Lesson 4 - In the Night

Can't get to the noon hour lesson this week as I have some other commitments. So I went the night before to the evening lesson for a makeup. I like the hour and a half format. It's not quite so rushed, and you get a little more time to work on moves. And they have a few more moves than us nooners do.

Still I managed to stay with them more or less. They were doing this brush thing, that I had a heck of a time following: you brush the floor with with your toe, which makes a smacka kind of sound, then you do a quick step ball change. It's really quick and sounds great, kind of smacka smacketa, but I couldn't get my feet to follow me.

We got the last piece of the Shim-Sham Shimmy tonight, which incorporated this brush-step-ball-change. It's going to take some work. But it's really cool how it all comes together. Then she showed how all the moves we learned could be jazzed up by throwing in some body moves, basically exaggerating the body's movement in some of the weight transfers. It's not something we need to know in the Intro Tap class, but it sure makes a difference in how it looks.

Teach showed us a bit to Superstition by Stevie Wonder, without saying a word. She led us through it bit by bit, and we managed to get it figured out. That was kind of neat too.

The night classes are a lot larger, so when we did the vines, we ended up splitting into two groups. There were 16 of us, so four on one side of the room, four on the other side, and those did a cross over between each other. Meanwhile in the back of the room the other eight were doing half vines and a step in a circle kind of thing. Vines I could do, but the step in circle was evil, because I always hit with my weight on the wrong foot, and then I'd be totally off balance.

At the end, we took 15 minutes to watch some videos of a couple of kids who were on TV a lot, back when TV was new, in the early 50's. Amazing stuff. I could see some of the stuff we were doing, but they would do a lot of whole body movement with the steps, which made it much more dramatic, and added a lot of humor. They were also pretty athletic, in some of the later stuff, when they were grown. You could see where James Brown got his moves. Teach said a lot of Hip-Hop originated from what these two were doing as well. Really neat.

It was a fun night, and I even got comments on my shoes, cuz they look pretty cool, compared to everyone else's real tap shoes. The real thing has a flat finish, and a bare minimum of style. I bought mine at The Bay, just regular shoes with a glossy finish, and they stood out in the crowd.

Another thing is I have a slightly loose tap on one toe, and apparently that's a good thing, as it changes the sound of the tap. The tiny air space between the tap and the shoe gives it a much sharper sound, and I could sure hear the difference between the two toes.

Next week there are no classes because of the spring break, so I'll have more in two.

Lesson 3

Another fun noon hour. This time I forgot my shirt, so went and bought a new one. Except I didn't pay too much attention to the size, so it was a little tight. But I was lookin' buff! All that running has made a difference.

We added to the Shim-Sham Shimmy, but with a different break after the second part. And like the first lesson, I cannot remember a thing about it. But I finally have the break figured out. Turns out that the backwards hops are on alternate feet instead of the same foot, which was completely screwing me up.

Then there was another little bit added to the vines thing, and it was a quick little move, where you cross in front once, reverse, cross in front again, reverse and so on for eight counts. It's really tricky, because you have to jump into it immediately from half vines. The tricky part is that the vines are all stepping across behind the other foot, and suddenly you're in this quick little bit having to step across in front.

And then there was this weird little sideways moonwalk thing that was added to the warmup. Move both toes to the side, then both heels, then both toes and so on. That part isn't too bad, but then you start pigeon-toed, and move one heel and one toe, then the other heel and the other toe. Repeat until you're brain melts. But it comes together really quick when you learn not to think about it. Cool!

The Harry Connick number we did once more, and didn't add to it. In order to keep roughly parallel with the evening classes, we're going to drop it next week and do something different. Too bad, as I just about have it figured out.

There are spring classes coming, running twice a week for five weeks, and summer classes too, all in the evening. The schedule comes out in a couple of weeks so I'll see how it looks. Might just do it all over again.

Lesson 2

Better dressed this time. I wore a technical shirt and, of course, my shoes with the newly mounted taps. Didn't feel quite so sweated up after.

The shuffle thing is actually called the Shim-Sham Shimmy. And it's got a little phrase to say, that has the rhythm of the step: "The Shim-Sham Shimmy is fun to do". Kinda corny, but it works. I am having a tough time with it. I'm supposed to end up on the left foot and more often than not I'm ending on the right, so something is missing.

This move is actually the break in a longer piece, and we started the first part of it today. It's got a THUMP-thump-THUMP-thump-THUMP-thump-a-THUMP-thump rhythm that repeats three times and then goes into the break. The THUMP is a stomp, where you put your foot down, but don't transfer weight to it. The thump-a is a ball change (I think that's what it's called) which adds a bit of syncopation to it.

The Harry Connick number we worked through, but I don't think we added anything to it. That started to come together a little better for me, but the pencil turn is still not working. I think I almost pulled it off once, just at the beginning when we were playing around before the instructor got there. The trick seems to be to bend the pivot leg at the knee and push off, then keep the draggin toe beside you. I tend to keep it behind, so when I run out of spin, I have no leg under me to transfer to.

And then there was a marching kind of thing that I had forgotten about. Four marching steps, then two in half time, then a kind of forward shuffle where the relative positions of the feet don't change, but you kind of rock forward from foot to foot. It sounds pretty neat, especially when we all do it together. Today we added some kind of hoe-down thing, where you kick behind the other foot and slap it with your hand, then back the other way to slap it with the other hand, slap the knee, stamp the foot down, clap twice and shrug. Or something like that. It has to happen fast, so nobody gets it right, and it gets pretty hilarious.

And we did grapevines (again, I think that's what they're called.) Last week was the straight vine and the syncopated vine. Today was the half vine, which was a syncopated vine, but you only do it once before you change direction. It's really tricky because you have to do the weight transfer right to do the direction change. Otherwise you end up stumbling over yourself.

I find that I tend to slide around a lot. I've noticed the instructor takes rather small steps compared to the rest of us, so she doesn't have as much momentum to contend with on the direction changes. The rest of us are eating up the whole floor, while she seems to barely use half.

One minor annoyance: my shoes felt a little sloppy on my foot today. I had hoped that a good quality shoe wouldn't stretch too much, and I'm still hoping this is the case. But it seems slip-ons always go that way for me. I may have to improvise a lace sometime. I'd hate to lose one on one of those kick type moves. There's three walls of mirrors and one of windows, and I'd hate to find out what a flying tap shoe would do.

Modifications

So, on the way home last night after work, I took a little detour, and bought the taps, then I drove down to where the shoe place was that could put them on. And tonight I picked them up. They are way too cool, they look good, they feel good. They feel funny, but good.

Just wish I could remember some of the steps. Damn!

Lesson 1

My calves are sayin' "Musta been close to a 30 km run there..." My ankles are sayin' "What the heck was that??" Jeez, what a workout! Gonna definitely have to think about some kind of workout clothes. Talk about hard work! Nony recommended lot's of calf stretching tonight. No run tonight, either, I think.

There were six of us in the class. One of the ladies may have been there for a make up class. If you miss a class you can sit in on another class to make it up. Doesn't even have to be the same dance style. So if you miss tap, you can take a salsa make-up class or something. How cool is that?

Have no idea what I learned, how to do it. Pencil turns are going to kill me (at least I think that's what they're called). I was concentrating so hard on the routine for the Harry Connick number, I pretty much forgot everything that we did before that. What a blast!

I honestly had no idea how much of a workout this would be. Nor did I realize how much complexity we'd be learning. We've got a little over a minute of choreography already on the Harry Connick tune. Then there's a little something or other shuffle that I can't remember.

Oh, man, it was so much fun. I started out OK, and was keeping up pretty well, but by the end I was totally lost. Damn pencil turns. But I was so pumped I didn't want to quit. It was just way too cool.

Definitely going to get taps installed for next week. The instructor wrote down the brand of taps to get, where to get them, and where to take them to get them installed. She said the shoes I got are perfect.

Nony said, "You sound totally jazzed... right on! You are smiling ear to ear I bet too!"

Yeah, I was.