I've always been strangely drawn to tap dancing. Well, primarily to those high-heeled tap dancing shoes. But also to the actual dancing part. So a few years back, to the complete bafflement of everyone I knew, I bought myself a pair of tap shoes (the flat kind--apparently the high-heeled variety aren't for amateurs) and enrolled in a community class, held in an upstairs, windowless room without air conditioning during an uncharacteristic heat snap in San Diego. I suffocated through three or four classes before I quit going.
Earlier this year I got motivated to give it another try. So I enrolled in the 18+ adult beginner class. Knowing what I know now, I can translate that to: 18+40 adult-who-takes-the-class-repeatedly beginner class.
Nevertheless, I walked into the first class dressed for a workout and ready to get to fah-lappin. As I put on my shoes, I scanned the room to find that:
1) I was the youngest person there by roughly 20 years
2) Most of the people there seemed to already know each other
3) There was an awful lot of fancy fah-lappin happening
I asked the woman next to me to confirm that I was, in fact, in the beginner class, which she did. Then she told me that these people take the beginner class over and over, which still seems very underachieverish to me. But who am I to judge?
It was a good thing I suffered through those sweatfest classes years ago, because we dove right in without any handholding. I had just enough recollection of the basics to keep me at least moving in the same direction as the herd, but I'm pretty sure my shoes weren't actually making any noise.
After forty-five minutes of traveling back and forth across the room in various fah-lap combinations, I was hooked. Actually, I think the exact moment came during the buffalo step, possibly one of the more showy steps in beginner tap because of the exaggerated retracting airplane arms that invariable accent it, during which an onlooker might have wondered if the entire room was being tipped from one end to another to catalyze our movement. I still can't do it without giggling.
Four months later, I'm showing up for "emergency" classes during the week to prepare for our recital (ironically, in that same sweatbox room I abandoned so long ago). Yes, an adult recital, complete with sequins--and high-heeled tap shoes! Showing up (almost) every Saturday morning at 9 since January has earned me that right.
On that fateful night, when the second eight-count of that USO song begins, some of us may collide during the transition to the human pinwheel--which moves too fast, then too slow, and is shaped more like a melting snowflake--and Betty may always be left standing paralyzed with confusion while the rest of us fah-lap at sometimes nearly synchronized intervals. But I'll still be smiling and giggling like a school girl. Because it's just plain awesome.
So ... is tap dancing my passion?
Uh, yeah! I fully intend to move onto the intermediate class, at which point I will officially retire my flat beginner shoes and proudly sport the somewhat sexier heeled variety. Score 1!
