Aliette,
The best exercises for balance focus on areas of the body that have the most impact on your ability to balance... Primarily your feet and ankles, and your centering.
For centering, you need to start with good posture, which amounts to proper positioning of the spine. Try to both flatten and lengthen your back so that you are neither arching nor slouching. Hold your pelvis so that the tailbone points straight to the floor, neither tilting forward nor backwards.
Additional information on posture can be found at www.ballroomdancers.com/Technique/Default.htm.
In addition to posture, centering means finding the right relationship of body over the feet. So many people overlook this, which is why they have trouble balancing. Just remember: If you lose your balance, it means that you didn't get your body over your standing foot. It's as simple as that.
For feet and ankles (and really, for calves, too) there are plenty of exercises you can do.
To increase the strength of your calves, try standing with the balls of your feet on a stair, with the heels hanging over the edge. Lower your heel below the stair, and then push it up as high as it will go. Repeat until your calves burn up.
To focus on the ankles, do a similar exercise in the middle of the floor. Only instead of standing on two feet, point one foot to the side without weight, and do it only on one foot at a time. Also, instead of doing fast repetitions, go very slowly... Starting with standing foot flat on the floor, rise 1/4 of the way up, and hold for 10 seconds. Then rise to about 1/2 way up, and hold again. Rise again to 3/4, then hold, then finally go up as high as you can on your toes, and hold again. Go down just as slowly in 1/4 increments, holding for 10 seconds each. All the while, remember to maintain your posture and centering. Now repeat the exercise on the other foot.
One other tip: Make sure that you always use the middle to inside edge of your feet. If you feel your weight rolling toward the outside edge (the 3 smaller toes), your foot is beginning to sickle, which is very bad. Try to keep those ankles to the inside, always. A good way to test this is to do the same rise & fall exercise with the feet 1/2 inch apart. When you rise, keep the ankle bones pressed together the entire time.
Finally, the various tendu and pointing exercises from ballet are an excellent way to improve foot action, if done correctly. The best way to make sure you do them correctly is to actually take a ballet class.
Well, that's all I have time for. I hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson
