On The Vamp of A Worn Beige Satin Bloch; Devotion.

I am not going to talk about ballet the dance, but the vamp on each shoe where I shredded blood and sweat, literally, and that is my kind of objective proof of what devotion looks like.

I'm taking a break from ballet for a year due to academic reasons. For most of my 14 years dancing, I am comforted by Bloch as my footwear over any other brands because of it’s compatibility to my feet. And ever since this hiatus, my collection of Bloch(s) are also left. One recent day I treasured them back; worn out, dull-colored, and pliable.

I have things with ballet footwear, whatever the type, foot thong, jazz-ballet shoes, canvas shoes, leather shoes, character shoes, teaching shoes, demi-pointe shoes, and my real struggle is pointe shoes because  they strain my calfs hard. Oh, I almost forgot to tell that every footwears has their own structure! The vamp part on pointe shoes is the point where I usually sweat a lot, as I take off my shoes every after class they look like I’m dipping my fingers area into a puddle.

If I have to choose things in my life to represent the word ‘devotion’ that would be my ballet shoes. Most of my lifetime, it tacked down in my sole, it has the soul, and we are one entity you’ve seen on the stage or in the studio. Of every defect it may flaw the light-colored beige, I am tandeming this as if it’s a journal with fulfilling tints on the pages. For many times when I’m fed up I swear to quit ballet but never really done, and when I’m done, I can’t live without it even in this postponement I'm still doing it at times and right now teaching ballet babies.

I’ve never thrown away my footwear, even the ones I had back in pre-primary level. I am keeping them forever but two times in my life I gave my shoes for the sake of friendship and love. I had a classmate who went to study engineering abroad so that she had to leave ballet, and the other one, I bear the meaning of devotion to the depth of a commitment. And just before I left the class last year, I asked my teacher to have her signature in my retiring pair of daily-used demi-pointe shoes. Giving my ballet footwear to someone remarks more than just a token of an important person in my life but how they once taught me the struggle of putting devotion to certain things above anything else.

//Anyway, out of context but just to share the benefit of keeping ‘treasure’ from the past, I am currently learning tap dance but no, of course, I don’t have the shoes. Guess what I’m wearing my old character shoes although they don't have the ‘tapping-woods’ on the soles, only on the heels, that pretty much helps. //