Learning to Flatfoot

12 7 4 8

I couldn’t play the instructional DVD
I bought from Paul Anderegg
for ten dollars,
so this poem will have to do.

After reading this poem, you should be able
to work on your flatfooting
by yourself to
a tune in your head—“Cotton-Eyed

Joe,” for example. If ‘t'ad not a-been for the
Cotton Eyed Joe, I’d a been
married twenty
years ago. Start by doing the

Soldier’s March, just a brisk regular walk, right-left,
left-right, doesn’t matter which
foot you start on.
Unmatching shoes make better sounds.

Don’t you remember a long time ago, daddy
worked a man they called Cotton-
Eyed Joe? Play it
fast, play it slow, don’t play nothing

but Cotton-Eyed Joe. Then you can switch to Mitchell
walk—strike your heel and step, strike
your other heel—
doesn’t matter which—and step. And

back to Soldier’s March. I fell down stubbed my toe,
called for the doctor Cotton-Eyed.
Or you can switch
to Benson—tap your toe and step,

tap your other toe. Corn-stalk fiddle. shoe-string bow.
Then back to the old Soldier’s
March. Up in the
Appalachian mountains of West

Virginia and Kentucky, people had to
walk over some fairly steep
hills. In the Fall
they’d be covered knee-high in dry

leaves, so the folks learned the Leaf-Sweep step—foot out to
the side and back, other foot
out to the side
and back, pushing those leaves out of

the way, so we won’t slide down and break our crown.
Three little rabbits all in
a row, who’s got
my shotgun? Cotton-Eye Joe. And

it was a hard life, but they had to get to the
other side of the mountain.
There are other
steps—the Chug, where you step and hop

on one foot or the other, or hop on both;
and the Zig-Zag, where you slant
both feet one way
and point your butt the other, slant

both feet the other way and point your butt. Fiddler
got drunk and fell on the floor.
But there’s always
the Soldier’s March to come back to

Mitchell-Soldier’s, Benson-Soldier’s. Put your little
foot. Chug. Glow, little glow worm,
glow, glow, glow. I
love my darling, Cotton-Eyed Joe.