Tap Dancing Warmups: Brush Step Heels

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Emily Larew and we're going to take a look at brush, step, heels, they're going backwards in our tap warm ups. So I'm going to turn around, you're going to keep your weight in the balls of your feet, so it's going to go forward, you don't want to lean back in this exercise because we are going backwards. So keeping the weight in the balls of our feet, we're going to keep it all in one foot at a time. So we have brush, and our brush goes backwards, and a brush, also, if you notice, was just in the ball of the foot, so you brush it back. And you want to make sure that your whole leg isn't brushing back, it's from the knee down, and really focus attention on that ankle flapping down. So you have brush, step, heel. Now make sure you put that weight into that heel but keeping your weight forward because otherwise you're going to lose your balance and your sounds won't sound the way they're supposed to. Then your left foot goes, brush, step, heel...Right, brush, step, heel...Left, brush, step, heel. So, again, make sure you drop that heel, when you do, you've got to put your weight into it and bend your knee, otherwise it'll sound really soft and you'll have...and who's going to hear that from way out there in the audience? Okay, ready, 5, 6, 7, 8, brush, step, heel. Good! And that was our brush, step, heels going backwards in our tap warm up."