Completed: 3. Take Tap Dancing Lessons
When I think about tap dancing, three names come to mind. Sammy Davis Jr., Gregory Hines, and Savion Glover. How cool are those guys? This year, I decided to take a walk in their shoes (pun intended).
I found classes pretty easily, but the tap shoes were a different story. It’s not as easy as you would think to find size 12 normally, but size 10.5 in tap shoes for a decent price, but I ended up buying a reasonably-priced pair for my one class.
I took my lesson at Ballet Nova, which offers an hour-long drop-in classes for adults for only $20. I walked into the class and instantly knew I was out of my league. I just so happened to drop into a class on their last session of a 10-week program. Yikes! These students were good… really good. Although I felt overwhelmed, everyone was very nice and very understanding.
The class began with stretches and basic tap movements. I followed the instructor as much as I could, but it was really hard to catch up with the advanced students. The instructor was understanding and tried to help me every step of the way. She encouraged me throughout the class and even said I was a “natural.” She was clearly just being nice because I was everything a “natural” wasn’t.
I love exercising and let me tell you, the class was a workout. You’re constantly moving and sweating. The instructor later told me that some people record over 5,000 steps in one class! I love the idea of having fun while burning calories.
For those of you who are considering learning how to tap, I would describe it similarly to learning math as child. You can’t miss a single step (no pun intended this time) of the process because if you miss a step, you’re playing catch up.
I highly recommend Ballet Nova. In my experience as a first timer who wasn’t planning to commit to more than one class, the experience was great and everyone was really encouraging.
-Kris