What happens when you may have hyper-extended your elbow but you still want to continue with the challenge? You get creative with your workouts. I knew I needed to pick something where there was very minimal use of my arms. A dance class is the first thing that popped into my mind and low and behold, there was a Tap-a-Holic class.
Tap-a-holic has tap shoes available to rent for $4
I hadn't taken a tap class in ohhh about 18 years. None of the musicals I did ever had any tap elements. To say I was a bit apprehensive is an understatment. However, I was apart of a traveling clogging team in Virginia growing up. Yes, I was quite the little clogger. It was a very competitive thing back then, don't judge.
I was also excited though. I have known about the studio for some time and have been wanting to try for years. There don't seem to be a lot of Tap classes available in Los Angeles. love dancing. I was never the best dancer in any of my classes growing up. But I got heart. And a tiny bit of rhythm so that counts for something. Also, there is something extremely satisfying about making a shit ton of noise with your feet. It's very similar to running (if I ran, I think it would be similar) it has a great release of something. It's just like "F you all I am going to be REALLY LOUD and I DON'T CARE!!!!!!!"
I choose TAProbics. The class description was as follows "The most unique workout around! Taprobics mixes basic to mid-level tap moves with aerobics to burn a ton of calories, while having too much fun to notice!" Now, "basic" is the key word in this description. It was VERY basic. I hate being the best person in my class. But, here I was, my last Tap class at age 7 and I was still the best person in the class.
My instructors name was Hillary and she was very sweet but a bit dishelved? We started about 8 minutes late, but ended on time. She also took an extremely long time in between the songs to choose another one. I was ready to tap my little heart out, and waiting two minutes between every set really does something to the momentum and I could tell that it was affecting the whole class as well. At one point she asked the class "who knows how to do a basic time step?" About half the class raised their hands. She shurgged it off and said that wasn't enough people to incorporate time steps into the next dance song routine. Ummm..Can't you show everyone really quick how to do a time step? Isn't a time step the most basic of all tap moves? Can't the people who don't know how to do a time step fake it a little for the sake of the people who DO know how to do a time step. You're killing me Hillary.
Don't get me wrong, this class was quite fun. The song choices were all centered around being a positive person. Something I could actually stand to work on myself. Pharell's "Happy" was played, along with "Everything is Awesome" from the Lego movie. Once the songs were finally choosen, it was uplifting.
If I did Tap-a-holics again, which I would consider, I would definitely take a level 2-3 class, which is the hardest class that they offer. I would hope that this level has time steps.
I had high hopes for getting my butt kicked, but not today.