Tapping New Resources

I'm Slacking Again

2006-02-24T13:41:00.000-08:00

Nuts! I keep meaning to update this, and I get too busy on other things, and a week has gone by before I know it.

But the class has been going well? Certainly still having a blast with it. One big thing that has come out of it so far is the ability to be unselfconscious, at least in front of friends. We can almost get through everything without getting the giggles.

We start these days with a moment on the floor, flat on our backs. This is a relaxation excersize, where we tighten different parts of the body, then let it relax. What we're doing is training ourselves to relax at will, so we can get past nervousness when grabs us. It gets me very relaxed, so much so that I'm the one that drifts off to sleep occasionally.

Then deep breathing. Fill the body with breath, all the way to the toes. And then the nonsense sounds: "la-lee, la-lo, la-lay", "gaca, gaca, caga, caga", and my favourite: "ZUH!" After that, it's tongue twister time. Still frustrating as heck.

We do the machine thing every week, where somebody jumps in to start, doing some kind of strange machine thing that they dreamed up, and everyone else gets into it, doing a connected part and making machine noises and stuff.

An interesting exercise that we did last week, was meeting people. We started by marching around the room, like we had somewhere to go, and needed to get there. And Dan would set it up: "the next person you meet is someone you haven't seen in a year", "...someone you don't much like", "...someone who screwed you over at work", "...someone you just saw in an Internet porn video", and like that. What a hoot!

This week, we did a participatory thing, where someone would start doing a physical activity and the rest would join in with related activities. We worked on a house (I was painting), hung out in a pool hall (I tended the bar), went to a dance (I was in the band), and one I started, worked in a restaurant. I was cleaning off tables and putting on table clothes. What was neat about this is that after the first person started, the rest had to guess what was going on before starting a related activity. And the danger is guessing wrong, which is why, while I was setting up tables, Mike was bussing them, Byron was cooking, and Caroline was sweeping up, that Chris was washing cars.

We also did something odd (well, everything we did was odd...) where we stood in a circle, and one of us left the room Dan picked a leader, who then picked an activity that the rest of us copied. The person who left was allowed back in and had to pick who the leader was. The activity had to change often, and had to be seamless enough so the picker couldn't guess.

Last thing in the night was choosing numbers between 8 and 88, writing them down and giving them to Dan. We did this twice cuz we're a small group. Then one by one, we pick a number without showing the rest, and that's the age we have to act while waiting for a bus. Dan talked through the scene, describing the approaching bus, and it's various stops and starts. Then as the actor was about to board the bus, the action stopped and the rest had to guess the age. Kinda neat.

Which led to our homework: Go somewhere where there are lots of people, and observe them as you walk behind them. The pass them, and look back and see if what age you guessed them to be from behind, matched with what you saw from the front. I've been doing that in the Plus 15 at lunch the last couple of days. Fascinating.

There are probably more things we did in the last two or three weeks that I've forgotten. Too much fun.

Breathe Deep, and Enunciate!

2006-02-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

Forgot to mention the homework from last week. When we split into two groups and my group did the ball game, the other group brushed their teeth. So that was our homework - observe ourselves brushing our teeth. What do we do first, how do we hold the brush, which hand do we squeeze the tube with, how do we handle the taps, and one burning question that seemed to come up: what do we do with the left hand while we're brushing? First couple of times it was weird, cuz I kinda got the giggles. It was amazing how self-conscious I got just standing alone in my bathroom, brushing my teeth.

After talking about that for awhile, we jumped into a breathing exercise. I think the idea here is to pull in as much air as possible, so there'll always be enough for whatever you're doing. I couldn't do much more than usual, I think because I did something like that during my radio days and so already am able to inhale to the necessary depth.

Once we got the breathing down, we started using it to make noises, playing with sounds, particularly voiced and unvoiced consonants: "fa-va, va-fa" and "ga-ca, ca-ga". We also felt up our sinuses as we made weird humming noises. This showed where the resonances in our heads were that make up the timbre of our voices. It was interesting to find what caused the most vibration where, while making strange humming noises and messing with the position of our jaws and the shape of our closed mouths. Interesting enough, even, to not notice how totally silly we looked. I could imagine someone walking by and looking in the window, thinking that we were part of some wierd cult practicing strange rites. We're in a church after all.

Then we went on to tongue twisters. Dan had a couple of pages of them, and we chose a few, said them together three times, then practiced for awhile on our own. This was bad enough just trying to be able to repeat them several times, but hearing everyone else doing it just messed me up more. And Dan sat there doing them rapid-fire, and it was hard to ignore all that. Once we thought we were up to it, one of use would volunteer to say it three times as quick as possible. Try it with "black bug's blood" or "big B-52 bombers".

One more exercise before saying goodnight: we sat in a circle around a small table. Dan handed out pencils and paper, and we turned our backs on the table. Then he arranged several objects on it. We got fifteen seconds to have a look, then we had to turn our backs and write down as many as we could remember. The idea was not only to practice observing and remembering, but also to become aware of how you remember things. I impressed myself by coming up with eleven out of thirteen objects. I seem to remember by grouping things, where if I can remember one object in the group, I can pull up the rest.

And that defined our homework: to practice with observing a scene, closing our eyes and seeing how much we can remember of it. And continuing observing ourselves brushing our teeth.

Welcome Natalie!

2006-01-26T16:21:00.000-08:00

Second night of acting lessons, and Natalie joined us. She's kind of at a disadvantage, as the rest of us know each other, but we didn't get too weird on her, I think. Dan made her go through the exercise we did last week, and she rather handily got through it. Turns out she's already done some more advanced classes (scene studies, I think one of them was called) so she's not nearly so new at it as the rest of us.

Different exercises tonight, concentrating on our powers of observation and recreating in detail situations from our experience. We worked in two groups mostly. The first was to imagine a sporting event and simply go through the motions of being there. This one was hard, as I had no idea what was supposed to be happening. I tried to see what a ball game looked like, drawing on the one or two I had attended. With the idea that I was to "see" what was going on, I wasn't too dynamic, but I wasn't going to look to the side to see what the other two were doing. It was hard, because I had to come up with the action on my own, and there really isn't much going on at a ball game between hits.

After that, we sat and did a visualization exercise, where Dan described in great detail going to a hockey game at the Saddledome. Again, it was difficult for me as I've never been to one, and he was describing things inside the building that I've never experienced. Hard to fill in the blanks.

Then it was sit with eyes closed, and just listen and try to list all the sounds we could hear over a couple of minutes. We were in a pretty quiet part of town, but the building is old and noisy, and the occasional traffic noise was loud, as was the murmur from the rehersals going on downstairs. There was a surprisingly large number of sounds to hear.

Another exercise was to have a meal. We split up into two teams, and had to come up with an entree, side dish, beverage and dessert. This came easier, firstly because it was within my experience, and second because I was finally getting into what we were intended to do. Not a lot easier, though. I found myself still extremely self-conscious about it.

I ate the spaghetti, got some on my shirt (cuz I always do with spaghetti), ate the garlic toast, drank the wine, and managed the spumoni ice cream for desert. And we must have done not bad, because the other team got it. They did burgers and fries, and we figured it out too.

Then on the floor in a circle, which was a challenge for some knees (not Natalie, though - the curse of youth - someone else's, that is). Someone started in the middle (me) and was handed an object behind my back, and I had to figure out what it was. I had to use my non-dominant hand; that would be the left one for me. Then I closed my eyes, everyone else passed a tennis ball around the circle until I said stop, and the person with the ball at that point had to go into the circle to figure out the next object.

Minor excitement at this point: sliding out of the centre of the circle after taking a turn, I found a small nail protruding out of the floor. It could have been a staple, too. But it almost pierced my hand and tore my pants. Dan improvised a hammer out of a chair to pound it all the way into the floor (yeah, it was kinda awkward). We finished sitting in chairs instead of on the floor, in case there were any more nails sticking out.

Last exercise was to sit in a circle with someone in the middle. That person closed her eyes, we passed the ball until she said stop. The person in the middle picked a letter, and the person with the ball had to come up with six items beginning with that letter. He had to do this while the ball was passed around the circle again, and had to do it before it went around twice. Nobody got it. Caroline and I each managed five items once. The idea here was to ignore the passing of the ball and the deadline it implied, and just concentrate on the task we were given.

I found it a very challenging night, but a lot of fun. I'm not sure if it's easier doing this stuff with people you know; the biggest challenge is just to let go of the self-consciousness, and I think by the end of the night I was actually succeeding.

Tapping a Different Resource

2006-01-19T09:37:00.000-08:00

Or maybe it's the same resource, but I'm exploring using it in a different way. In any case, it's something new and different, and I'm stretching in a different direction. And so far, it's fun!

So, to back up a bit: New Year's Eve, we're hanging out at a friend's place, and the topic comes up about what we can do together as a group, that would be different and new, and maybe a little outside our comfort zone. And our hostess pulls out a pamphlet from Quest Theatre. They run a theatre school, and offer classes for adults.

After a couple of weeks of thinking it over, five of us have signed up, and our first class was last night. It's held in the old Wesley United Church, which is now the Calgary Opera Centre. Our instructor is Daniel Libman, and we spent much of the evening revealing our backgrounds as far as acting, and other performing talents.

For all of us, it amounted to a few stints in highschool productions. My own notable performances were as the star quarterback/boyfriend back in grade 11, I think, which given my physique at the time, got more laughs than the lead characters.

The other performance was in a production about a scarecrow who is brought to life, a dramatic variation on the Pinocchio story, I suppose. I ran the fireplace. It was a cardboard thing with a red floodlight in the bottom, and given the sophistication of the lighting system in your typical school theatre, there was no way to tie it into the rest of the stage lighting, so my role was to crouch behind this cardboard construction with two ends of electrical cords, and plug and unplug in sync with the rest of the lighting. This was probably the best performance of my career so far.

Anyway, after revealing our meagre experiences, and our surprisingly considerable artistic talents, we did our first exercise. We divided into two groups, and took turns standing on the "stage" facing the other group, who was our audience. What we did was simply stare at each other for a few minutes in uncomfortable silence, observing things about each other. Then we were to count the ceiling tiles, and go sit down.

The purpose was to observe what it is like to stand in front of an audience and be watched, and to observe how it feels physically. It is not a comfortable place to be. I felt my breathing become shallow, with a tension in the chest, tightness in the shoulders and jaw, and a tendency to stand unnaturally straight. What was happening was we were experiencing the complete lack of control over what the audience is thinking. Counting the tiles gave us something to engage in, and something that we could control, as trivial as it was. Letting go of that control, and experiencing that while engaging in something we could control was the lesson.

And behind all of this we had a soundtrack. The Calgary Opera chorus was in rehearsal downstairs for their upcoming production of Dead Man Walking, and at full bore, they can really rattle the windows.

Missed the Last Day

2006-01-16T20:48:00.000-08:00

Been dragging my backside all day, and when I got home from work, I promptly fell asleep on the couch. By the time I regained consciousness, it was too late to go. So that's it for this term.

Might be trying something new in the coming weeks, so stay tuned...

Finishing Off in the New Year

2006-01-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

Finally got back to this. It's been almost a month since I've been to dance class. And even longer since I wrote anything in this blog. I missed a lesson in December just because I was a little overwhelmed with other stuff. And I missed last week as I had committed to helping with a group of friends for charity. So tonight was a little shakey.

We started with some warm up stuff that I was able to stay with. It's interesting that I measure my progress by how well I can follow along. It becomes tricky when you miss a class, because suddenly the rest of the class starts doing things you've never seen before.

We started with the Shimmy, and ran through it a couple of times. It's become rather well imbedded in my brain, as I've been doing it since last spring. I still have some trouble doing some of the tap florishes that differentiate it from the soft shoe version.

So then we did it in canon (I think that's the term), kind of like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" around the campfire. Three groups of us, the first starts, the second starts a couple of bars later, and the third a couple of bars after that. First time through was a mess. I was in the second group and I think we beat the first group to the finish. But we ran through it a couple of more times and we ended up pulling it off pretty well.

Then the Stroll. Tanis found a slow, bluesy version of The A-Train for us to dance to, and the first part does drag at that tempo. But as we get into the later parts where we break up the circle and get in lines, it's nice to have a chance for the brain to actually move fast enough to keep the feet moving more or less the way you want them to.

On one of the weeks I missed, Tanis introduced a routine that I've managed to pick up more or less. It starts facing the wrong way, and you simply step backwards and turn to face the right way (toward that imaginary audience). And then it jumps into the third part of the shimmy, a move I found comfortingly familiar since I didn't have a clue what I was doing the first time I saw it. Out of that, it goes into those twisting-on-the-heel moves that I suddenly can't remember the name of - sugar somethings or candy whatzits, or something like that. Three of those left, then a strange step-ball-change that I kept screwing up, then the other way and screw it up again.

After all that we're suddenly into the double time step, again something I know - *whew*. But the break is where I fall down. I can't remember the damn thing. I asked someone how it went, but we were suddenly jumping back into it from the start. After that break, we do this shuffle ball change that is weirdly timed in that you have to kind of drop half a beat in the middle. It's awkward, but sounds great when we nail it. And then another break at the end, and I cannot remember a single thing about that right now.

After that, we did the C-Jam Blues routine, and I totally forgot most of it. I think all of us did. After a couple of repeats it started to come back for some. But not a great moment; we were all pretty choppy on that one. I think that was another night I missed.

At the end, the instructor that subbed for Tanis back in November came in and ran through the routine she had put together. She's teaching the Intro class, and it's pretty small, so she's got us joining them next week on that. It's to a pretty rocking version of Pennies From Heaven.

Why are we joining the Intro class? Well, next week is the last class of the term, and it's Observation Week. Which means there may be outsiders - friends and family - there to watch what we've learned. So since the Intro class is so small, our class is joining them for moral support.

Meanwhile our class will likely be doing the Shimmy, the Stroll and for sure the one with pieces of the Shimmy and the double time step. I'm a little nervous about it, but what the heck. I survived the last Observation Week in the spring, and there it was in front of level 3 jazz and African dancers. I find I can sort of fake it for some of the stuff, and if the crowd is big enough, I can get lost in it too. Anyway, it's fun, and like any other kind of musical instruction, dance is all about performance, so here I go!

Been a While

2005-11-28T18:49:00.000-08:00

Don't know why I haven't been able to keep this one up to date. It's been over a month since I've updated it.

I missed last week due to other committments, and we had guest instructor. She actually teaches the intro class that's there after us, and came a little early tonight. She lead everyone through a routine they came up with last weekend to a bouncy version of Pennies From Heaven. And in the middle was about 16 bars of pure improvisation. I was almost able to follow it up to that point. That was a lot of fun.

We ran through the time step again, and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. I feel clompy and awkward, but I'm making the right moves and sounds, mostly. There's a single, double and triple time step, and I actually find the triple easier than the double, although at speed I think I end up doing a single. The difference is that the triple is a shuffle-step, where the double is a phalap, and I find phalaps harder than shuffles. Again, at speed, these things just become a step. It'll come.

What I struggle with is the break. It's not hard, but it has to be jumped into pronto and I seem to be off balance most of the time going into it. Then it jumps back into the time step. It's kind of cool when it works - single time step, break, double time step, break, triple time step, break.

Then there was the traveling time step. I managed to pick that up pretty well after a couple of repetitions, but by now of course, I've totally forgotten it. The break for it was hard to get, and I think it was because it was mostly a rigid beat. The steps in it we've done lots, but with the beat, it slowed some stuff down, so that it was almost a balance issue. (Well, just about everything in tap is a balance issue for me.)

We did the C-Jam Blues thing, a few times all the way through, just to keep it in our heads. We didn't get to the stroll this time, though.

One interesting thing Tanis showed us was a couple of what she called trick steps. One was where we'd jump up and back, and while we do that we smack our toes against the floor as we were rising (theoretically, that is) then land on our toes and drop our heels right away.

The other was wings. Again jumping up, then with both feet at the same time, doing a sideways shuffle and landing on the toes and dropping the heels. It was impossible to do either of these, even with the bar.

Lots of other stuff we got to, I can't remember. It was a good fun night, and I'm glad I went.

Catching Up

2005-10-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

Whoops, I'm falling behind in writing up what's been going on. I've missed writing up the last two lessons. Both times I had to jump into something right after, so I couldn't do it then, and in the following days, general busyness has kept me from taking the time (yeah, yeah...excuses, excuses...).

Last Monday was great, but the one before was another of those frustrating nights, where nothing seemed to come together and the legs just didn't want to move. I felt somewhat stiff that night, and couldn't get the looseness and relaxed-ness to move decently. Plus I had a heck of a time wrapping my head around some of the moves.

We do a couple of things that move us backward, pull-backs and another one that I forget the name of, or maybe it doesn't have a name. I find them really hard to get moving, so I'm moving about quarter speed, while everyone else is breezing by. Both generate three sounds per, but one is a brush-step-heel on one foot, then alternates. The other starts with a step, then brush-tap-heel, creating a BUM budda-BUM budda-BUM budda-BUM sound. Well, OK, I'm not at all sure about either one. I think I'm remembering the budda-BUM one, but the other one I might be totally out to lunch on.

Coolest of the cool: we have all of the Honi Coles Stroll now. Tanis has been drilling us on the last bit, and I have that down, though not fast enough to do it smoothly at speed. The first part is a hoot, too, cuz it starts out really easy, but adds little variations to things until it's actually a rather complex sound. But there's the part in the middle, and we just got all of that last lesson. I can't be sure I remember all of it, and I know I have trouble with some transitions. And because of the transitions, I keep feeling like I'm missing something in there.

The Astaire bit is still totally stymying me. We have most of it, but I just can't get the feet to go fast enough to make any kind of coherent sound. The way it goes is a quick bit of dance, with a pause, same as the piano in the music (which is C-Jam Bluest), so there's this flurry of movement, then we hold position. It almost seems like I'm the only one struggling to stay upright, my balance is so bad. I can still pull off the spinning cramp roll, but I get a couple of extra sounds when I have to take a couple of steps (clomp, clomp...) to keep from falling over.

We do some body rhythm stuff, too, where we break up into three or four smaller groups, and use our own creativity to dream up a sequence of sounds that everyone else has to repeat. And we don't just use our feet; we can clap hands or slap bellies or whatever.

Speaking of which, Tanis has us doing a travelling step which has us doing a chugg on the supporting foot, then a step with the other foot, then slapping ourselves in the chest a couple of times - chugg-step-slap-slap, chugg-step-slap-slap - and then doing a step-clap-step-clap-step-clap-clap, step-clap-step-clap-step-pause-pause (the pauses being soundless). It's kinda like the patting-the-head-rubbing-the-belly thing, and takes at least as much coordination.

And the pass cramp rolls are driving me crazy! Terrifically frustrating, because of the reversing of the heel drops, and that extra brush to start. There's one sequence where we shuffle, cramp roll, shuffle, cramp roll, cramp roll, pass cramp roll. That's three cramp rolls straight - left toe, right toe, left heel, right heel (l-r-l-r). Then you suddenly throw in the pass cramp roll - left toe, right toe, right heel, left heel (l-r-r-l). Through all this you're moving to the left, with the first three cramp rolls leaving you with your weight on the right foot, so you can start again on the left. The pass cramp roll ends with your weight on the left foot, so you can start with the right foot, and move back towards where you started from.

Yesh, that's a long paragraph just to explain something that's actually pretty simple (and really hard to cleanly - well, for me, anyway)

Balance is a real challenge for me. I find the stuff where I have to keep the weight on one foot for some time has me waving my arms trying to keep my balance. I'm not sure what is missing that would allow me to stay put. Legs should be fine I would think, with all the running. Maybe I should be on the balance board a little more.

Anyway, for all the frustraion, it's still a lot of fun. We just got the forms for early registration for the next session, and I'm weighing that against some other things I want to do. I'll need to see how the scheduling works out next year, before I commit. I really do want to continue, so we'll see.

Late Write-up

2005-10-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

It's been such a busy few days, but now I finally have time to sit down and write up the last lesson. Of course, it's been long enough that I've forgotten some things. (Most things?)

What I do remember is the sense of frustration. This time around is being difficult. Tanis is throwing a lot at us, and while some of us are up to it, some of us are getting lost. I find that some of the steps, while certainly not difficult, they go by so fast that I don't have time to figure out what is happening. Actually, the steps are nothing new, and I know how to do them. But I don't have the looseness and the facility to do them quickly yet, nor do I seem to have the ability to hold the sequence in memory long enough to get through it.

Anyway, there is the ending of the Honi Coles Stroll, that I think I have down more or less, but trying to get my legs and feet to just do it, and not think about it, is a challenge. I find I miss something, and then I'm either playing catch-up or waiting for a spot to jump back into it.

But I can still pull off the spinning cramp roll move. That's cool! Cramp rolls are one of those things that's easy to get, but hard to do right. Throwing the spin in seems to even out the heel drops, and it actually sounds pretty even.

One move that's totally new the last couple of weeks, is what I think is called the pass cramp roll, which allows the weight shift so you can switch feet to reverse another move - a sort of transition move.

A cramp roll is a quick toe-toe-heel-heel, left-right-left-right (or right-left-right-left) move, it's done really fast and sounds neat when done right, but to me it always looks awkward, even by the pros. Maybe that's why it's called a cramp roll, as it cramps four sounds into a single beat. With the pass cramp roll, the sequence of heel drops is reversed so the weight can shift. On top of that the first toe step is preceded by a brush.

Much of what trips me up, I think, is the reversal of sequences that can precede or follow a weight shift. Things like the left-right-left-right that suddenly goes left-right-right-left, to turn things around.

The Stroll is done to Take the A-Train, and I think we use the original Duke Ellington recording. Then there's the Astaire dance, and I think Tanis may have adapted it from one of his performances in the movie Shall We Dance, or she may have just borrowed some of the moves and put them together in her own creation. I think the music we're using is the C-Jam Blues (another Ellington hit), which opens with few short burst of piano. It's the piano burst that we dance to; the rests between bursts are rest for us. And again, it comes so fast, that I end up mostly kind of shuffling and hoping my feet sort of end up the same as everyone elses.

I'm certain I could master it all with practice, but there's the rub. Time to practice, and place, are hard to find sometimes. (Sometimes it's just an energy deficit)

For now, I'll keep plugging away, and keep faith that I'll eventually master this stuff. At the moment I plan on repeating Tap 1 when it comes around again next year. Repetition is the key. And I'll hold on to the fact that for all the frustration of it, it's still a heck of a lot of fun, and a great way to meet new people.

Playing Catch Up

2005-09-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

I totally missed writing up last week. It was pretty hectic for some reason, and I never got back to doing something about it. It was just as well, as it was a rough lesson.

We had a guest instructor, who was kind of put on the spot. Tanis was ill, and this new person seemed a little ill-prepared. It was a challenge to stay with her, as well, because I think she thought we were a little farther advanced than we were. Well, than some of us were. Some students are awfully good. Or maybe just looser and more flexibile. (Might have something to do with being a lot younger... what's up with that?)

The one complaint I had was that we really didn't do a lot of warmup routines. Or maybe the warmups felt like full routines. We seemed to dive right into new steps, and we spent some time doing pull backs and another backward move.

Lots of sweating, and trying to keep up, and by the end, completely unable to perform the simplest move, both because my head no longer had any control over my feet, and my leg muscles were simply ready to fall off.

It was a great workout, but an extremely frustrating night.

Tanis was back tonight though. Great, intense warmup, and that was a challenge for me because my calves and ankles were awfully tight (likely form the 16 km run yesterday). But they started to loosen up a little.

After that, we did a lot of things, and as usual, most of it slipped through my brain. There was a lot of traveling stuff, which wasn't too evil. I actually managed to pull off some respectable flaps, with an actual pha-lap sound. Then some riffs, which we'd done in intro, but which I'd forgotten. Didn't take me too long to get them back.

Tanis is adapting a routine from the Fred Astaire film Shall We Dance. Sounds like it's a simplified a little, just for us beginners. But there's some interesting moves, and of course I don't remember much of it.

We also did the Honi Coles Stroll, at least the last, and most complicated step. This is in preparation for the whole thing, which is something we'll be doing in the next couple of weeks.

The Stroll is traditionally done to the Take the A-Train (Count Basie, I think). But we also did another start of a routine to the same tune, and if I understood right, it's some of the Astaire moves. The one part that was so cool was this move that was a kind of twirl combined with a cramp roll. And astoundingly, I actually pulled it off a couple of times! The trick is to not think about it, but to launch into it and just do it at speed. Doing it slow and trying to think it through is where it gets too complex. You also fall down, cuz it's hard to spin like that in slow motion. Actually, you fall down if you do it fast too, cuz your centre of gravity seems to wander away from that stable position over your feet. But I did do it. (no, really!)

Anyway, some of this stuff will hopefully begin to stick in the next few weeks, and maybe I'll even be able to practice some of it.

First Lesson of a New Session

2005-09-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

Great night for dancing. It felt really good to be back at it again. I thought I'd be stiffer and more awkward than I was, but I wasn't bad. I managed to get through the Shimmy without any problems. I even was doing the extra taps that I used to have to skip. I still suck at cramp rolls, and draw backs are all but impossible for some reason. However, the fact that I can remember what these moves are called is evidence that I managed to retain something from the spring classes.

There were seventeen of us in the class tonight; two of us are guys. At least one person was in the noon hour classes that got me started in this, and four others were in the last round of evening classes from last spring.

We have our old instructor Tanis again. She has a warmup routine to drill into us, and we are going to do a couple of different pieces over the next few weeks. One is based on Fred Astaire, a style which is, according to Tanis, upright and on the toes. The other is based on Eleanor Powell, and is more flat footed and low to the ground. Gonna be too cool.

We did one exercise which was all moving backward. It starts out with a brush-tap-heel move, the name of which escapes me, then switches into a drawback. Before that, we were doing the first step in a cross-over pattern, which again demonstrated just how stiff I am.

There was a traveling exercise alternating between shuffles and phalaps. I'm sure I didn't connect with the floor hardly at all in the shuffles. Is there such a thing as air tap? Actually it wasn't as bad as that; I did get the phalaps to actually sound right, although I could tell I was pushing hard cuz I could feel it in the knees.

At the end we did some improvisational stuff, which was neat. We probably looked like a kindergarten class with the sticks and triangles and tambourines We divided into smaller groups, and we were to each come up with a rhythm that the others would copy. Then one of us would dream up a rhythm that the rest would then add to. That was kinda neat. I found I could get an interesting variation by alternating between the triangle and my loose tap with a drumstick.

Doing the Shimmy was fun. There are a few in the class that either didn't know it, or have learned a different version, so we did spend a little time on it. But we went through the four parts. Tanis says there are actually eight parts, so we'll get to learn the other four soon. I like the Shimmy because it's so self contained and complete. Doing the whole thing through is kind of impressive.

Tonight was a great start. It was nice to see some familiar faces, too. It was and fun, and felt good, and I think it'll be a good year.

Here I Go Again

2005-08-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

Just signed up for the fall session at DJD. I start September 12. Tanis is teaching again. This one goes 17 weeks, to late January. And I signed up for Tap 1, instead of Intro, so hopefully I'm up to the challenge.

Last Class Before Summer

2005-06-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

This one was a lot of fun, and I felt loose and relaxed, and involved. It was kind of neat.

We ran through the Honi Coles Stroll really quick, and left it. It's something that will come up in Tap 1, and it'll be nice to have at least seen it. Lots of warm up stuff that was a little different, but I think Tanis is always trying to throw something different into that part. Warmups could probably get a little tedious otherwise.

We ran through a routine that we got into right off the bat, in the first lesson of the spring session. I described it pretty good there, up to a point - we did do all that,but after we did Suzy-Qs, which are a weird rotation on the heel. Back and forth doing that, four times, then launching right into the very first moves again, but this time at a 45 degree angle to our original direction. Then we do drawbacks, back to our original starting point, a little toe rotation kind of thing, a quick marengo (I think that's what it's called, and I'm guessing at the spelling, too) and a rather dramatic stomp to end.

And we were hot! After a couple of times through, we were totally together, and were keeping our line together, even when we changed direction. What a sound!

Now, the reason we practiced this so much, was that, since it was the last class of the session, we got to perform it for the other two classes that ran at the same time. But they started. First was the Beginner African Dance group. Very cool, with very physical and loose movement. Even cooler, was they had live musicians. Six drummers, doing amazing stuff.

Then the Jazz Dance 3 group. These people have been doing this for awhile, and it looked pretty amazing, too. Our stand-in teacher from last week, Shannon, was one of the students. Pretty impressive, and a huge group. I think there were 20 people there.

Then we got to do our stuff. We did the routine outlined above, and then the Shimmy. Total fun, and I felt relaxed and loose, and just ready to let it happen. I didn't even get out of sync, although at one point, I had to kind of vamp until I could figure out what we were supposed to be doing. So not perfect, but way, way too cool.

I'm going to take the summer off from this, but I think I will definitely be going in the fall, and this time I think it will be Tap 1.

Stand-in Teacher

2005-06-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

Tanis wasn't able to come tonight, so we had a subsitute. Shannon used to dance with the company at DJD.

She had a little different approach, in that she had us sing the rhythm before she showed us the steps. "Da-da, da-da, da-da-da-da-da, da..." - that kind of thing. What this did, for me anyway, was set the rhythm in my head, so I didn't have to think about timing. The tune was already there, and the feet just seemed to follow it naturally. Then I could concentrate on the actual steps

Now, I think the step that really stuck in my head was created by Paul Draper, who (if I got the story straight) moved from ballet to tap and brought a lot of ballet type moves to the genre. And there are a couple of places where this is obvious. There's a point where you step to the side, with a kind of launch into flight, spread armed pose. It's something I can see Gene Kelly doing. That part has a neat syncopated pause, where you stick for a minute, but it's right after a weight transfer to that foot, so you have to arrest any momentum so you can stay in place.

And then a little later there's a shuffle, toe-heel, step, with a couple of weight transfers, and you stop and hold for two beats. Again, stopping the momentum like that is hard, but on the third try or so, I managed, with lots of wobbling and arm-waving, to keep my balance.

We didn't get back to Honi Coles Stroll, which I was kinda hoping for, cuz it's so neat as a group dance. But we did work through the Shimmy. I love that one cuz the moves are easy and accessible, but it looks impressively complex. It's also the only complete routine in my repertoire, so far.

Shannon's warmups were also a bit different, but worked the ankles and thighs just as hard. And there were some other things that she threw in, different sequences of steps and such.

So it was a fun night, and I learned a new way of hanging on to what we've been taught. It gives me a better understanding of what Tanis is telling us as well. It's very cool that a different perspective can make so much fall into place.

Jumping Right Into It

2005-06-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

I just realized I never did a write up for last week. But last week we started to learn the Honi Coles Stroll. Of course, Tanis started us with the last and most difficult move, and I have totally forgotten anything about it. But it was pretty cool, anyway.

Tonight, we started at the beginning, with the walk for sixteen steps, then the heel-toe for sixteen steps. Follow that with a brush-heel-toe-heel-toe for sixteen steps. Now you do the brush with the left foot, which is the inside foot, because you're travelling in a circle. It actually feels a bit like a round dance, sort of a community thing, where you're all doing the same thing.

Anyway, after the doing the brush with only the left foot, comes sixteen steps of brush-heel-toe-brush-heel-toe, that is, you're brushing with both feet. After that, there's a hop thrown in after each brush. Actually by that point, I'm totally discoordinated, and trying desperately to find a way to get back into the loop.

I admit I totally forgot all of this tonight, but I found a web site which spells out the whole Stroll. That could be really helpful.

We also did the Shim-Sham-Shimmy again, but to a faster beat. With me trying to do the extra taps on the first and third parts, I got totally lost again, having to stop and go through it slowly just to try and coordinate my feet again. Terribly frustrating.

Tanis introduced a couple of backward moves, and of course I've forgotten what they're called. I think I finally can do a paddle and roll, after several repitions. Keep pounding it into me, and it'll eventually stick, I suppose.

There were a couple of other routines we worked on, including the one I talked about a couple of weeks ago. We have a few more moves now than what I described, but again, while I can sort of remember how they go, I couldn't tell you what they're called, or what order we do them in. And I'm certain my memory of the whole thing is incomplete. Theres an awkward step where one foot rotates on the heel while you step with the other. It's got a cutesy name that totally escapes me. I assume the awkwardness will disappear eventually.

The frustration can be maddening, but even so, I find I'm still having a great time with it. My shuffles are getting closer to actually sounding like something, and I no longer hurt in the hips and thighs, like I did way back when I began this adventure.

First Spring Lesson

2005-05-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

There are eight of us in the class, and three have never done tap, though one of them has done a lot of other types of dance. It was fun!

We did a bunch of different things. Teach Tanis is concentrating more on choreography and less on exercizes since it is only a five week session.

Again, I get through it all, had tons of fun with it, and now I can't remember a thing. We did work on something that does a lot of traveling.

Let's see....
Step, step, shuffle-ball-change x 4
Shuffle, shuffle, step x 2
Slow five part riff, gallop x 4
Fast riff x 2

By then we've covered the whole of the room (if I haven't left anything out), so we do this backing up move: big step back to the right at a 45 degree angle, brush, ball-change, step, brush, heel, toe (*whew*). Turn 90 degrees to the left and do the same thing going the other way. Then right again, and left again.

Jeez, maybe I remember more than I thought!

We did do some exercizes: traveling ones, where we'd go in pairs and travel across the room. Shuffles, phalaps, paddle & rolls. I can't for the life of me remember the paddle & roll, except that it's really neat, and I like doing it.

We also jumped right into the Shim-Sham-Shimmy. We started with the break, naturally, but then Tanis lead us through the fourth part. Once everyone could more or less get through that, she lead us through the third part. Then the second part.

The second part isn't followed by the regular break, like all the other parts. It has its own break, which uses a variation of the toe-heel step of the second part. Tanis calls it the sticky candy step, which I guess is because it looks like you're walking on sticky candy?

It was a great time, and over way too soon. I would have thought an hour and a half would have felt longer, but time flies when you're having fun.

I still have a problem with a loose screw on the left toe tap. I tried a drop of Crazy Glue, which held for all of 20 seconds, and really did nothing but fill in the slots on the screw head so a screw driver can't grab it to turn it. I may have to consult a professional

Lesson 10

2005-05-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

Only three of us today, but that was OK. We went through all our routines and worked on things. Tanis added a couple more bits to Superstition, a series of chuggs and some other steps to give it a finish.

She also showed us a neat series of varied riffs that we can do to Hickory Dickory Dock. It's something she uses in her kids classes, but it gives us older types something to hang on to, too. Very cool.

I'm still struggling with the shuffle-ball-change. As a runner, I have the usual tightness in the legs, and it's hard to loosen up the ankle so the shuffle can happen. I think it will come if I keep working at it.

I struggled with the extra taps in the Shimmy. I end up forcing them in, and then it screws up my timing and weight transfers, and I end up off balance or late.

For the first segment, we learned it as DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da-da DUM-da. And that's actually the soft shoe version which would be taught in jazz dance. But for tap, you follow the initial stomp (the DUM) with a brush. So it goes DUM-da-da DUM-da-da DUM-da-da-da DUM-da-da. It sounds really neat when Tanis does it. It sounds way out of whack when I do it, mostly because I'm pushing through the stiffness in my ankle for the brush instead of letting a loose foot do it naturally.

It'll come.

Next Monday night is an open house demo night, and I'm still not decided if I'll go. I've been struggling with exhaustion, and it's made the last couple of classes really difficult. It's like I've forgotten how to do the stuff I've been doing for weeks.

I think the brisk walk to the studio may not help either, because while it warms up the legs, it also tightens them up, when I most need to be loose and relaxed. I hope it will be better in the spring session when it's all night classes.

Lesson 9

2005-05-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

It was tough today. I had a rough night before and was running on very little sleep, so I wasn't really up to some of this stuff. At times it was hard slogging, and really frustrating, because I'd managed to do it before. But I was just too exhausted.

Even so, I had fun. I'm glad I went because it woke me up some, and gave me enough energy to get through the afternoon.

We added another little bit to Stevie Wonder, which totally escapes me, of course. We also added some tap to the Shimmy. What we've learned of the Shimmy is actually soft shoe, and is what would be taught in jazz dance. With tap, there are places where we can add extra sounds, to fill in between the basic steps. Sounded great when teach did it, but I couldn't get it straight at all.

We also learned the scuff, and the riff. The scuff is kicking the heel against the floor with a forward motion. Kinda like a phalap, but with the phalap, we're brushing the toe against the floor ("pha"), and then slapping the foot down ("lap"). The riff is a variation of the phalap, I think. Again, I cannot remember what the heck we did half the time.

The loose tap is beginning to be troublesome. One screw comes loose fairly quickly, and I have to give it a twist with a screwdriver. Tanis suggested a solution that combines masking tape and Crazy Glue, so I'll have to go get some, and see if I can fix it.

There's also an open house on May 16, which I'm undecided about going to. If I do go, I'd join the evening class in demoing what we've learned. All the daytime and lunch classes get there and warm up for awhile, then we sit in on each others classes to see what they've been doing. Tanis assured us nooners that we were miles ahead of the evening class, and wouldn't have any problem keeping up. I think it would be fun, but it would also be intimidating. I sure wouldn't want to do it if I was like I was today. I'd want to be well rested. I'll certainly think about it, and see how I feel about it when the time comes. Fun, but scarey too.

Gonna Keep At It

2005-04-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

Signed up for the spring session today. Monday nights from 6:00 to 7:30. I thought it best to repeat the Intro Tap, as I still have a ways to go before I master this stuff. I'm looking forward to the evening classes, too, as they are a full hour and a half, instead of the 50 minutes we get in the lunch hour classes. More people too, so more fun. Woohoo!

Lesson 8 - The Phalap

2005-04-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

We were introduced to a new step today, called the phalap (and I'm just guessing wildly at the spelling). This is a basic tap step, easy to understand, and a devilishly difficult one to actually do. So difficult in fact, that at the moment, I'm drawing a total blank as to how to do it. This seems to be the pattern with all the basic tap steps: really hard to do and to remember.

You can get an idea of what a phalap is, if you think about flapping your foot against the floor, but in a syncopated way. And it makes a pha - lap sound. Slick, huh?

On the other hand, I'm getting close to actually doing the shuffle-ball-change - another basic tap step. For some reason I pretty much have it down in the left foot. But the right just ain't happening. I seem to be too stiff in the ankle. When I got to class today, I spent ten minutes before anyone else showed up just doing this step over and over, on each foot. It feels good to be loosening up the ankles like that, though.

Tanis, the teach, was much healthier today, too. But where the heck was everybody? There was only me and one other student, Corinne. So the vines bit was kinda thin, with just the two of us crossing back and forth, and no one in the back doing the half vines and the march in a circle thing.

I've more or less mastered the Shim-Sham Shimmy, at least as far as remembering all the parts to it. I still trip over some bits, and I seem to be off balance half the time. Weight transfers are giving me problems, cuz I'm forever moving too much, or on the wrong foot, or just off balance. I think the music Tanis used was a little slower than we usually use, too.

For the Stevie Wonder tune we added a couple more bits to it, included a variation of the phalap. For some reason, this piece is even harder to remember. I think I can get through most of it, but I know I got blank spots. It's coming together though.

Lesson 7 - Rough Day for Teach

2005-04-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

Poor Tanis - she was supposed to be at her daughter's school volunteering, but the substitute instructor that was supposed to be there today bailed on her. On top of that she's wasn't at all well today. So it was a day for review and repetition.

She had us pair up and go through the routines with each other, and that was actually really helpful in getting everything in memory, and in getting some of the tougher stuff ironed out. I still struggle with the shuffle ball change, especially in the Stevie Wonder tune, as it has to happen pretty fast. The cool thing is, even though I don't have it down, it sort of sounds like I do - I'm faking it some how.

The other move that I mess up on is the sideways shuffle thing, but again I've got to the point where I can fake it sort of. And sometimes when I think I'm faking it, I find I'm actually doing it.

Then there's a part where you do this toe tapping bit, then drag the footback, stomp, turn the other way, and repeat with the other foot. It looks simple, but the goofy part is that it takes up only seven beats on each foot, with two beats to get into it. I try not to think about it, because it always works out to taking up sixteen beats somehow. When I try to follow and count I totally blow it.

I'm beginning to really enjoy that one. The other one with the vines and the Shim-Sham Shimmy I do better at, but I still have a heck of a time jumping from the half vine to the scissors step, both because of the sudden change from step-behind to step-in-front, and because of the weight transfer and the way you have to jump into the scissors from the vine so quickly. I end up waiting out the first couple of scissors, then jumping in on the third one.

I always screw up the bit in the back row, where we do three half vines and a four step march in a circle. I tend to be off balance a lot on the half vines.

Shoe issues: that loose tap on the one shoe is maybe too loose. One screw was actually sticking out a bit toward the end, and I was worried about gouging the floor with it. There was a screwdriver in the drawer under the sound system, and I tightened it up, but it didn't feel like it was going to stay. I'll have to watch that.

Lesson 6

2005-04-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

More of the same, and I'll never get tired of it. But I wish I could remember the steps and moves from week to week. In doing the Stevie Wonder tune, I drew a total blank after the first dozen beats, and she made us try and remember it, too. One of us actually remember this dragging the foot part, but we all kinda sucked at recall.

We started with the warmups, which I'm getting pretty good at too. I mean, they're pretty simple moves, but they use muscles that don't often get used, or use them in ways that are different than usual. Heel-toe, toe-heel - stuff like that. And it still is amazing how warm a warmup makes me. Glad I have the wicking tees.

We did the grapevines thing again, and straight into the Shim-Sham Shimmy right after. My biggest challenge is the transition from the half vines into the scissors step, again, because of the change from step-behind to step-in-front. I am improving, as I can get into the scissors, before everyone else is done. But I miss the start of it, and another part of the challenge, besides the change in stepping is the weight transfer. I'm too way off balance to be able to change direction from a half vine to a scissors.

In the Shim-Sham Shimmy, I've been struggling all week to remember the last segment. It involves the shuffle-ball-change, but that was about all I could remember. So today, I think I finally got it all together. Gonna try the whole Shimmy from start to finish after I finish writing this, see how I do.

And to top it off, we got to watch the noon-hour smokers standing outside, who were watching a dumpster fire in the back alley. The fire department showed up shortly, but without the excitement of the sirens and all that.

Just another fun nooner. I can't believe how much fun I have in being so frustrated in this stuff. Maybe it's because I can just about do most of it, sort of on the edge of talent, but so far denied. I don't even know if what I just wrote makes sense.

Lesson 5 - After a Break

2005-04-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

It's been two weeks since the last lesson, as there was no class last week due to the public school's spring break.

I thought I would have forgotten everything after two weeks, but it was surprisingly handy in my memory. I think I remembered everything, actually. It's just that the feet and the brain remember it a little differently. Getting them coordinated has been a challenge.

We did some different things for warm up that were kind of fun. Usually, we spread out and go through several different moves that really work the legs, especially the ankles, and we did do those today. But then Tanis (our instructor) had us doing some travelling, different kinds of strutting, heel-toe or toe-heel and variations. That was kind of cool, cuz I managed to get them down pretty quick.

We did a lot of the sideways shuffly moving. First with rotating both toes to the side, then both heels, over and over. Then reversing directions. Then we did the alternating one, where you start pidgeon toed, and move one toe and the other heel, then the other toe and the first heel. If I can get it started, and then stop thinking about what I'm doing, I can go pretty smoothly. As soon as I try to figure out what my feet are doing, they get tangled up. It's really annoying that both my kids can do this so easily.

Then we did the vines thing, with two of us doing the criss-cross and the other two in the back of the room doing half-vines and a circular walk. (There were only four of us in class today) Then we trade places, and do it again. I still got hung up at the end in switching from the half-vines to this other move that's a really quick cross-over and heel click. It's hard because with the vines you cross your legs behind, but with the last bit, you cross in front, and transition from one move to the other is really fast.

We got the last move of the Shim-Sham-Shimmy, with the shuffle ball change. I almost actually did this, but it still mostly eludes me. I really like whole thing. It feels like a complete dance routine, and even has a kicky finish. But then, Tanis got us to combine it with the vines exercise, so it became a full three minute choreographed routine. Very cool!

After that, we split into teams, and Tanis played a piece, while we had to figure out our own moves to it. Totally intimidating, except that once we started, it came to us quite easily. Our team came up with a rhythm that we tapped out, then we did the sideways shuffly thing (must learn some terminology), and then we discovered that the rhythm we came up with fit quite naturally into the half-vine. I found rather amazing that we could do something like that with just a couple of basic moves.

To finish, we worked on the Stevie Wonder tune, and added a few more things to it. Lots of shuffle-ball-change, and a cool couple of stomps to finish. Tanis showed us really quick in the last couple of minutes more of the moves that we'll learn, and there is that damn sideways shuffly thing. Very challenging.

They've posted the spring and summer schedules, and I have until the end of the month to get the early bird pricing for the spring schedule. I plan to repeat intro tap, and see if I can get some mastery over some of this stuff. Depending on how that goes, I may take Tap 1 in the fall. But for sure, I'm having way too much fun to quit.

Lesson 4 - In the Night

2005-03-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-15T17:23:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-02T21:43:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-01T20:21:00.000-08:00

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.

Owning up

2005-02-10T22:20:00.000-08:00

About time to, I guess. I had started this blog on another site, not wanting to own up to the desire to do this thing. But then why start a blog on it in the first place, huh?

So, I've moved it all over here.

There've been several events recently, and several choices recently made that have been soundly affirmed a couple of times today. I consider the tap lessons to be a gift to myself, a reward for the hard work behind these choices, and a challenge to myself, just for the heck of it. And why not?

But it'll be awhile before it starts - still almost three weeks away. Can't wait.

One Last Thing...

2005-02-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

...actually signing up for the lessons - that would have been a dumb thing to forget.

Made the call yesterday (among a myriad other tasks that made for an incredibly busy day) I am now officially signed up for Tap @ Lunch.

Shopping for Shoes

2005-01-28T18:09:00.000-08:00

Wasn't looking forward to this. I always have trouble when it comes to buying shoes, because of my short, wide, high-arched feet. It seems to take days of wandering malls and shoe stores, until I find something half decent looking, and that doesn't hurt either my feet or my wallet.

Not today, though.

First store I checked was one of the big department stores in the mall. Not much to choose from. Most shoes had some kind of rubbery soft non-skid kind of soles, good for sneaking up on someone, I suppose. Not what I want.

They had one style with a leather sole, that was reasonably slappy on the tile floor, but not in a size that fit well.

Out into the mall, then. Wandered down one side, ducking into three or four shoe stores, seeing what they had. One had something that looked perfect, but outside of my comfort zone, price-wise.

At the far end of the mall, in the other big department store, I find a couple of possibles. One is pricey but 30% off, and I'm doing the math. The other is about what I wanted to pay, and I try that one first.

Jackpot!

Black slip-ons, with a hard, slappy (and slightly slippery) leather sole, slightly spongy heel (nothing's perfect, I guess). I had great fun strutting on the tiled floor, stiking on the heels and smacking the soles down hard - ka-SMACK, ka-SMACK!

Bonus points - great fit and comfy! A much better feeling shoe than I expected to find in my price range. They'll be a great everyday shoe when they retire

Further Research

2005-01-26T18:05:00.000-08:00

Home with a cold today. Didn't sleep well at all through the night, but made up for it this morning. Finally got up about 1:00, and after a shower and shave, I call the dance school about this tap class.

I ask about the shoes, since they could be the showstopper if they cost too much. Turns out there are several options:

1. Full blown bonafide tap shoes - about $400 - *eep*

2. Maybe find some used - about $70 - bet the market for used men's tap shoes is non-existent.

3. Just buy some shoes and have the taps put on. Taps are about $15 a set, but the shoes have to be able to take them. Now we're talking. (She said one of the dance company's members buys Adidas and has taps put on)

4. Just buy some shoes with a hard leather sole. For the first few lessons, that's all that's needed. - I'm in!

She said they have to have never been used outside, and they have to be scrupulously clean on the bottom. In other words, like new.

The barriers just fall away, until there's nothing left but my willingness to take a deep breath and just try it.

I'm gettin goosebumps

Initial Investigation

2005-01-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

The dance school replied to my email: "You don't need experience, just enthusiasm, and tap shoes."

At lunch, I walked to the address where the school is, just to see how long it takes to get there from my work. It's about twenty minutes one way. Two times twenty, plus a fifty minute lesson - ninety minutes. Wonder if they'll notice if I take an extra long lunch on Tuesdays.

Consideration

2005-01-22T18:01:00.000-08:00

Sent a message to Nony, "Wuddaya think?"

"You gonna sign up?" she asks.

I sent an email to the address in the original message, "What would I need?"

"Wonder how much are a pair of tap shoes?" asks Nony.

"Can't be much of a market for used men's tap shoes," I say.

Now Nony is coming up with names of dancewear stores. I'm looking them up on the net to find out what I can, but not finding much. I'll have to do some phoning.

Sounds like I've decided to take the plunge. Nony says "That's kinda what it's sounding like to me... question is, will needing the shoes hold you back?"

"Not gonna be shoes that hold me back," I say. "No, what would hold me back is what always holds me back - lack of confidence, and permission to make a mistake and make a fool of myself. So, right now, I'm giving myself permission to try, to fail maybe, to not be very good at it, and to just have fun."

Nony says, "I think that is TOTALLY cool! You go for it!"

What am I getting myself into?

Genesis

2005-01-19T13:18:00.000-08:00

Got an email from a dance studio in town that somehow got my address. They don't often send me stuff, maybe a couple of times a year, so I don't mind.

Winter workshops and classes. Brazilian Samba. Lunch hour classes, tap. $100 for ten weeks. And a phone number and email address - hmmmm.