Dance Shoes - Who Knew?

When I was about 2 years old, my parents enrolled me in the Gail Gauthreaux School of Dance. At the time, it was the premiere dance school in the area, and nearly every little girl (and a few little boys) in our town and the surrounding areas went there at some point in their lives.

It was my most favorite thing to do: every Wednesday, I'd don my black leotard and for an hour would take lessons in tumbling, classical ballet, modern ballet/jazz and tap. Yes, we fit all of that in in an hour!

I danced there for 17 years; I graduated with a teaching certificate just a week after my high school graduation.

Fast forward to 2009. Last Wednesday, to be exact.

That danged Zumba class. I haven't been in a "dance" class in nearly 30 years. The closest thing to a dance class I've taken lately would be some of the aerobic classes I've attended; oh, wait, there was that foray into belly dancing about 2 years ago... But Zumba. It's basically a Latin dance aerobics class. More emphasis on dance than 'exercise' - hard as it was, I fell in love with the class.

Nora, the perky, cute instructor, recommended we switch from typical athletic shoes to some sort of dance shoes. She showed us her 'dance sneakers' as an example of what we should look for when we buy them. One thing I did learn in all those years in dancing school is that you've got to have the right kind of shoes or you'll fall on your face or injure yourself. So, I was not opposed to going out and buying these new-fangled dance sneakers.

On Tuesday, I headed over to a cute little dance shop nearby the office and nearly fainted when I saw shoes: there was a wall full of so many kinds of specialty shoes for different kinds of dances my head started spinning! OMG!!!!! There were ballet slippers, pointe shoes, flat-soled jazz shoes, jazz shoes with heels, flat tap shoes, tap shoes with heels, clogging shoes, Irish dancing shoes, ballroom dancing shoes, hip-hop shoes, something called 'dance sport' shoes, and of course, the dance sneakers. I was speechless for a few minutes, which, as my dear friends will tell you, doesn't happen often.

I had a flashback to my time in dancing school and buying dancing shoes; your choices were ballet slippers, pointe shoes and tap shoes. Oh, and as I got older, jazz shoes were just starting to hit the market. You were limited to either pink or black ballet slippers, pink or white pointe shoes, usually black or white tap shoes - and you had a choice of flat, low-heel or high-heel taps, which you could only get when you were 14 (a school rule). That was it.

Now do you see why it took me a minute to come to my senses?

Luckily, the gentleman in the store was quite knowledgeable about all things dance, and was quite amused when I told my story of the limited choices in shoes when I danced. I think he was more amused by the fact that someone in my shape and size used to dance... but I digress.

Fifteen minutes later, I became the proud owner of a pair of Bloch dance sneakers.

And the second session of Zumba on Wednesday got just a little easier.

Until next time,

Kel