Help! Slippery floor - tapes, stickers etc

[Happymum]

Hi all! Hope you can help! My DC teacher is looking for help/ideas how to teach in a hall with very slippery floor. The floor in the hall used to be perfect for dancing but owners decided to change it not paying attention to what she says! It's a long story but generally until She manages to find another venue/ buy a special expensive ballet floor etc is there anything which makes ballet shoes sticky? The usual water sadly isn't enough and she can't teach just the barre exercise and no traveling steps for too long. She has got one idea but is looking for more. Are there things you can attach to ballet shoes? Stickers or patches? A tape you can put around ball of the feet? I've read about dipping feet in coke instead of water but does it really help? Will it not damage shoes or the floor?

[toursenlair]

We used to have a very slippery (vinyl) floor at my ballet studio. The owner swabbed it down with a special solution that made it a little sticky but not too sticky. It was still pretty slippery though. He since put down a proper dance floor and it's been miraculous. However, would you like me to inquire of him what the name of the stuff was?

[Dance*is*life]

Apple Vinegar in the cleaning water (no soap) does help. We swabbed our floor down just before the exams and it was good.

[Happymum]

Thank you for your replays. The problem is that the owner isn't very helpful and even not happy with the use of water to dip feet in. He would not use any special solution on the new shiny floor :-( that's why I'm looking for something what could be done with shoes rather than floor.

[alison]

I do sympathise: we used to have our class in a hall with a wooden floor, and depending on how the caretaker had cleaned it it might be okay, or it might be lethal.  We did go back to using rosin at one stage, but then that made the floor dirty ...

 

I'd be very reluctant to put any sort of friction-creating stuff on the soles of your shoes: I'd be worried that it might stop your forward momentum too suddenly and you might get injured as a result.  I did find that water on the suede soles of the ballet shoes rather than on the floor did help, but it sounds as though that may not be enough in your case.

[Anjuli_Bai]

We sprayed coke on the floor.  But if the owner is uncooperative that of course won't work.  

[Dance*is*life]

Well presumably he allows the floor to be cleaned??? A bucket of water with some vinegar added is surely not a big deal? I would tell him that if a child slips and hurts herself, the parents could sue him for negligence!

[Anjuli_Bai]

There is a product which keeps a floor shiny but is not slippery.  It is used by many commercial establishments and places like hospitals and nursing homes - places where a slippery floor is not acceptable but needs to be easy to clean..  i recall doing  research on it but that was many years ago.  You might try calling around to see what it is.  

[drdance]

Slip stop powder is very good. Or good old rosin?!

[Anjuli_Bai]

I'm not sure that rosin works very well on non-wood floors.

[Stitch]

I've read about dipping feet in coke instead of water but does it really help? Will it not damage shoes or the floor?

Coke or water on the bottom of the shoe will overtime turn the bottom hard and shiney which will make things worse.  I found a little relief by always carrying in my dance bag a rough grit sand paper.  You can use it to roughen the bottom of the shoe and give it a little bite - but you must keep doing it and it is not a perfect solution.

[Lucinda]

Just wondering if you have tried suede patches that you glue onto the satin on the toe of the pointe shoes? They are mushroom shaped and you trim them to size. We purchase ours from a specialist dance supplier. DD uses a bit of sandpaper to roughen the suede when she needs more friction and also 'scores' the leather sole of the pointe shoe in a criss cross pattern with a sharp knife as well.

[Happymum]

Thank you for your advice. Can I just ask what are the recommended water : vinegar proportions?

[Stitch]

Thank you for your advice. Can I just ask what are the recommended water : vinegar proportions?

You might want to be careful here.  If you are the one who has altered the floor  (perhaps by using vinegar), and if someone falls and becomes injured, then you might have placed yourself in the path of blame.

 

I know nothing about the vinegar solution, but I don't think anyone will be able to accurately answer your question as to what the correct proportions of water to vinegar should be (if it will even work at all on the floor in your hall). The best answer might be to try a given mixture on a rarely used corner of the hall.  But doing so probably won't give you an accurate expectation as to how the center of the floor will react because a rarely used corner will almost certainly have a different texture than the center of the floor which as probably been abraded by now.

 

I went through exactly the same situation many years ago when a student (actually in the flooring business) bartered with my teacher to clean and polish her wooden floors.  The floors looked great, but they were very slippery.  Here was the most frustrating part:  While I and some of the other students complained about the slippery floors, some dancers actually liked them!

 

You might want to poll for a consensus before you do anything.