Vidadance Men's Shoes
The actual heel is approx 1.4mm and there's an insole and footbed inside the shoe which add a few extra mm.
David, I rather think you meant 1.4cm (14mm) but I don't have
my (modified) shoes here to check. Nevertheless the effective
heel height is significantly less than the 20mm of a pair of ballroom shoes
I have which are designed to allow a backward upper body counter-balancing
lean yet still allow you to be poised on the balls of your feet.
These were the shoes I used when I started learning and discovered
after months of trying that it was the shoes which were opposing the
necessary projection in close embrace. And that was the start of my
own individual shoe search.
I also checked through the eight male friends I happen to have in common with JohnEm on Facebook. Six of them have bought my shoes, including two with two pairs each. That's a fact.
I am not really active on FaceBook. If we had eighty FaceBook male "friends"
in common no doubt sixty would have your shoes but that would be
no reference at all. Dance, especially tango, is personal.
I have made no secret of the fact that I dance the tango of central Buenos
Aires, not of the barrios, academia or Villa Urquiza, nor the third party
tango of European teachers. I doubt if any of the "friends" and I dance
the same. Shoes which positively deter and counteract stable, positive
contact with the floor and connection with your partner cannot be good.
In the interests of peaceful tango I had hoped this exchange would be dropped
but you citing my "friends" to refute a customer's counter-view based on
experience has prompted me to write in more detail then at least readers
can judge for themselves.
Here's a quote from the Vidadance Website:
Guys - do you tango, jive, salsa, or enjoy any other dance?
Discover these exceptionally comfortable and stylish mens dance shoes
from Vidadance.
Take it from a dancer of many dances, there is no such thing
as a universal shoe. These are not purpose made for tango,
a dance of solid stable connection with the floor requiring stability
for your partner.
These pictures are from here:
http://www.vidadance.com/Dance0.html
The left hand picture is a little misleading as the upper on my size 8 shoes
projects beyond the sole unit. Walk in them on a rough surface and the
underside rubs on the ground thus wearing out the soft leather, more clearly
seen in the next picture. Width fittings are not available so wide feet
overhang sole each side. They are a fairly narrow style shape so to gain
the width an excessive amount of shoe projects forward - just right for
catching your partner's feet.
Ok, so you jive or salsa on the balls of your feet - mid right picture.
The split of the sole is in a place you never see on a pair of dance trainers
from elsewhere. Worse, the stitching of the sole runs right under the start
of the pressure area of the ball of your foot. It is not comfortable.
The heel is vital in apilado tango. This is not the exaggerated apilado that
is sometimes taught but the projection necessary to provide and maintain
the space between the partners' feet when in the embrace. Not only is the
heel excessively low so it is never available if you maintain posture and
lean forward a little, if you end up rocking back onto your heel the curved
heel you can see will encourage you to roll back further. The right hand picture
also shows the very low height of the heel.
Other men may not have such a requirement but it seems counter-productive
to supply a shoe which so negatively affects connection and the possibility
of progressing to the tango of connection and the senses.
A final picture from here:
http://www.vidadance.com/Comfort0.html
A larger clearer pic can be clicked from link.
Clearly seen here is the curving away sole in every direction - looking at it,
it is convex with a small contact patch with the floor. It is unstable for any
dance style and unlike any other shoe I have so far seen. Tango needs a
stable, flat contact patch and sometimes some control from the floor.
A quote from the Vidadance size chart:
4. Don't worry if your foot is wider than the outline.
So these shoes for dancing are available only in whole sizes and a customer
is advised to ignore the width, sizing on length only. I am please to have
a wide foot - it's an inbuilt advantage for balance and stability - but the
advice assumes that your foot will expand the shoe to suit thus increasing
the width-ways overhang of the undercut sole. It will get increasingly
uncomfortable as the foot bed compresses with wearing because the foot
crosses the stitching line. There has been another comment to that effect.
The upside is the shoes look nice! But tango for me is form following function
and these shoes do not, so buyer beware.
But seriously, I like hearing when my partner tells me there are floor difficulties. Normally I switch to non-pivoting dancing if that is the case. Sometimes crossing "milonguero" ochos are still ok.
