Heel Click
Perhaps you are playing Willy Wonka in your school's production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Perhaps you want to act like Seamus Patrick O'Blarney, the leprechaun. But whatever the reason, if you want to learn how to heel-click, this article is for you!
Steps
- Discern your method of jumping. First, figure out how you jump (lifting your feet up off of the ground at the same time tends to help). Once you get good at this possibly alien sensation of jumping, work on jumping so that your heels are lined up with your shoulders.
- Now, we learn how to heel-click. If you are unsure of exactly how to do this, a good trick is to sit on a chair and let your heels dangle in the air. Now, bring them together and make a sharp, snapping sound. Get the idea?
- Now practice heel clicking while jumping. Jump one more time to re-acquaint yourself with the feeling. The next time you jump, bring your heels together like you did in Step Two. Start out clicking in the center of your legs (rather than to one side or the other) so that you can get acclimated to the trick of clicking and landing without losing your footing and making a fool of yourself (which will promptly dissipate any good feeling toward you from your audience that you may have received for your oh-so-nifty heel-click).
- Add a side kick to the series! Now that you've (hopefully) mastered the art of 'Center Heel-Clicking', it's time to try heel-clicking to the side. The next time that you jump, kick your left leg out to the side. Bring your right leg to your left, heel-click, and attempt to land without killing yourself. Killing yourself is a very bad thing that, once again, will promptly dissipate any good feeling toward you from your audience.
- Learn how to fall. If you fall, you have two options. If you are in front of an audience and acting something out, you're going to need to do some pretty nifty improvisation to convince them that this fall was on purpose. Don't break your character and no one will notice. If you are not doing it in character or anything, then get up, smile, and laugh at yourself. Explain to whomever is watching you that you have just learned how to heel-click (it may be helpful to explain that you only learned from a very bad wikiHow article, in fact) and then continue with whatever you were doing before. If people ask you to try again, politely tell them 'no.' Practice more before you try to show people.
- Finished.
Tips
- Don't practice this anywhere public or anywhere with an exceptionally slippery floor. You're just asking for trouble.
- Try adding props in (once you think that you're ready and won't hurt yourself). An example might be a cane (See Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka heel-click for an example of cane usage).
Warnings
- Falling As noted in the article, it is definitely a good idea to watch out for falls. Though they are usually pretty unpredictable, they're certainly not fun and thus, it is highly preferable if one tries to avoid them.
Things You'll Need
- Socks with traction bottoms to practice in.
- Shoes that you think are exceptional for clicking in.
