2013 Goals and Aspirations

It's amazing how far I have come in the world of Irish dance.  When I started in 2007 as an adult beginner, my only goal was to simply learn anything and everything about this amazing dance form I have admired for so many years.  A year later, my goals shifted to the realm of competitive dance; something I swore to myself I'd never do after spending nearly a decade as a competitive gymnast.  Little by little, I upped the ante for myself from getting to novice, to preparing for prizewinner, to competing at my first Oireachtas and moving to the champ levels.  Now that I'm at the top level of dance, it's weird to me that my goals have hardly changed at all.

Granted, I did spend 75% of last year injured or recovering from an injury.

For 2013, my goals include to:

1. Continue to improve my turnout and cross technique in my dancing,
2. Begin to place more consistently in my competitions at feiseanna,
3. Recall at nationals, and ultimately
4. Qualify for the world championships as a soloist.

I aspire to be the best team member I can be by coming to practice with a pleasant and helpful attitude.  I aspire for good health and stamina.

In other news for this year...

• Feiseanna and majors I will be present at:
• World Championships (March)
• CCE Feis (May)
• Old Dominion Feis (June)
• North American Nationals (July)
• Rhythm of Ireland Feis (October)
• Feis Culkin (November)
• Southern Region Oireachtas (December)
• New dress, new dress by Elevation Designs!
• If you're wondering where the Shut the Feis Up posts disappeared to, the author (my boyfriend) has enlisted in the Army.  He is currently at basic training in Georgia, so he is unable to continue to write blog posts.

Goals: Work through new hornpipes and reels

Days till NANs: 179

The 2012 breakdown

Happy new year to all! After a month's hiatus from both dance and blogging, I'm ready to get back into it! I have big plans for this year, including finding a real job now that I'm a college graduate, and also a few new things for the blog!

Goals for the year:

Most people are coming up with new dance goals for the year, however, mine stay the same this time! Those goals are...

1. Improve turnout
2. Place at least once in opens
3. Place higher at nationals (60th in 2010)
4. Qualify for worlds

I ended 2011 with only accomplishing two of my goals: improving turn out and placing once in opens. I would like to continue to improve my turn out this year, especially in my hard shoe dances. As for placements, I would like to improve from placing last to some where near placing, if not placing. Doing this, I know I need to turn out more and just find that championship sharpness every time I go out to compete. The biggest goal for the year is to qualify for worlds. I have spent the last two years now on the cusp of being a WQ, just one place shy. I was lucky in 2011; there was an adjudicating conflict. Not so much this year. I would like to say I have qualified for worlds at the Oireachtas, and compete in worlds on American soil before I retire.

Feiseanna to attend:

1. Four Provinces or CCE (if held)
2. Old Dominion
3. Nationals
4. Rhythm of Ireland
5. Feis Culkin
6. SRO

Blog happenings:

• My biggest announcement is that this year, I plan to make 12 Irish Dance How-To videos/written tutorials. I will release one each month, and the subjects vary from warming up, to ab workouts, to crafting tutorials! I am really excited to get this under way and you should be too (because. . . )
• . . . Craft tutorials = giveaways!
• Shut the Feis Up (STFU): I will continue to pester my boyfriend to write about Irish dance this year, starting with his reaction of the Oireachtas.
• Of course, I will also continue to keep you updated on what's happening in the dance world from my perspective!

Goals: Nail down the first 8 bars of Kilkenny Races set

Days till NANs: 181

Lets Check In On Some Goals

It's about over halfway through the year, time for a refresher on my goals for the year:

1. Improve turnout
2. Place at least once in opens
3. Place higher at nationals
4. Qualify for worlds

You may notice that I mentioned improving at nationals, yet, you may have figured out that I didn't go to nationals. There is, actually a reason behind this, which I will get to shortly.

Of my goals, the only one that I have achieved is improving my turn out. Thanks to a ballet class I took through my college for fun last semester, I definitely can feel a difference, even if it doesn't look like there is any improvement. My ballet class was an hour and a half, two times a week. It turns out that working that little extra can do wonders. We would spend the first 20-30 minutes at the barre doing various exercises to get ourselves warmed up, and to get our heads and bodies into ballet mode. I found these to be particularly useful because I know know what muscles need to be engaged to achieve and hold turnout. Imagine that! The next step for me will be to apply this knowledge to my dancing. It's one thing to know what to do during slow exercises, and completely another to apply it to something as fast-paced as Irish dance is.

In regards to the other goals... My future in dance is undecided at the moment. After attending the world championships, and putting all the time and work into it that I did, I felt that doing nationals was really not what I needed. After April, dance had become more of a chore than a fun activity. I wasn't doing well in feiseanna, placing near last; I got the new steps I'd need for nationals the week after worlds. All in all, I needed a break. Dance just was not fun anymore. Yes, now I regret not going to nationals a little. At the time, I was just not ready mentally or physically.

As for other feiseanna this year, as well as the Oireachtas, as much as it pains me to say this, I don't know if I will be continuing dance classes this fall. This is my last semester in college, and for my degree, I will be student teaching in public schools all semester. I had to cut down hours at my job so I can teach. I don't know if I will have the time in the day to practice. With my regular source of income being cut, I won't be able to afford classes. Since I will be teaching all day, I don't know if I'll have the energy to attend a two hour dance class once a week, let alone practice outside of class to prepare myself sufficiently to reach my goal of being a world qualifier.

I want to find a way to do this, which I'm told is half the battle. I just don't know if I'll be able to do justice to dance and my goals.

The dilemma right now.

It is so hard to motivate myself to practice.

I know I have all these goals for the year. I know if I want to break in my shoes and better my turnout that I need to work on it every day.

Part of my lack of motivation that I haven't done any physical activity since the Oireachtas. And since classes finished, my usual schedule has been disrupted, so my drive to get stuff done (practicing dance and music) has diminished.

Another part is that I don't know what I should be doing to improve my turnout. I have been told to do a bunch of different drills. I've been told to watch my feet while I dance (and I can totally see that I'm not turning out). I give it my all when I dance and my feet still look straight. So that brings me to: is my body structure just that kind where I am just going to have minimal turnout?

I'm stuck here. Any tips readers?

Goals: Turnout, break in shoes

Days till . . .

New Year, New Goals

Happy new year! Here's to hoping that 2011 is way better than 2010 was. (For me, that won't be too difficult to achieve.) That being said, and after much forethought, here are my dance goals for the year:

1. Improve turnout
2. Place at least once in opens
3. Place higher at nationals
4. Qualify for worlds

Ok, ok, a lot of this has to do with how well I do at competitions, I know. However, pending goal one is actually achieved, that should help with the placing at competitions, local and majors.

2011 preview:

• I will be attending two majors for sure again this year (NANs, and SRO). A third is unsure at the moment, just waiting for some kind of official announcement as to if I can go. The list of adjudicators is out for nationals, and although my teacher put his name in, his name ended up not being chosen, so I will be headed to Nansville Nashville over July 4th weekend to dance there. And, I hope I can attend the SRO this year. I will be student teaching this fall, so I hope I can continue dance classes, even if I'm not as involved with feiseanna this fall. Assuming I can, I'll be going to Orlando for the Oireachtas in December.
• This spring/summer will mark my first feis as an open champ. I plan on attending as many as I can this summer to make up for whatever I won't be able to attend this fall. Here's the feiseanna I plan to do as of now: CCE, Old Dominion, Nat Cap, Delaware, ROI, and Culkin. On the fence as to whether or not to attend: Four Provinces, Feis at the Fair, Peter Smith, Lynn Academy, and Baltimore. I might only choose one or two off this maybe list, depending on money and my schedule...

Goals: Break in hardshoes, work on turnout

Days till . . . still don't know what I'm counting down to. Sigh.