Yesterday was my third tap class.
Allison came to my house before class, where I presented her with two royal purple ribbons for her tap shoes. After agreeing that our feet look pretty good in purple and white, we headed to class.
This week it was just us plus our instructor and one other girl. We started off with our warm up series and then moved to the bar to do our Al Gilbert progressions: straight shuffles, then shuffle heels, then shuffle toe, then shuffle hops, then shuffle heel toes and finally shuffle hop toes. Then she had us practice our ball changes all different ways, which was kind of awkward feeling: normally you ball change to the back, not the front then side then back then side and all over. I felt a little like a horse trying to gallop free.
We moved back to the center of the room where Nadine taught us our first time step: a simple time step. It took Allison and me while to get. I was having a hard time staying balanced because the floor is so slick. Eventually we got the hang of the step and Nadine herded us into the corner.
I love traveling. It's my favorite thing we do. We started off doing a simple travel: falap heel. We falap heeled across the room, then Nadine added extra heels (falap heel heel, falap heel heel, falap heel heel heel heel heel heel). Then we did front irishes, and after Allison had tapped across the room, Nadine told Allison she was a "polite tapper," meaning she wasn't making enough noise. Haha. That was my favorite moment of the night.
It was then time for us to work on our "combination," as Nadine now calls it instead of a dance "sequence." We hadn't even done it once with the music before the third student piped up and said what if we tried something "more interesting" in the opening, like this! and then whipped out some new fancy steps. I'm sorry, who am I paying to teach me here? You or Nadine? Show off. Nonetheless, we changed the opening steps to her "more interesting" version and ran through the whole thing a few times before adding on.
We added two turns to our dance sequence "combination", a quick run and then a fancy new step that Nadine could not remember the name of. I have been googling it all day, trying to get the name of it, but am not having much luck.
I have discovered that Nadine is very forgetful. My first class she forgot the music and the dance sequence "combination" that she'd taught everyone the week before. Last week, she forgot the dance sequence "combination" again and this week she forgot the names of the steps altogether! Goodness.
We worked on the new steps to our dance sequence "combination" for a while, then practiced to the music, and then it was already time to go home.
I almost got a video of Allison and I practicing our dance sequence "combination" but she wouldn't agree to be filmed just yet. But in the mean time, here is a picture of our lovely white shoes and purple ribbons, my red white and blue patriotic taps for the week of Independence Day, and just because I want to, a picture of me, Allison and her dog Miller:
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
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love the shoes, sad there is no video and REALLY disappointed yall dont do the "mountain goat"
ReplyDeleteWe might have done the Mountain Goat. She couldn't remember the name of the steps so it very well could have been the Mountain Goat or a handful of other steps you know.
ReplyDeletewhew, I thought I was going to have to request a photo of the purple and white ensemble.
ReplyDeleteThat is the most precious dog that I have ever seen!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Allison.... hahaha.
ReplyDelete