Protocol at the Hoofers Club was a word of mouth set of rules, apart from the rules enforced by the proprietor Lonnie Hicks. You were not allowed to take some one else's steps and perform them for money. You had to dance if you wanted to enter the room. This rule was not always observed, as most visitors to the room were aspiring young dancers who were not as confident with their dance ability to dare to dance in front of some of Harlem's best.

Stealing steps was a big issue at the time as work was hard to get and if some one was stealing others peoples dancing steps and making money out of them it was as if he was steeling money from him too. The only time someone copied a step was in a non paying environment, people still stole steps but they put there own variation on the step so that is was not quite the same.

When any of the big name dancers would enter the room there was always younger dancers there who would offer to do things for the dancers in order to gain their favour. You could often see them running around bringing beer or running errands for them. Some of these younger dancers would then ask for an opinion on their dancing and were some times shown how to improve a step and if they were really lucky, they were shown a completely new step.

Out of these younger dancers came some of the big names that later evolved Tap to other higher levels of excellence. Adapting and in some cases pioneering new rhythms which caught the close attention of jazz musicians at the time. It is believed that these new sounds jazz musicians heard from the Tap dancers were later developed into many high forms of jazz namely Be Bop which caTapulted many of the great jazz musicians to fame. Although no real credit has been given to Tap dancers, it is widely believed that they influenced the drummers who in turn influenced the other musicians they backed.

The Hoofers Club protocol was more of a dancers protocol, made by dancers to protect dancers. The rule that every one must dance if they entered the room was possibly a rule made to deter would be dancers who had nothing to offer and every thing to gain from being there. Whether a dancer was ejected from the room for not dancing or not being good enough is not known, but the thought of it certainly makes you think twice about gong there.