How to Do a Fake Wing Time Step in Tap Dancing

In this time-step variation, the dancer does a "fake" wing; it looks and sounds like a wing, but she is not doing it on her supporting foot, so it's not the real McCoy. However, whether real or fake, a wing is a challenging step to master. This step would be considered a "buck" time step because it begins with a stomp, whereas the traditional or standardized time step begins with a shuffle hop.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Tap shoes

1. Stomp on your right foot to the front on the count of "8." A stomp bears no weight. (For an explanation of counts and beats, see the Tips section.)

2. Brush to the back on your right foot on the count of "and." You have stomped in the previous step; now lift your right foot and swipe the ball of your foot against the floor as you are brushing to the back.

3. Hop on your left foot on the count of "a," then step down on your right foot on the count of "2."

4. Do a flap step (which is a brush step to the front, putting your weight on the step) on your left foot on the count of "a 3."

5. Execute a wing on your right foot on the count of "and a." A wing consists of scraping the outside edge of your right foot against the floor as the foot is moved to the right, then doing a back brush, or spank, on the ball of your right foot as the foot is moving inward and preparing to land. However, because the step is not done on the supporting foot, as wings are normally done, it is considered a "fake."

6. Repeat all of the above steps starting on the left foot: Stomp, back brush, hop, step, flap, wing (on the left foot). The count is "4 and 5 6 a 7 and a."

Tips & Warnings

• When you dance, you must count. Dance notation is broken up into five components based on one measure of 4/4 music. When you see or hear the count "1 2 3 4," it indicates that four steps are done on four counts/beats. This is the quarter-note or single-time count. When you see or hear "1 and 2 and 3 and 4," that is the eight- note couplet count; the dancer is doing two steps on one beat of music. When you see or hear the count of "1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a ... ," that is the eighth-note triplet count; the dancer is making three taps/sounds per beat. In the sixteenth or quadruple count ("1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a 4 e and a..."), the dancer is making five taps/sounds per beat. There are four beats in one bar of 4/4 music. Double time would mean that there are eight beats played in that time frame. In dance notation, that would be counted as "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and ..." In the video in the Resources section, Rod Howell demonstrates single wings. Notice that he is doing an honest-to-goodness wing: The wing (scraping out and back in) is occurring on his supporting leg (the leg he is standing on). In the fake wing time step, the dancer has just stepped down on her left foot before she executes the wing (on her right foot)--so the "fake" wing is not being executed on the supporting leg, which means it will be easier to do than a real wing.

Resources

• Tap-Dancing Demo by Rod Howell: Single Wing