How is your sole?

About a year or so ago, I bought my first pair of real hiking shoes.
The featured little pyramid nudgies on the soles which amazingly kept
me from slipping in the dusty trails of Griffith Park. Suddenly I
felt like a real hiker.

Today, I tried out my new dancing shoes (literally, not figuratively)
and what a difference! The shoes feature a suede sole (it's all
about soles) to keep you from slipping unexpectedly, but also to
allow you to slide and spin when desired. While my turns still lack
a certain grace and my dancing style could use some honing, the new
shoes made single turns almost effortless and double turns possible.
With the new spin but not slip action, I will have be able to focus
more on developing my own unique salsa style, as the instructor
encouraged us in the lesson. It helped that I had many good leads
throughout the evening. It was all topped off my the fabulous music
of my friends, Tumbao Melao (check them out under myspace friends).

Never underestimate the value of a good shoe.

Therefore, I went exploring possible investments in my new adventure,
which I feel like I owe my bruised knees and bottom to continue, and
found a great bargain on a lovely pair of snowboarding boots. They
were such a good deal, it will only take saving the rental on two
trips to make it worthwhile -- I am sure that is very likely to
happen within my lifetime. I figured if hiking boots can make hiking
more effective and fun, and dance shoes can make my spins more fluid,
then maybe good snowboarding boots are the first step to more
boarding and less bruising (though after yoga class and continued
discomfort in the knees and tailbone, maybe just some padding would
have been the best investment). I suspect it is really the board
that makes the difference, but without outside advisement, i was
hesitant to plop down that money, even with some bargain boards (but
perhaps substandard?).

Besides, I am going with my shoe theory. I only regret there are
not writer shoes or lesson planning shoes to help those two tasks along.