"Teacher, my shoes are making noise!"

Sometimes, at the beginning of every tap class (also during most lulls or breaks), I feel a little like Ralph Wiggum as he exclaims "Teacher, my shoes are making noise!" I realize that I've only been doing this for less than two weeks, but so far, I have not been able to get over the fact that I have noisy shoes... because let's face it, they're pretty awesome. Don't get me wrong, I still can't make them make any pretty noises yet (in fact, I tried showing off some of my newly acquired skillz to Hannah the other day, and it probably took me 10 minutes to finally get out a decent sounding shuffle ball-change), but the novelty of it is pretty fun! As you may have guessed, I love novelty.



Sometimes I fear that I'm going to have to get Professor Frink
to make me some self-tapping shoes, but at least I haven't fallen over yet.



My love of novelty is actually what made this week's tap class particularly fun. Last week (week 1), we pretty much focused on the basics. We learned basic shuffles, shuffles with toes, shuffles with heels, shuffles with hops, flaps, flaps with toes, flaps with single heels, and flaps with double heels. We learned the technique of it all and did exercises to improve our muscle memory. We only finally left the barre (which I had previously thought was exclusively for ballet) in order to learn traveling flaps (which as the name suggests, meant that we were traveling across the room, making it a bit difficult to stay on the barre). It was very technical, informative, and helpful. For a first class, it was exactly what I hoped for and expected. By the second class, though, we were finally able to mix it up some (granted, not much, as we're all still extremely green). While we still started on the barre for warm ups, our instructor shortly moved us into the middle of the room and started teaching us a routine (and kept joking (hopefully) about us performing it in the recital). This class involved a lot more movement and was much faster paced, which was awesome. We even got into groups to perform the routine for each other. What made it even better was that halfway through the class, our instructor handed us all chorus line canes to use while we danced (she usually teaches the children's class, and children, much like myself, love gimmicks).

I'm really enjoying these classes thus far, and don't foresee that changing any. The instructors have been really nice and all of the other students have been extremely friendly and supportive of one another. Since the studio is across town from me, it's a bit of a hike for a one-hour class, but I think it is definitely worth it.

Are there any classes you've always wanted to sign up for but made up a bunch of excuses not to, then when you finally did realized how fantastic it was? Do you remember how surprisingly awesome Ralph Wiggum was at tap dancing? In the event that we get to use the canes again, should I just stow my pop-up top hat in my dance bag?