standing tall © Lilly Schwartz 2011

For a while now I have had problems with my tango shoes. In fact I always had trouble with finding the right shoes, because the arch support is never in the right spot to actually support the arch of my foot. In one shop I tried all the shoes in my size and none of them had the arch support right although they were good in the length. Since my tango shoes are not cushioned in any way this missing arch support causes pains in the ball of the foot after about 1 1/2 hours of dancing which makes classes ever so slightly more painful than they should be. These days I’m going to tango classes every day, so yesterday I decided to solve my problems with some dance sneakers.

On my quest for dance sneakers I yesterday went to a shop called Ballett Shop in Charlottenburg which sells all sorts of dancing shoes for many dances. It was a small and cosy shop with many shoes and dance outfits on display. Two women were working in the shop and one of them, apparently the owner, showed me many different dance sneakers of which I tried on 4 or 5 pairs. I also tried some shoes that were more like ballet shoes, but with soft pads on front and back so that you could turn on them more easily. In the end it was between these and a pair of dance sneakers which were comparatively flat.

Considering that I would have to wear these shoes in tango classes I wanted a bit more protection for my toes. They are always under attack which I especially noticed in the class on barridas that I had Tuesday night. So, after careful deliberation I decided to take the dance sneakers. They also have no real arch support considering that they don’t even have proper heels, but they are padded which makes it feel less like I’m just walking on bare bone. I tried them out last night and it made a huge difference. It felt like I could have danced at least double the time and today my feet don’t hurt! I can also warmly recommend the shop, nice people, great service and they gave me a shoe bag for free although I was willing to pay for it. The shop is in Sesenheimerstraße which is a street across from the subway station Deutsche Oper.

I took the photo the day before yesterday when exploring the river banks after my driving lesson.