The Skull Crackers; Or, How To Safely Shuffle Dance On A Rubber Mat Floor At The Gym
Tuesday • December 16th 2025 • 10:01:43 pm
Shuffle Dancing, or more correctly Cutting Shapes, requires a concrete floor with a sprinkle of sand on it.
The dance moves depend on sliding you feet, especially when you are going to perform them for extended durations.
A sandy parking lot, or a salty winter concrete slab type surface, does not exist at a gym, what you get is rubber mat floors.
This is the same material your shoes are made from, rubber does not slide on rubber.
Even a foam type sole will hurt you, and in any case, the shoes of a dancer will wear down fast.
The solution is a dollar store kitchen cutting board, which is a thin sheet of hard to cut plastic, it makes the knife slide.
The technical name for this incredible plastic, is High Density Polyethylene, HDPE.
Any plastic cutting board will use that material, but the thin dollar store version will twist and bend with your shoe.
And you attach it, with carpet tape, it is a double sided mesh tape that holds carpets in place.
It is not a permanent stick, you can take it off.
And in deed, don’t think of this a as modifying your shoes, the skull crackers are meant to be disposable.
This is the part that got me, I always tried to make a permanent stick, but there is no reason for that, and you don’t want to ruin your LED shoes.
Using a double sided tape, means you can have a set on stand by, you will discover that this is very convenient, if you ever lose one.
Dirt, and winter salt does get to the front toe part, but that is not a surface you dance on, and you can trim it back.
In fact, don’t cut the HDPE to match you shoe perfectly, leave some of the shoe rubber on the side for contact.
Your gym floor is rubber floor, but the locker area is likely to be tile, and likely to be the place where you crack your skull open.
Leave a little bit of rubber on the side, as a bonus, HDPE can protect your shoes when you do dance on concrete.
You maybe able to hang on to your favorite shoes, for quite a bit of longer uf you put some HDPE pads on the bottom.
Be careful, but, also, be ungovernable.
