Dance! - The Road to Heavies: lesson 23. September 7, 2013. No heavy shoes

Yes, I didn't get any heavy shoes yet, though I'd love to have them by now. The website I got was rather peculiar. You could find a lot of things concerning Irish dance, but that was about it. The website itself was quite the mess, but terms and conditions that applied to buying and sending items where nowhere to be found. Shipping-costs were hard to figure out and not in my right mind would I think about doing business with the company in question.

Most of the time, I arrive at first at th Grote Pyr in The Hague, where the classes are being held. This comes down to public transport. One time I'm about 25 minutes early, the other time I miss only one tram and I'm 10 minutes later.

This is one of my early arrivals and quickly after I arrive, a classmate comes up to me and asks if the door is open. I didn't try as things didn't seem to be open yet, but she says that the property-owner opens the door from the inside once in a while.
As the door is closed, more and more students gather up in front of the building, until the teacher arrives.

'Locked out'

The teacher greets everyone and tries to unlock the door with the key. He turns it, gives a good pull on the door, but it won't open. As he is in doubt if he didn't lock the door while he tried to unlock it, he turns the key around the other way, but it turns out he really did turn it the right way the first time.
"Oh no.... I think it's locked from the inside...'

A call is being made, hoping that someone with a key is nearby. I use that time to ask the dancer I questioned for advice last week what's up with the website he gave me.
Turns out I heard things wrong. Under the violent sound of a number of heavy shoes and the loud music, I didn't hear the website-adress that well and ended up on another Irish-dance website by coincidence.
The fire-brigade running blues and two's that enters the street during the waiting turns our 'lock-out' into something hilarious.

The dancing itself is horrible. No matter how I tried, I can't recall what I needed to practice.
A big disadvantage is the ride from home to The Hague. I'm sitting still for almost 2 hours in a row. Warming up takes a while and if I don't take my time to do so, I will notice the difference.

Heavy shoe-stuff on my soft shoes

Even though I don't have hard shoes yet, I'm encouraged to take part in the heavy-shoe part of the class. This feels strangs and even has something of a false start.
It mainly comes down to check how well you are able to do the basic steps. Those basic steps mainly consist out of 'brush out' 'brush in' and let the tip drop to stand on it.
I can't really recommend doing this on dance-sneakers. It's nice to practice the moves, but the difference in shoes is too great in my opinion.
The heavy shoes have 2 rather small pieces that make contact with the floor, where the sneakers-sole is made from a kind of rubber, which induces far more friction.

'Brush out' and 'brush in' isn't that much of 'brushing' at all because of that. As the teacher says: 'It tends to dig into the floor', a disadvantage you really won't encounter on heavy shoes.

Don't stretch out on heavy shoes

In the beginning, I even do the 'brushing' thingy wrong. After 'brushing out' I stretch my leg nicely, but that is not supposed to happen. Where you stretch and arch everything in soft shoe dancing, the hard shoe dancing is quite the opposite.
"No no no... Try to be floppy...' The teacher interrupts us doing these basic moves and shows us, which looks incredibly gracious and fluid (ofcourse).

"Try to get your legs as floppy as possible." She shakes her legs and her feet look to be only connected with rubber bands. Everything appears to be made out of elastic bands and is loose as can be.
Well... that's something that definitely needs some work... After a short time, I decide to quit this. I'm already wrecked from the soft-shoe stuff and have a hard time lifting my heels from the floor.
I really notice that I like to continue, but my legs don't share the same opinion.
With a new experience nonetheless, I head for home.