But both early and modern step dancers, who may even add bits of hip hop and street dancing, agree that clogging is a heart-pounding, high energy, bone-rattling experience. Few people would expect to see a 61-year-old man with an artificial knee and the other soon to be replaced, who also has had six foot surgeries and a prescription to lower high blood pressure, clogging away on Saturday nights.

“Clogging challenges everyone. It’s very physically and mentally demanding, especially if you take it up later in life and don’t have any formal dance history,” says Everett Fridenmaker of Columbus. “You have to learn the different steps and then remember a particular dance. At first I didn’t think I could do it. But once I get into something, I really get into it. It gave me a focus.”

Fridenmaker is a member of the Yellow Rose Cloggers of Ohio, a dance team under the direction of accomplished clogger Adam King. Recently the dance studio in Reynoldsburg where the team practiced burned to the ground and members crowded into King’s home dance studio in his basement to practice.

But the setback didn’t bother Fridenmaker, the group’s oldest dancer. After all, this is the guy who a week after one of his surgeries, was back “dancing his heart out with a heartbeat monitor strapped to his wrist so he didn’t overexert himself,” according to King. Last spring, Fridenmaker and the dance team also presented a clogging workshop at the King’s Island Resort and Conference Center in Cincinnati.

“If you really enjoy something, you want others to share it with you,” said Fridenmaker, a retired cartographer for the State of Ohio.  “I found out clogging is a lot more popular than I thought it was. People are always saying that they wanted to try it, but can’t now because of this and that. So I tell them my story. Of the 20 new people who have started clogging in our group recently, I probably have something to do with recruiting three fourths of them.”

Fridenmaker is also an artist, floral designer, member of his church choir and a five-decade member of the Vaud-Villities, a semi-professional group that performs a combination of Broadway show tunes and Vaudville favorites. But clogging, which he has been doing for more than a year and a half, is special to him.

“You have to keep moving, even if it’s just walking,” emphasizes Fridenmaker. “My wife has a degenerate problem that we first knew about 15 years ago. Most people would have been in a wheelchair by now. Sandy uses a walker. Walking won’t make her condition any better, but it seems to slow it down. And I had friends and family tell I’m a crazy to do clogging. But I actually feel better. I clog two or there hours every Saturday night and it is so much fun.”

Fridenmaker has introduced his 11-year-old granddaughter, Katie, to clogging and he’s amazed at how well and how quickly she has mastered the steps.

“A lot of moves are similar to tap dancing and Katie has had both tap ballet and lessons,” says Fridenmaker. “It was fascinating for me to see how she connected everything. She’s a real performer. Maybe she gets it from me.”

Rock. Drag. Click. Just try to keep up with Fridenmaker.