Most people think that the key to looking good while dancing has fancy moves. But, in reality, it’s all about having the right shoes. By making your shoes more slippery, you’ll be able to glide across the dance floor with ease. This article will teach you how to make shoes more slippery for dancing.
As a dancer, you know that slippery shoes are vital to looking and feeling your best on the dance floor. Slick shoes are the key to a successful dance. There’s no need to be embarrassed if you’re not a great dancer. With a little bit of practice and some helpful tips, you’ll be shimmying and shaking like a pro in no time!
Required Tools and Materials
- Sandpaper
- Moleskin
- Gaffer Tape
- Cooking grease
- Baby powder
A Detailed Guide on How to Make Shoes More Slippery for Dancing
Method 1: Use Sandpaper
Using sandpaper is a simple solution to make shoes more slippery for dancing. However, it will wear out the soles of your favorite pair quite often, and therefore you should only implement this method when required.
Remove any thick grime or dirt that might be on your shoes’ soles. Next, use the rough side of the sandpaper and rub it against your shoe’s soles in a circular motion. The circular motion will allow you to reach all parts of your shoe’s sole more quickly since you are not spending time flipping over the paper.
Since this method is quite abrasive, make sure not to use too much force when grinding against your shoe’s soles with sandpaper. However, if you are gentle, it can take a long time for results to show up.
Method 2: Use Moleskin
Moleskin is a soft fabric that feels felt on one side and has an adhesive backing on the other. The adhesive backing can be peeled off and applied to any part of your shoe that lacks traction with the floor.
The most effective places to put moleskin are at the front of your shoe on either side of your arch, directly behind the heel, so there’s no gap between moleskin and floor and on either side of where your big toe would be if these shoes were a pair of regular socks.
To ensure that moleskin stays in place, secure it to your shoe with gaffer tape. Don’t worry about the stickers left behind since they can be easily peeled off without damaging either your shoe or moleskin.
Method 3: Use Gaffer Tape
You can also use gaffer tape to make your shoes slippery for dancing. Gaffer tape is cloth-like with an adhesive backing and leaves no residue behind once removed. It is widely used in the entertainment industry to secure cables and wires on stage, but it can also be used as a quick fix for accelerating your learning of new dances by improving the traction on your soles.
To affix gaffer tape to your shoe, place the strip so it runs across the middle of each sole and presses down firmly, so it sticks securely onto both sides. Make sure not to leave any creases, which will reduce the effectiveness of the gaffer tape’s grip.
Method 4: Use Cooking Grease
Using cooking grease like Crisco is an effective way to make your shoes more slippery. Its waxy texture allows it to slide easily on surfaces without sticking, which is very similar to the sensation you would expect when wearing brand new shoes that are not yet treated with any wax or silicone spray.
Swipe a paper towel across a generous amount of cooking grease and wipe over the soles of both your left and right shoe. Make sure to apply enough grease so your shoe’s soles can lap it up for maximum grip. This method is crucial in how to make shoes more slippery for dancing.
Method 5: Use Baby Powder
After dancing in your shoes for an extended period, they may begin smelling pretty funky due to sweatiness. Sweat has a natural tendency to leave behind stains on surfaces that are porous, including your shoes. Pour the baby powder onto the soles of your shoe in a zigzag pattern, followed by tapping that area with your hand to help disperse it evenly across the sole.
Baby powder is not only helpful in removing sweat-related stains from the surface of your shoe’s soles but also provides exceptional grip because it works simultaneously as both lubricant and traction agent. This means when you dance in your newly powdered shoes, you will feel much less resistance against the floor because of its oily texture than if you were wearing your old sweaty shoes without having applied any baby powder at all.
Method 6: Stick-on Suede Soles
Several brands and types of stick-on soles can be used to add traction to the bottom of your shoes. How well they perform will depend on where you purchase them and what type of materials they are made with, but their price should range between $5 and $10, making these a shallow cost option for increasing your shoe’s grip when dancing.
The stick-on soles are mostly made from either suede or rubber materials. If you plan to use these on the entire bottom of your shoe, go for ones made out of rubber since they won’t peel off when coming into contact with other surfaces. For dancing purposes, however, all you need to do is stick them onto your existing soles, so suede should suffice just fine if that’s all you can get your hands on.
Size does not matter when it comes to stick-on soles because they come in small sheets that can be cut down into any shape and size, depending on where you want to apply them. The stickiness stays strong without losing its grip for up to 4 months, but this time frame will depend on how often you wear them.
Method 7: Get a Cobbler to Wax Your Shoes
When your dancing shoes are brand new, they have a sticky texture on their soles, improving the gripping power. But once you’ve worn them long enough and they begin to lose that initial grip, all you need to do is take them back to the shoemaker who sold them for you and has him wax-coat them across the bottom.
Cobbler’s wax is widely available at almost every shoe store globally. They also use it themselves whenever customers bring their shoes in for repairs or resoling because it strengthens the durability of leather by keeping it supple while making its surface more water-resistant.
The cobbler will brush on a layer of cobbler’s wax onto your leather shoes’ soles and then buff the surface to give it a nice shine. How many layers of wax adds will depend on how slippery you need them to be and how long they stay that way. Three should be enough for most dancers who require additional grip when taking a class or social dancing, whereas those who only practice at home every so often might want more layers for a firmer grip.
Method 8: Use Shoe Polish
The soles of your shoes can lose their stickiness over time due to extensive use and exposure to all kinds of different floor surfaces. A great way to rejuvenate this functional grip is by applying a layer of shoe polish onto your existing sole’s coating, followed by buffing it with a shiny cloth to give it that new-shoe shine.
Shoe polish can be purchased from any store that offers shoe care products, while buffing clothes are easy to find at your local drugstore. Of course, how many layers of shoe polish you need will depend on how slippery your original soles have become because this stuff is usually water-based, so the more layers you add, the more substantial grip you’ll get back. Nevertheless, these methods will help in how to make shoes more slippery for dancing.
You Can Check It Out to Get Your Basketball Shoes Sticky
Why Would Someone Want Slippery Shoes?
Ballroom dancing is one of the most popular social dances, with an estimated eight million people practicing worldwide. There are three popular types of dance performed in ballrooms: Waltz, Tango, and Foxtrot. These dances are performed to music that typically ranges from 100 beats per minute (BPM) to 200 BPM, generally lasting four to six minutes long.
While some may not consider wet or slippery shoes necessary for this type of “slow” dancing, competitive dancers wear them for many reasons. First, the slow-tempo nature of these dances allows time for proper foot placement while minimizing the risk involved with more complicated moves.
Slippery shoes will enable one to slide into positions with ease; this makes dancing easier and is also more aesthetically pleasing. Furthermore, this added ease of movement allows one to dance for extended periods without experiencing fatigue or muscle cramps.
Shoes, a show that explores the manufacturing process behind footwear, two pairs of those made for competitive dancers are shown being put together. The first shoe created was a pair of men’s Tango shoes and a pair of women’s Waltz shoes.
In both instances, leather upper sections were placed on formers (shoe molds) before rubber soles were attached via machine and stitched onto the uppers by hand with waxed threading. Lastly, they were fitted into pumps and then dipped into a vat of water mixed with special chemicals designed to make rubber more flexible and harder wearing.
Conclusion
Now you know how to make shoes more slippery for dancing. You can also use this knowledge to help others improve their dance moves! It might take a bit of practice and testing, but it should be pretty easy to make your shoe extra-slippery. Happy dancing!
