TikTok
Building LED shoes and shuffle dancing
I shuffle dance, and I built my own LED shoes.
In college, I always wished I knew how to shuffle. A guy I knew could shuffle really well, but I didn’t know how to learn it - he spent about 10 minutes showing some of us, but that wasn't enough time. Years later, I saw people shuffling on TikTok, and soon my whole feed was people shuffle dancing and cutting shapes.
I slowed the videos down to 1/4 speed and practiced. That first day, I recorded myself to see if I was doing it right - I was not. But, my brother encouraged me to post the video on TikTok. That was tough for me. The first few days were pretty embarrassing. But I posted, and I posted after day 2, day 3, day 4, ...
I usually practiced 1-2 hours a day. It was pretty motivating knowing I would have to post another video by the end of the day. I wanted to show progress with every post. On day 8, I had learned enough singular things, that I wanted to see how I could stitch them together. I made my own choreography, and it took me about 4 and a half hours. I was pretty proud of what I accomplished that day - all the moves leading up to that day started to look smoother, and I started to have some hope that I could become good at it.
Every day I would make a new choreography to a new song while learning a new move. The choreography would include a move I learned the prior day that way I'd have 2 days to practice it to smooth it out. My sessions would start with the new combo or movement I wanted to learn, then reviewing what I knew, then trying to build something new out of the prior day's new movement.
I started getting 1 or 2 followers each day, and a few words of encouragement - that felt really good, and helped motivate me to keep going. Then, on day 25, I woke up to a bunch of new followers. My notifications said 999 - which I guess was the cap.
But after 30 days, I needed a break. It was a lot to keep up with. I had to find a new song, practice, and come up with choreography. Then I’d record over and over until I got a take I liked. After that, I still had to edit and post that night. Most days, it added up to at least 4 hours even if only 2 were spent outside on my patio.
I left it alone for a while, then made some LED shoes before an EDM festival. I also built an LED sign that I could connect to via Bluetooth to display scrolling messages. I posted a couple times, but didn’t get much traction. No worries - I’m not sure I was reaching the right crowd. I didn’t want to spend time chasing better hooks, and eventually stopped posting.
I got so much out of the experience. It was humbling, exciting, and empowering. Now, I occasionally enjoy tearing it up on the dance floor, like at the 'House of Kube' party at KubeCon, but I also gained a new level of confidence. I posted myself failing, and eventually succeeding. Even towards the end, I had videos I wasn’t entirely proud of, but I posted them anyway. I think it’s good to not appear polished all the time. I also loved the community interaction, both online and with people I meet at festivals and random dances.
If you practice something for 60+ hours, you’ll probably impress 90% of people.