How to Teach a Tap Shuffle

Young tap students love to make noise with their tap shoes. Teaching actual tap steps can sometimes be challenging. Below are a few suggestions to teach a tap student a shuffle. With these tips, you can teach your students to shuffle in no time.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Tap shoes

1. Show the students that their shoes have two taps. Explain that we sometimes use the toe tap and sometimes use the heel tap.

2. Practice just tapping the toes and just tapping the heels to be sure they understand the difference. Tell them to listen to the sound each makes.

3. Have them pretend to grab a doll off the shelf. Say now we put the doll on the top of our shoe. Our shoe is like a swing. The doll is going to go to the park to swing.

4. Start with the foot up and behind you with the knee bent. The doll's daddy is about to push her on the swing.

5. Let the foot swing back and forth with the knee bending. Remind students that only the toe tap should be hitting the floor. Continue practicing the swinging motion until the students are getting the right sound.

6. Demonstrate the correct way to do a shuffle. Make sure the kids are listening to the sound you make.

Tips & Warnings

• Let students practice one at a time so you can hear if they are making the correct sounds.
• Tell the students that you can't swing too high or the dolly will fall off. This helps them have a controlled movement.

[DNAD]

on 9/10/2008 This is NOT a good way to teach a shuffle. This is a mistake many teachers make. As these students become more advanced, this will become a bad habit that you need to undo.

A shuffle should be taught to children as a touch / touch. Touch go front / touch go back. This keeps the motion very small. When they become more advanced this will help them with their speed and clarity.