another, or perform graceful movements. So when someone assumes that a dancer is "on her toes", she is actually in her stomach, holding her center strong. That is how she is dancing on pointe.