12 Tips For Salsa Dancers' Feet Maintenance

Are you starting to wonder how to better take care of your feet from all that salsa dancing? If you’ve been just “sucking it up” all this time? Well here’s what you can do (besides buying shoe pads or band-aids) to help prevent or better take care of all the ‘wear & tear’ we dancers get on our feet.

Here’s 12 tips I give some of my private students (plus feedback from pro dancer friends of mine, that have over a decade of dancing experience), that I’ll pass on to you:


1 – Obviously invest in a good pair of dance shoes, if you haven’t already.
For men, since it’s not common to wear ballroom dance shoes to go social dancing, make sure you don’t buy a dress shoe based on just how it looks & fits. Make sure it’s flexible (by trying them on and squat down with heels off the ground), heel not too thick, shoe not too heavy and bottom sole is not rubber or a polished slick feel. Genuine leather bottom sole is ideal.

2 – Keep you steps short and dance tighter.
Although, getting stepped on is inevitable over time, you can dramatically cut down the amount of incidences simply by not stepping back on 1 so far (on 5 for men), cutting down your side steps and staying closer to your partner after cross-body leads in open position.

3 – For women, keep feet pedicured with nails not exceeding the tip of your toes.
The longer your toe nails, the easier it is for someone’s accidental step or kick to lift off the nail from the skin.

4 – Get foot massages or use a foot massaging machine regularly.
This not only helps relieve sore tissues but, to regain better blood circulation and reduce possible swelling. Plus, it helps exit built up stress energy & toxins in your feet.

5 – Do not use a razor on calloused feet.
You need some amount of toughness to feet, or they will be oversensitive and callous up even worse. Instead, gently slough feet when bathing or showering. You can use exfoliating gloves and give them a good scrub with a skin exfoliating product of your choice (you can even find some products especially for exfoliating feet - Bath & Body works has a line of this).

6 – Apply foot cream at night before bed with a pair of cotton socks over.
You can even use Vaseline if you don't have foot cream on hand. This helps keep feet soft. Think about softening the feet rather than actually removing or scraping off the callous. Dancers need that protective layer on their feet to keep them a little tough.

7 - Stretch your ankles and feet.
This will help prevent your feet and ankles from injury if it gets twisted while dancing. For women, you can easily do this while exfoliating your feet.

8 – Wear tennis shoes during the daytime or dance sneakers for practices and workshops.
If you dance for a living or just dance a lot, you should try to spare your feet (not to mention back) from any extra stress.

9 – Take Epsom salt baths to relieve sore muscles including your feet.

10 – Use skin colored thin cloth tape for already existing bruises and scrapes.
Especially for shoe straps that may hurt or any edge of the shoe that may be digging into your foot/keel/ankle too much.

11 – Elevate your feet often.
Also to help pressure relief and blood circulation.

12 - Do stress reliving exercises such as Qui gong, Tai chi or Yoga.
This will help, not only mental centering, but better all-round energy flow through your body allowing it to break-down less (including your feet).


There it is. These are just top 12, if you have more valuable tips to share please do so.

Hope this helps give you much more long-term enjoyment to salsa dancing or other dances (as you start to go more or continue to dance more) as it has with me and others who have been dancing salsa.

All the best.

Marcelo


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