Shoe Shine; Or, Fixing The Feline Workout / Shuffle Dancing At The Gym And Achy Feet

Feline workout is my informal name for a workout program I have been developing.

Aside from being friendly and effective, its most amazing, perhaps breathtaking feature; it the tail!

All participants are required, no exceptions, especially medical exemptions, to wear a beautiful prominent tail during the workout.

This is just a way to know who is who, a give the gym a light dusting to the staff’s merriment.

The two primary moves, are executed with dumbbells in hands, but they are the couch scratch and the dough knead.

Purring is also involved, and taught during the introduction class.

But I am still working on, exactly why that is needed.

But my workout, has a problem, or rather most gyms do not have dance friendly floors.

Gyms prefer rubber flooring, which has extreme traction when combined with rubber shoes.

My tried and tested transformative workout, is two to three hours long, and that makes for achy feet.

As a side note the workout relies on dance trance, so the three hours pass very quickly.

Rubber flooring is, perfect for a gym.

Every couple of years a 5-10lb dumbbell, just falls out of my hands, out of clumsiness.

Multiply that by all the members with butter fingers, and rubber flooring is just the perfect solution.

But dancing on a rubber floor is not good, even if you get the perfect shoe, it will make your feet tired.

This weekend I searched for “Dance Shoes”, not really knowing what to expect.

Dance shoes are for hardwood floors, not rubber ones, and they use patches of Suede, a fuzzy leather to cause the necessary traction.

I searched for Suede Patches and discovered stick on version, that will work on any shoe.

Which gave me the idea, of gluing different types of hard plastics to my shoes to find something that is friendly.

I now own two “For Rent” signs I bought at a discount store for a dollar, and they will make for a fine first test.

As soon as I figure out how to glue them, right before I closed the window I noticed another kind of product.

My whole life is actually peppered with events like these, where as the window is closing I discover a product I already once made.

A thing, that I was immediately told not to do, and forbidden from ever doing again.

Last week even, even though it was a magnificent failure, I was seriously, rigorously, and scientifically testing…

Wearing shiny black underwear, over my red singlet, for reasons I am unwilling to describe.

I remember my Grandma explain, that only superheroes wear underpants on the outside – fine!

The entire dance workout alone, is just about fidgeting to music.

Also something that is strictly forbidden, at the very least for 40 years or so, until the fidget inflates like a plumpkin, and gets a gym memberbember ship.

I frequently do the train, meaning I won’t stop if someone gets in my way, another thing forbidden in out youth.

Though most people avoid the dancing guy at the gym, especially when he is doing the train with a large bushy tail on.

And such is this event, for what has caught my attention in that split second.

Is yet another forbidden act, the act, of putting socks over your shoes.

I swiftly scrambled down stairs to grab my enormous woolen socks, that expanded due to jogging, dancing, and frequent washing.

And pulled them over five toe shoes, the silly ones that look like a rubber foot from the bottom.

These had the most extreme traction of all my shoes, and now, they are as slippery as a sock.

I have no rubber surface to test them on, but they slide on carpets, enough to kill.

It is unknown if they will work, or if they even last three hours, but it is a good format.

A shoe sock that in another configuration could have a surface, such as my shiny for rent signs.

Is a great mechanism to temporarily change the sole of a shoe, and it is perfect for testing various materials.

The rubber flooring at my gym, is likely recycled tire rubber, but its surface has been worn and altered by cleaning.

It occurred to me to get spray-on polyurethane, and test acrylic soles as well.

But the sock approach, really makes testing various materials possible, without it you have to keep sanding down your shoe.

And if you use shoe glue, to attach Suede you only really get one test per pair of shoes.

Finally, if you dance at the gym, get some old socks and put them over your shoes to increase friction.

Don’t worry how that looks, your health is more important, than anything anybody thinks of you.

And you know, if you have a gym that has dance friendly flooring, a good pair of shoe socks will grant you the power to slide right across it.

Which at least in my book, is a social accomplishment, and a bonus if you purr the whole way.