It's not for the meek. It's not for the shy and, oh, no, not for the faint of heart.

It's loud, saucy and stomping - and it's called Stepping.

The fifth annual Divine 9 Step Show took over the stage at the Lasells Stewart Center at Oregon State University Saturday afternoon. Eight of the nine national African-American fraternities and sororities had teams competing with routines that took hundreds of hours of practice.

Stepping has a long history, first in African culture then in African-American culture.

"Stepping as it is now goes back to the 1920s," said Jarvez Hall, who started the Divine 9 Step Show in 2002. "But it really goes all the way back to African warriors."

Hall is an OSU graduate with a Bachelor of Science in business administration, and he also has an MBA from Willamette University. He belongs to Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

Keith Dempsey, who is Hall's fraternity brother, said he got into Stepping in 1989.

"We were the only black fraternity at OSU," he said. "We created our own show."

Dempsey is a Ph.D. candidate in counseling at OSU and now lives in Portland. He came down to Corvallis to be a judge for the show.

"Stepping is really big in the South and even in California," Hall said. "I thought we could have something at OSU to create that atmosphere."

And when he says atmosphere, Hall means chanting, clapping, calling and a ton of laughter.

Each routine has a theme and combines footwork, clapping and attitude. The teams were judged on such categories as content, clarity, precision and degree of difficulty. The routines should come with a warning: Not For Amateurs. Do Not Try This At Home.

Each year the audience has grown for the Divine 9 Step Show. Lasells Stewart was packed this year, so here's a tip for 2008: Get there early.