The longer second toe of your foot categorize you to the greek type. This type of foot usually goes with many issues, like compressible feet, having bunions, knuckles and space between the toes. The characteristic of the greek type of foot, the longer second toe, is the central subject here. In this article we describe the situation of having a longer second toe and its issues. We also examine the most suitable pointe shoe models and the best DIY solutions concerning the padding we can use in our pointe (and even street) shoes.

Is the picture of a foot's longer second toe a familiar one to you ? Well, a very common pointe shoe fitting issue between the ballerinas is the longer second toe of their feet. This factor determines the type of the foot, which in this case is called greek (other two are egyptian and roman).

Greek type of foot, regardless of the elegance of the usually narrow shape of the feet, used to accumulate almost all the problems someone can have on his/her feet - bunions, knuckles, space between the toes, compressible feet. As we 've already mentioned in the long and narrow feet with long toes, because of their narrow and long shape, the toes tend to bend inside the pointe shoe (even in the street shoe) and this leads to an altered shape of the foot. For this reason, also, the feet are not able to accomplish the basic target of the pointe shoe, which is to roll correctly from demi onto full pointe and stay there. So, this happens because there is space between the big (first) and the second toe, the second one is longer and finally the toes don't have the appropriate small space they need inside the shoe, but they bend and step incorrectly.

In this case, there are some models of pointe shoes that could help your feet move better and, of course, - the significant part - won't hurt you that much. Let's find out the most useful tapered models by brand:

1. Grishko : Grishko2007.

2. Russian Pointe : Rubin.

3. Gaynor Minden : a pointe shoe model with box size 2 or 3.

There are also some choices less suitable, but still helpful:

1. Freed: Studio.

2. Suffolk Captivate.

3. Siberian Swan : Pavlova.

4. Grishko : Vaganova & Maya II.

5. Russian Pointe : Sapfir.

Despite the right pair of pointe shoes, there is a chance someone's second toe to be very long. Unfortunately, there are not many things we can do, but we will of course recount you the DIY solutions we have found, concerning basically the padding. Nowadays, there are many companies and brands (Techdance, Bunheads etc) that produce only padding products for each problem you may have with your feet and pointe shoes. Let's find them out:

1. Soft silicone pads: We can put pads from solf silicone inside the box to help our toes (and especially the longer one) to "sink" into the pad, to cover the extra space and protect our longer toe.

2. Toe protector: There is a small black padding protector we can use to put our longer toe inside it, to fill the extra space inside the shoe.

3. Wool: We also can use wool as a protector and space filling. The best thing with wool is that it is so soft we can shape it the way we want!

4. Toe spreader/seperator: Toe spreaders are used for filling the extra space between the first and second toe, mostly when there is a longer second toe and the feet are compressible and/or have bunions. In this case the toe seperator will function as a life(toe)-saver, as it will help our toes to get the correct shape.