[ Air blowing ] [ Rhythmic breaths ] [ Breathes deeply ] [ Exhaling slowly ] [ Rhythmic breaths ] [ Rapid short breaths ] [ Warbling whistling ] [ Chittering ] [ Chittering continues ] [ Chittering continues ] [ Staccato breaths ] [ Wind howling ] [ Indistinct conversations ] -I learned to play the banjo pretty good, but I never could chord because I had a finger short and they never would reach the strings where I wanted it to go.

So I just quit picking and started dancing.

I really got interested in it, you know, and I really -- I really liked it.

And so I didn't have anybody to teach me, but flatfoot or old time dancing was simply a feeling.

It came within -- you know, came from within, where your feet and legs moved around in time with the music in a rhythmic fashion.

People always ask me, "Well, what is flatfoot, and what's the difference between it and clogging?"

When I talk about clogging, I talk more about precision type dancing, you know?

Where they have structured steps and it's not freestyle.

Now, flatfoot is generally just a -- just a freestyle dance where you just get up and do what feels good to you.

If a certain part of the music feels better than others, you change your steps and you put a little bit more -- you put a little bit more energy into that part of the music.

I usually wear a pair of Reebok tennis shoes with taps on them.

-Do you put the taps on there yourself?

-Yeah.

And these here I sent to Pennsylvania and had a leather sole put on them.

-Oh, okay.

-And I've got three pair of these fixed with leather soles.

And two of them have taps on them and one doesn't.

I'll demonstrate just a little bit of it for you.

Now, in a modern clogging step, if you use sound, the sound comes off the toe and the heel, and the sound comes first with a toe beat, and it's, uh... [ Tapping ] You hear that?

-Uh-huh.

[ Tapping continues ] In a flatfoot step, the sound would come off of the... [ Tapping ] See, it comes off the heel-toe.

-Mm-hmm.

[ Tapping ] And a buck dance step -- I don't know why I can do a buck dance step or not, but it's -- Let's see.

Hear that?

It has a double beat in it.

-Okay.

Uh-huh.

-That's a buck step, you see.

That's the difference in the three steps.

-Looks good, Lou.

Looking good.

-What?

-You're looking good.

-Well, you know, I'm lucky to be able to walk around at my age, you know.

I'm 93, and I know I'm probably 94 years old.

-Okay.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Laughter ] -It's the best I could do.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ -♪ There was an old woman there by the seashore ♪ ♪ Oh, the wind and rain ♪ ♪ She had daughters, three or four ♪ ♪ And they cried the dreadful wind and rain ♪ ♪ A young man came courting by there ♪ ♪ Oh, the wind and rain ♪ ♪ And he made love to the youngest woman fair ♪ ♪ And they cried the dreadful wind and rain ♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪