Tap Dancing for Health

Tap dance for fun and fitness

Learning the time step

“OK, Mom. Here’s how the combination goes. We start with the right foot and when we’ve finished we’ll be ready to do the combination again starting with the left foot. Start with a stomp with your right foot,” and Lydia stomped their right tap shoe on the ground.

“Then lift and drop your left heel. Step with your right foot so you’re transferring your weight to that foot, flap (pronounced fa-lap) forward with the left, then step back with the right and you’re ready to repeat the combination with the other side. How about we try it together slowly?”

Lydia and I stood side by side in the kitchen in our tap shoes, mine bought from a catalog, their’s custom made. We went through the combination slowly several times, Lydia correcting my form as needed — “Don’t travel with flap, the time step stays in one place,” and “Remember that the movement comes from your hip, not your ankle; keep your ankle loose.”

My feet initially felt clumsy. I hadn’t taken a tap class in years, and it was a one-semester beginners class. In the last few years, though, I had taken out my tap shoes every few weeks and tapped my way through the basic steps that I remembered from my one class and from the years of watching Lydia and their friends in…