July 1997. I’m sitting in a dance studio in southwest Atlanta, surrounded by adults in tap shoes, and I’m already behind.
Not behind schedule. Behind in the class itself. On day one.
Starting tap dance as an adult was a little more challenging that I’d expected.
Everyone else seems to know what a shuffle is, what a cramp roll is, how to separate their heel from their toe. They’re nodding along as the teacher demonstrates. Their feet already speak a language I haven’t learned yet. Meanwhile, I’m standing there thinking, “Wait, what did she just do with her foot?”
But I don’t care that I’m the worst one in the room. I’m too excited to care. Because after years of watching, wondering, and waiting, I’m finally here.
I’m finally learning to tap dance.
This is the story of how a movie I watched as a kid planted a seed that took nearly a decade to grow, and how one dance recital announcement changed the entire path of my life.
Let’s go back to 1989 or 1990. I’m 12 or 13 years old, and my grandfather has just rented a movie from Turtle’s. Or maybe it was Blockbuster. I can’t remember exactly which store. What I do remember with perfect clarity is the movie: Tap, starring Gregory Hines.
I had never seen anything like it.
Tap dancing looked like magic to me. These dancers were creating music with their feet. They moved with a combination of precision and freedom that seemed impossible. Gregory Hines moved like tap dancing was the most natural thing in the world. He was loose, joyful, effortlessly cool. The way he carried himself, the charisma he brought to every scene, the sheer musicality of his movement—it all grabbed my attention.
But it was the challenge scene that really got me.
You know the one. When Little Mo (Sammy Davis Jr.) shouts “Challenge!” and the legendary tap dancers come together—Gregory Hines, Sammy Davis Jr., Sandman Sims, Bunny Briggs, Steve Condos, Jimmy Slyde, Harold Nicholas, and Arthur Duncan—trading rhythms, pushing each other, celebrating the art form’s history and competitive spirit. And on the piano was Henry LeTang, himself a legendary tap dancer and choreographer who created all the dance sequences for the film. The dignity of it. The class. The way these masters commanded the room not through flash but through decades of dedication to the craft.
Watching that scene, something clicked in my young mind. This wasn’t just dancing. This was a conversation, a celebration, a living tradition being passed forward.
So I did what any inspired kid would do. I grabbed my dress shoes, found the hardest floor in the house in view of the TV, and tried to tap dance.
It went about as well as you’d expect.
I had feet. They had feet. I had shoes. They had shoes. The math seemed simple. But very quickly, I realized there was something happening that I couldn’t see, couldn’t understand, couldn’t copy just by watching. These dancers made it look easy, but there was clearly much more to tap dancing than I could see.
And that was before a young Savion Glover showed what he was capable of in the movie!
I tried for a while, got frustrated, and eventually gave up. But the seed was planted. Somewhere in the back of my mind, tap dancing became this thing I wanted to do someday. This skill I wanted to understand. This magic I wanted to unlock.
I just didn’t know when “someday” would come.
Fast forward to 1997. I’m 20 years old, a student at Morehouse College, singing in the Morehouse College Glee Club, and working at Office Depot to pay the bills. It’s the summer, and I’m in an interesting phase of life.
I’d recently gone through a breakup. Nothing dramatic, just a relationship that had run its course. But it made me make a decision. I was going to focus on myself for a while. On the things I wanted to do. The interests I wanted to pursue. The person I wanted to become.
No more putting my own goals on hold.
I’d spent my teenage years going to clubs, dancing, battling with my friends. We’d create routines, go to parties, have the time of our lives moving to hip hop and whatever else was playing. But at 20, I was already starting to feel like that phase was ending. The club scene loses its appeal. Hip hop dance classes weren’t really common yet, at least not in the way they are now.
And I was very aware that I needed to find something I could do for the rest of my life. The movie Tap had shown me that. Tap dancers performing into old age. The art form carrying people through decades. The skill building and deepening over time.
Tap dancing kept calling to me. That movie I’d watched years ago still lived in my head. I’d find myself thinking about it, remembering those rhythms, wondering what it would feel like to actually create that sound.
But I still hadn’t done anything about it.
Then came my little sister’s dance recital.
My sister was much younger than me, still a kid, taking dance classes at a local studio. I went to support her at her recital. Proud older brother showing up to watch her perform.
And during the recital, the studio owner made an announcement. They were starting adult classes. Adult tap and adult ballet, beginning in July. First class would be Wednesday, July 9th, 1997.
I remember sitting there, hearing that announcement, and something shifted. This was it. This was the sign I’d been waiting for. No more “someday.” Someday was now.
The timing felt perfect. I was 20, focusing on myself, ready to try something new. I had the movie Tap still living in my imagination. And now someone was offering to teach me how to do this thing I’d been curious about for nearly a decade.
I signed up immediately.
On Wednesday, July 9th, 1997, I walked into my first tap class at Norma’s Academy of Dance in the Ben Hill area of southwest Atlanta. The studio had been founded by Norma B. Mitchell, but by the time I started, her daughter, Djana Bell, was doing an outstanding job running it. My teacher was Shawana Sanders, and I was about to discover just how much I didn’t know.
I’d prepared for this moment. I’d rewatched Tap multiple times, focusing on the dancing, trying to pick up anything I could. I was a fast learner. I knew that about myself. I figured I’d take one class, go home, watch the movie again, and suddenly I’d be able to recognize what Gregory Hines was doing. The fog would clear. The magic would make sense.
I was so optimistic.
Then class started.
It was an adult beginner class, which should have been perfect for me. And I wasn’t the only guy. There was at least one other man in the room, which was comforting. But here’s what I didn’t expect. I was the only person in that adult beginner class who had literally never tap danced before.
Everyone else had taken tap at some point. Maybe as kids. Maybe briefly in high school. They knew the basic vocabulary. When the teacher said “shuffle,” they knew what that meant. When she demonstrated a cramp roll, it clicked for them.
For me? I was lost.
On day one, in a beginner class, I was already the worst dancer in the room.
But you know what? I didn’t find it embarrassing. I found it challenging. I was competitive enough with myself that being behind just made me want to work harder. And the teacher said something in that first class that stuck with me. Something that would shape how I approached tap for years to come.
She talked about the importance of separating your toe from your heel. Of getting up on your toes. Using the ball of your foot independently.
So I, being a young guy full of determination and not quite enough sense, decided I would stay on my toes the entire class. The whole time. Every exercise. Every combination. I’d be up on the balls of my feet, working that separation, proving I could do this.
I don’t recommend this approach, by the way. Your calves will hate you.
But that was my mindset. Full commitment, even if I didn’t fully understand what I was doing.
After that first class ended, I stayed.
The studio was empty. Everyone else had gone home. But I wasn’t ready to leave. I wanted to keep working on what we’d learned. I wanted to hear those sounds again. I wanted to figure out what my feet were trying to say.
I stayed for about an hour after class, working on the steps we’d covered. Practicing over and over, listening to the rhythm, trying to make it cleaner, trying to get it right.
This became my routine. Every class, I’d stick around afterward. The studio to myself, just tapping. Working through the combinations. Experimenting. Falling in love with the sound of tap shoes on a hard floor.
I remember one particular evening, working on a step called the Buffalo. I must have practiced it for an hour straight, obsessed with getting the rhythm just right. Djana Bell walked by and heard me still in there, still tapping away. She paused, looked in, and said with a knowing smile, “You just love the sound of your taps, don’t you?”
She was absolutely right.
There was something about that sound. The clarity, the rhythm, the way you could create music just by moving your feet. It hooked me completely. I couldn’t get enough of it.
Because I was practicing constantly—in class, after class, at home in whatever shoes I could find—I got better steadily over that first year. In the summer of 1998, after a full year in the adult beginner class with Shawana Sanders, I moved up to the intermediate level.
This wasn’t an adult class anymore. I was the only adult in a class full of younger students. But that’s where I met my real teacher. The one who would shape my entire approach to tap dancing: Sheila Artis.
Sheila taught rhythm tap. Her style, her teaching, her entire approach came from a lineage I didn’t fully appreciate at the time. She had trained under Tommy Sutton, a legendary tap dancer from Chicago. A master of rhythm tap who’d spent his life preserving and passing forward the tradition.
This meant that Sheila wasn’t just teaching steps. She was teaching a way of thinking about tap. A philosophy of sound and rhythm and musical conversation. She focused on clarity, tone, dynamics. All the musical elements that make rhythm tap so powerful.
I like to say that I’m the tap grandson of Tommy Sutton. My teacher learned from him, which makes him my teacher’s teacher. Which connects me to a lineage stretching back through decades of rhythm tap history.
That connection matters. Tap isn’t just steps and sounds. It’s a living tradition, passed from dancer to dancer, teacher to student, generation to generation. And suddenly, I was part of that chain.
Not everyone understood why I wanted to do this.
My grandparents were curious, slightly confused. They asked me, “What do you want to do with that?”
It’s a fair question. Tap dancing wasn’t exactly a practical skill for a 20-year-old college student working at Office Depot. It wasn’t going to help me graduate. It wasn’t going to advance my career. There was no obvious endgame.
But I told them the truth. It was something I was interested in. Something I wanted to do for me.
Thankfully, that was enough for them. They didn’t push further. They didn’t try to talk me out of it. They let me pursue this passion I’d developed for an art form most people considered old-fashioned.
That support—or at least that lack of resistance—mattered more than they probably knew.
As I got better at tap, I kept going back to Tap. I’d watch it with new eyes now. Seeing things I couldn’t see before. I’d recognize steps, understand rhythms, appreciate the technique behind moves that had seemed like magic when I was a kid.
But I also realized something. I still couldn’t do what Gregory Hines did. Even with classes and practice and a real teacher, his level of skill was so far beyond where I was. It almost seemed like a different activity entirely.
That realization could have been discouraging. Instead, it became inspiring. It showed me how much room there was to grow. How deep this art form went. How much I still had to learn.
Gregory Hines had given me the dream. Sheila Artis was teaching me the language. And I was just at the beginning of a journey that would take me places I couldn’t have imagined that summer.
That summer—July 1997—was life-changing for multiple reasons.
It was the summer I started tap dancing. It was also the summer I met the woman who would become my wife. Two beginnings. Two relationships that would shape the rest of my life. Both happening within weeks of each other.
I was 20 years old, working at Office Depot, singing in the Morehouse College Glee Club, and learning to tap dance at a studio in southwest Atlanta. I was behind in every class. Staying late to practice Buffalos. Building calluses on the balls of my feet from staying on my toes too much. And loving every minute of it.
A year later, I’d be sitting in the Fox Theatre watching Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk for the first time. Seeing rhythm tap performed at the highest level. Understanding for the first time what this art form could really be.
But that July, I was just a beginner. The worst dancer in the beginner class. A young guy with a dream planted by a movie. Finally taking the first steps toward making that dream real.
If you’ve ever watched someone do something amazing and thought, “I wish I could do that,” but never acted on it, this story is for you.
I was a young teenager when I first saw tap dancing and wanted to learn. I was 20 when I finally walked into a class. That’s several years of thinking about it, wanting it, but not pursuing it.
And you know what? It didn’t matter that I started “late.” It didn’t matter that I was behind on day one. It didn’t matter that I was the worst one in the beginner class.
What mattered was that I started.
I’ve now been tap dancing for over 25 years. I’ve studied with the masters who inspired me—including Savion Glover, Baakari Wilder, and Jimmy Tate. The dancers I’d see perform in Noise/Funk a year after starting. I’ve taught thousands of students, both in person and through my online tap program at eTapDance.com. I’ve performed in schools and libraries throughout the Southeast, from Georgia to Texas, through my tap dance shows and workshops. I even created portable tap floors at PortableTapFloor.com so other dancers could practice anywhere with good sound. Because I remember what it was like to want to practice but not have the right space.
All of that started with one decision on a summer day in 1997. To finally try the thing I’d been curious about since I was a kid.
Tap starring Gregory Hines isn’t a perfect movie. Film critics might find problems with the plot or the pacing. But for me, and for countless other tap dancers of my generation, that movie was everything.
It showed us that tap dancing was cool. That it had history and culture and dignity. That it could be joyful and competitive and deeply artistic all at once. That you could make magic with your feet if you were willing to put in the work.
Gregory Hines didn’t just dance in that movie. He showed everything that makes tap dancing special. The musicality, the personality, the connection between sound and movement. He made it look like the most natural form of expression in the world.
And he inspired a young kid in Atlanta to grab his dress shoes and try something impossible.
Seven or eight years later, that kid walked into a dance studio and started learning for real.
That’s the power of seeing someone who looks like you doing something amazing. Thinking, “Maybe I could do that too.”
Starting tap at 20 gave me a unique view that I carry into my teaching today.
I remember what it’s like to be behind. I remember the frustration of not understanding what your feet are supposed to do. I remember the awkwardness, the self-consciousness, the feeling that everyone else got it except you.
But I also remember the joy of finally getting a step right. The satisfaction of hearing your taps sound cleaner, crisper, more musical. The thrill of putting together a combination and thinking, “Oh, I’m actually dancing.”
Adult beginners bring something to tap that kids often don’t: choice. We chose this. We’re here because we want to be, not because our parents signed us up. That makes every breakthrough more meaningful. Every achievement more satisfying.
If you’re an adult who’s ever thought about trying tap—or trying anything new—I want you to know this. It’s not too late. You’re not too old. You won’t be too far behind.
You’ll be exactly where you need to be. At the beginning, ready to learn, full of possibility.
The journey from that young kid trying to tap in dress shoes to a tap teacher with over 25 years of experience has been one of the great privileges of my life.
Every time I teach a class, I think about Sheila Artis. The patience she had with a 20-year-old who didn’t know a shuffle from a flap. Every time I encourage a student to find their own rhythmic voice, I think about watching Baakari Wilder and Jimmy Tate perform the same choreography in completely different ways. Every time someone tells me they’ve always wanted to try tap but thought they were too old, I think about walking into Norma’s Academy of Dance on a July evening in 1997.
And every time I watch Tap, I still see that magic. I still feel that inspiration. I still hear Gregory Hines’ rhythms and think about how far one movie can reach. How many lives it can change. How powerful it is to see someone do something beautiful and think, “I want to learn how to do that.”
That’s what Gregory Hines gave me. Permission to dream, and eventually, the courage to start.
No! I started tap dancing at 20 and have been dancing for over 25 years. Many adults successfully start tap in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond. What matters most is your dedication to practice and learning. Adult beginners often bring focus and determination that helps them progress quickly.
I spent one year in adult beginner classes before moving to intermediate level. Everyone progresses at their own pace, but with consistent practice—including staying after class to work on steps like I did—you can make significant progress within 6-12 months. The key is regular practice and patience with yourself.
The 1989 movie Tap starring Gregory Hines. I first saw it when I was 12 or 13, and the challenge scene featuring legendary dancers like Jimmy Slyde, Harold Nicholas, Sandman Sims, Bunny Briggs, Steve Condos, Arthur Duncan, Sammy Davis Jr., and choreographer Henry LeTang made me want to learn tap dancing. The way these masters traded rhythms showed me that tap was more than just steps—it was musical conversation.
No. I had no formal dance training when I started at 20, though I had enjoyed club dancing with friends as a teenager. I was actually the only person in my adult beginner class who had never tap danced before—and I was the worst dancer in the room on day one. But with practice, you improve quickly. Starting as a complete beginner is completely normal and nothing to be embarrassed about.
I teach tap dancing online through my e-Tap Training Program at eTapDance.com. The program is designed specifically for adult learners and covers everything from basic steps to advanced rhythm tap techniques. You can learn at your own pace, practice anywhere, and join a community of adult tap dancers from around the world.
Continue Reading This Series:
In the next post, I’ll share what happened years later when I had the opportunity to study with the three dancers who performed in Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk. The masters whose performances shaped my understanding of what rhythm tap could be.
