Sansha Men's T-Bojango Tap Shoe, Black, 14 Review

The shoe is stunning. But, bigger than anticipated.

This is a reasonably good-quality tap shoe. It features flexible leather uppers and a leather sole with the usual taps and a rubber-like laminate on the ball of the foot for traction. The thickness of the leather is medium--not as thin as jazz tap shoes (which don't offer much support) and not as thick as the average leather street shoe (which is a bit stiff for dancing). The shoe opening has a rather hard edge along the top seam in contrast to the Block Samuel Smith shoe, which is softer and rounder. Unless one is dancing for hours at a time, however, this is usually not a problem.The shoe appears to be a discontinued model. I could not find it on the Sansha website. At the time I purchased the shoe from Amazon, only a few Men's sizes were left: 10, 14, and 17.As noted by other reviewers, sizing is a bit tricky. My shoe size is between 8.5 and 9, and I own shoes in both sizes. I ordered a size 14, and it corresponded exactly to a size 9 M in USA men's shoe sizes. Having said that, the toe of the shoe has a rounded point near the middle of the toe box. Depending on the shape of the foot, someone who wears a 9 may not be able to wear the shoe without compressing the toes. The toe box was not an issue for me because my foot is slightly shorter than a true 9.I did ratio calculations based on my shoe size and that of another reviewer. Sansha size 10 is about USA men's 6.5, Sansha size 14 is USA men's 9, and Sansha size 17 is USA men's 11. Again, if your toes don't match the profile of the toe box, go down a half size for each of the USA men's sizes.Unlike one of the woman reviewers, I had no extra room in the shoe for an insert. Women's feet are usually more narrow than men's feet, and they might be able to use an insert with these tap shoes. The width of the shoe is very close to a true medium. If you have wide feet, these shoes will probably not work for you.One of the reviewers complained that one of the metal taps came off. Higher-quality tap shoes avoid this by fixing metal grommets into the sole for the screws. I doubt whether these shoes have that feature. If the taps come off, I would recommend finding a good cobbler for ideas on how to fix the problem.Overall, the Sansha men's tap shoe is a good shoe at a great price.

I had the soles reworked by the local cobbler. I love these shoes but the taps stood super proud out of the box.

Why don't they have a table with foot length and width, so that we can figure out which size shoe we should order ?Why do I have to think of how they should sell their shoes, so that we get the right size?Why, if they are selling them in the United States of America, don't they have the identical sizes that all American shoes have ?Bottom line is: I wear size 10.5 American... I ordered size 13 Sansha, and they are TWO INCHES shorter than my street shoes !There is no way I can perhaps stretch them so that they fit, these will go into the garbage because I can't return them. It cost me almost as much as the shoe ($75) to get them shipped to where I live so I can't send them back.But this is entirely Sansha's fault. It doesn't make sense that they don't have a shoe chart so that we can simply measure our foot, in inches or centimeters, and get the size shoe that we should get.One star, and I am very sad that I don't have a pair of tap dance shoes. Maybe I will buy a pair of shoes that fit me, and get the metal plates screwed on to the pair of shoe. But in that case, why don't they just sell the metal plates, and we fix them on to the shoe of our choice ?

Great shoes, fit just right! So far holding up well to classes for this older adult!

I've been taking tap lessons for 21 years (and I look like I started last Thursday). Over the course of those 21 years I've gone through about 3 or 4 pairs of tap shoes. In EVERY case my struggle has been to find a pair of shoes that fit properly. I have usually purchased shoes by Capezio but it seems like even if I get shoes that are several sizes larger than my U.S. shoe size, they are still too small and cramp my feet, although in every other way they were just fine. I finally decided to try these Sansha shoes and right away as I was ordering I couldn't help but notice that they had plenty of incremental sizes in the smaller size shoes that the younger males would wear, but the sizes took big leaps once you got into the sizes that a full grown 200 pound man might wear.Based on the charts that were posted with the shoes it looked like the size closest to my shoe size would be a bit too big, and that is the case. I wear a size 11 street shoe and I seem to remember, though I could be wrong, that the shoes I bought were the ones closest to what I thought I needed. So they are a little big, but that's not as big a deal as having to try to go on stage in shoes that are way too tight. I can work with these shoes. And these Sansha shoes are very well made, though they feel significantly heavier than the Capezio shoes I'm used to.Final note: my choreographer wears a pair of shoes that look almost identical to the Sansha in both outward appearance and construction and she paid over $150 for her shoes. That makes these Sansha shoes something of a bargain.I would have given these shoes five stars if they had been able to somehow, magically, make me dance like Fred Astaire. Since it turns out that I still have to do the dancing myself without any magical help, I decided that four stars were right.

I'm an intermediate tap dancer and so far these are my favorite shoes. Can't wait until they are more broken in. I'm a size 7.5 women's street shoe and I got the Sansha size 10 which is a little large but will work well with an insole.

As the heading indicates, I am a beginner not a professional. I have always bought the best tools available for any job or project I contemplate doing. I have purchased Capezio shoes, where you have to install your own taps and although they are good shoes, these work much better for me.