I need help in improving my balance. I just started dancing in proper ballroom shoes and the thin heel completely throws me off. Any advice in dancing in the latin shoes/retaining my balance would be GREATLY appreciated!! it was very tough to leave practice not feeling I performed my best cause of my balance throwing me off. :O( Somebody told me balance comes from your big toe and others told me have a tight core/head up keeps good balance??? not too sure which one to focus on or works the best. Help!! lol thank you!!

LFCirillo. Retain some presure on the foot that is behind you. You will have to get a DVD simular to the one put out by Slavik on the Rumba.There is too much to learn it can't be done by correspondence. Slavik says a common mistake is not to have the feet turned out and to release the rear foot too early. There are three distinct moves of the body. Step forward A. the body is behind the heel of the front foot. B. the body is over the heel. C. the body is over the ball, only then is the rear foot released into neutral on the count of and. Up to that point it is your stabliser. Think of it as your rudder, without a rudder your stuffed.

Foot/toe/core strength are all helpful to ones balance. Various foot and core strength exercises alone could be helpful. But balance is a skill that can be practiced separately. Basically this means that you have to find ways to train the neural pathways between your inner ear and all those foot/toe/ankle/core muscles. You might try spending a several minutes a day balancing on one foot at time, while wearing the problem dance shoes, first on a hard floor, and then on a squishy mat. When you get good enough that you get bored doing this, you might also add practicing your latin arm actions, or something, at the same time as you balance on one foot, to add challenge. After a few weeks of doing this, walking might feel much easier.

Thank you all very much! I will take your advice you gave me and try to work on balancing in my shoes everyday for a little bit! If the dvd by slavik is helpful them i might consider buying it. Where can i buy it?

This may seem rather obvious, but if you are having balance issues in a particular design of shoe that you only wear part time for dancing, then perhaps you should buy a very similar pair of non-dancing shoes that you wear on a regular basis (at least until the balance issues are overcome).

If you wear them enough, you will get comfortable in them and the balance issue may just naturally disappear. However, that does not preclude you from following the previous good advice.

Keep dancing in your heels and your balance will improve. I wear the straps on my shoes very tight, which helps me. Also, I find that if I wear my practice shoes too much I lose my sense of balance and have to start all over again. Now I only wear my practice shoes sparingly when my feet and legs can't take much more.

With ladies shoes it becomes obvious. Stand your shoes on a flat surface. If they lean outwards you are using the outside edge of your shoes. It should be the inside edge. If you are looking for balance problems you could start right there.
If your dancing has been to the outside you have turned a good pair of shoes into something that is now useless.
Guys should be able to see from the wear on the sole of there shoes as to which part they are using.