Tap Dancing Warmups: Ball & Heel Runs

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Emily Larew, and we're going to take a look at ball runs and heel runs. So, you're probably thinking, "Hm...I'm going to run across the floor in my heels"? No, we're going to stay center floor with this. So, we're going to start on the balls of our feet, and you're just going to run. I want you to keep your legs straight, so you have ball, and you've got to transfer it, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, really focused, so it's not just...this, where you're running on the balls of your feet, but I really want it to look more of like a flapper. So you're flapping down as you run, so run...run...and you get a nice sound, it's nice and loud as you're doing it as a group. So again, my knees were slightly bent, but they weren't as bent as we normally do our steps. So again, just make sure you're picking up that ankle and flapping that ball down as we're doing our ball runs. And then on your heel runs, you're going to want to make sure your heels are out, and you're just heel, heel, heel, heel, heel, heel, heel, heel. And you run, and you just get a little nice tap jiggling going on there, and you want to make sure that your weight's going forward because otherwise...you kind of lose your sound. So as you do it, keep your knees bent a little bit to give, and your body forward as you press forward into your heel runs."