If you’ve ever wondered what dancers wear inside their pointe shoes—well, it’s not the same as what Scotsmen wear under their kilts:

The video brings back long-buried memories of my own pointe shoe rituals.

First there was the taping of the toes, done with a combination of those orange plastic corn pads with the hole in the middle, gauze, and the sort of tape that doesn’t rip the skin off the feet when you remove it and yet stays put despite sweat.

Then a slight padding of lamb’s wool, carefully fluffed and then positioned for maximum coverage of the most tender areas. Over all of this sometimes went—depending on my mood and the tightness of my shoes—a piece of soft suede made into a sort of hemi toe-mitten.

Then, of course, the glamorous yet vicious pointe shoe itself, with accessories of elastic and ribbons and some sort of hardening matter (varnish? floor wax? can’t remember) applied to the tip when it got old, to extend its life and forestall the dread moment when I had to break in some new ones.