From: trb@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Andrew Tannenbaum)
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
Subject: Re: Shoes---thanks to all who wrote me
Date: 6 Jan 1993 18:37:18 GMT
Organization: Beth trb - Baruchline, MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu

I didn't respond to this thread while I was on vacation, but my
experience doesn't quite synch with what I read here, so I'll add some
ideas.

It's important to note that there is a group of constraints when
dancing, and you have to optimize by playing them off each other.
Most people would agree, I think, that if they could do it without
hurting themselves, dancing in bare feet would be the best.  So you
want to do as little as possible to your bare feet to make dancing
comfortable.

You might need arch support.  You might want very light shoes.  You
might want sturdier uppers, as opposed to soft slippers (which might
let your feet move around more over the soles).  You might want a
certain kind of traction.  You might want to protect the shoes
themselves from dirty or abrasive floors.  You might want ankle
support.  You might want style.  You might want a big sound when you
stomp.

I don't have problems with my legs and feet, and I'm light on my feet,
so I try to go with light shoes without arch support.  Sometimes I put
in a thin layer of padding for some spring, or for when my shoes
stretch a bit too much.  If I wanted arch support, I'd try putting in
some Dr Scholl's magic cookies, or some kind of orthotic device.

I often wear Capezio jazz slippers with thin suede bottoms and rubber
heels.  They also sell a similar model where the suede wraps around the
heel bottom, but I figure the rubber is good for panic traction, since I
slide on the balls of my feet anyway.  These are not the Capezio
character shoes, which are heavier, with a heavier leather sole (the
kind you can put taps on) and if you kick someone with them, it hurts.
(I have a pair of character shoes that I wore until I kicked someone
with them, now I don't wear them any more - at crowded contra dances,
you are going to kick people, so it's better not to wear weapons on your
feet.)  Capezio jazz slippers cost about $60 a pair, which is a little
stiff in my opinion.  By the way, suede soles like to stay clean.   If
you dance on dirty floors they'll get gummed up and sticky, and if you
dance on wet floors, they'll soak up the water and get sticky, and
neither of these is good for the suede.

Capezio quality ain't what it used to be, the leather sometimes gets
to look cruddy after a while, or the seams will pop.  If you're lucky
enough not to pop the seams (where the upper meets the sole) sometimes
you'll wear holes in the bottoms, and then you can turn them into
"mudders" (dirty floor shoes) by affixing new soles - I like to buy thin
"Cat's Paw" rubber (ask any shoemaker) and glue it over the old sole
with contact cement.

Lately, I've been wearing Blochs when I can (on clean wooden floors).
These are very light jazz slippers, almost like socks.  Thin thin
leather with a thin thin rubber sole fused to the bottom, inset from the
edges of the slipper.  A pair of these probably doesn't weigh as much as
one Capezio jazz slipper (not that the Capezios are heavy).  A pair of
Blochs cost about $40, and since they are so light, they wear out pretty
quickly, but if you just want protection from abrasion and proper
slipperiness, then try the Blochs.  To compare the two, it is easy to
fold a Capezio slipper in half.  It is easy to crumple a Bloch slipper
into a ball.  Btw, the rubber in the Bloch sole doesn't make them too
sticky, since it isn't a very big patch.  Blochs are sort of like
ballet slippers with laces.

When I talk about wearing out quickly, you might want to know what I
mean.  I figure that a pair of Capezios will last for 200-300 hours of
dancing, and a pair of Blochs for 100-200 hours.

Some people have bad ankles and want high-top ankle support.  I don't
know much about this, but people do dance in either high-top sneakers
or dance boots (international dancers often dance in boots).

The black cloth (Chinese kung fu) shoes can work too.  The are very
cheap - should be under $5 a pair.  I don't use them these days because
they don't hug my feet enough, but if I was dancing on a floor that I
felt would ruin my other shoes, I might whip them out of the trunk of my
car.  One thing to note about kung fu shoes - many come with buckle
straps on top, and the buckles don't stand up to dancing.  Find ones
that slip on if you can, or sew some elastic over your ankles like they
were ballet slippers.  (Sew it on over your ankles, not over your
instep!)  That, or keep safety pins in your shoe bag - a good idea anyway.

A note about sneakers, squeaking, and traction.  Noise and traction
depend on the surfaces, both of the floor and of your shoe.  New
sneakers tend to be very sticky and squeaky (on a gym-type floor), both
bad for dancing.  If you wear the sneakers outside for a few weeks,
you'll wear in the soles so that they don't squeak and they have a more
favorable slipperyish coefficient of friction (that's what you want).

I carry a pair of Blochs, a pair of suede-bottom Capezios and a pair of
Cat's-Paw-bottom Capezios in my shoe bag - probably a bit much for most
people.

	Andrew Tannenbaum   Brookline, MA  USA