St. Patrick's Month, Part 1

Weekends in March are famously accounted for as an Irish dancer. We are needed everywhere for every type of Irish celebration you can think of. With green hair to match the spirit of the season, I set out for three weekends of dancing this month with varying degrees of enjoyment.

March 8th held one performance: a parade fundraiser at a nearby pub. I was put in charge of this performance and had to:

1. Run the practice beforehand (with dancers showing up late)
2. Choose the dancers for numbers (without knowing everyone's skill levels), and
3. Choose the numbers and order of performance.

Pair all of that with having no one step up to talk between numbers, which meant that the organizer of the event continually asking if we were done every time there was a pause to change shoes and younger dancers upset for a reason I didn't know, and you get my least favorite performance of the season. I can run the practice and dance, or run the practice and talk, but running the practice, talking, and performing is not a combination that I am capable of.

March 14th included two evening performances across Maryland. The first was at a St. Patrick's Day dinner, and featured an extra dodgy dancing surface. Now, It's pretty well known that as Irish dancers, we're going to be dancing on some not so prime surfaces in March, but this one takes the cake for me. Tile. Large square foot long tiles. Luckily, we were told this beforehand, so we skipped out on most of our hard shoe show numbers, and only used hard shoes for our finale. It was still slippery though. (Side note: how is it that we must dance on bad surfaces a month before worlds?) They did feed us hot dogs after performing, so all was well.

AOH Bowie St. Patrick's Day dinner. Not pictured: dodgy tile surface.

Afterward, the same crew drove on over to a barn hosting a fundraiser and St. Patrick's Day party. We go to dance hard shoe numbers here! I also got to cap of my night with a complimentary glass of wine, so it was a great night.

Champ dancers at a St. Patrick's Day fundraiser, Arnold, MD.

March 15th was parade day! It was a very windy day! You can see just how hard the wind was blowing in the pictures below because the bangs on my pixie cut was going crazy! It was also a little cold, but things certainly warmed up as we danced down Constitution Ave! Even with the wind cutting through my jacket, I was nearly sweating by the time we reached the grandstand. I learned this year (my first ever dance-down-the-parade-route year) that I need to put different shoe laces in my shoe because they came untied not once, but twice, even though I double knotted them before the parade started. Ah, well.

After the parade, a group of older champ dancers headed over to Fado's Irish pub where we danced between a band's sets. Two other dancers and I almost didn't make it, though! The vehicle we were travelling in got a flat tire as we left the parking spot. Luckily, we had some tire changing pros on hand to save the day, and we made it to the pub in time. I finished off the weekend with a large helping of shepherd's pie, Strongbow, and great time with friends.

Coming up next week, part 2: Shamrockfest!

Goals: Drill all hornpipes together
Days till NANs: 100

Mini Update: St Pat's Edition

Hello Irish dance fans!  March Madness has come and finally gone in a blur of wigs and shiny objects.  I sat out for much of the St. Pat's activities, as I was at that fine line of kind-of-still-injured-but-can-dance-a-little, but I still was able to contribute in my way between physical therapy appointments and work obligations.

I attended the D.C. St. Patrick's Day parade to help organize the little ones as they did their jigs and reels down Constitution Avenue. It was a very cold day, and I was almost sad to not be dancing since it would have helped keep me warm!

Can you spot me in the back?

I also was able to dance at the festival spectacle that was Shamrockfest at RFK stadium.  I was very thankful for the beautiful weather we had that day.  There have been years past that it was cold, or it rained and made the stages completely un-danceable.

This is a lovely picture of my backside.

Of course, I also celebrated in my classroom by teaching my students a few different ceilis from the book. (We walked them!) We culminated our activities by watching Lord of the Dance, a surprising favorite for some of the fourth and fifth graders.  Maybe I am inspiring new Irish dancers!

Goals: build up stamina
Days till Os: 227

March Madness

Here is a list of where I will be "performing" in the next month:

9: Elks Lodge: Riverdale, MD
        Done!  Ran music!  Success!

10: Four Courts Four Miler; Arlington, VA
        Done!  The dancers did very well despite being chilly, and breaking the small platform stages!

11: DC St. Pat's parade & Fado's Pub performance
        Due to no float this year, I will sit this one out, and instead be at Fado's all day!

15: AOH; Bowie, MD

17: TBA -- There are a lot of options here, will post later when I know where I'm needed

24: Shamrockfest; RFK Stadium
        This is a possibility depending on my foot and how much I want to stand.

Enjoy the March Madness, Irish dancers!

Goals: Heal up!

Mini Update

Things I was doing before I was injured:

• The week after the Oireachtas I learned all my new steps for the year.  Senior ladies are dancing slip jig and treble jig, so I have both those dances, as well as my new set for the year, Kilkenny Races.
• As I was learning my new set, I thought it would be completely impossible because there are a lot of new rhythmic things I either had not done till that point, or needed some work.  After about a month, I had the whole thing finally learned and could perform without stopping to think.  There were still parts that needed lots of work (like the left foot of the step), but I could get all the way through!
• I was in generally getting geared up for nationals in continuing to work on turn out and my overall dancing.

I went to the doctor this past Tuesday.  My ankle is beginning to heal up, and I can begin to walk with crutches and test out walking with only my boot.  I go in again this Tuesday coming up hopefully to get rid of the crutches and to get my orders to start physical therapy

St. Patrick's month is upon us already.  Although I won't be dancing, I do plan on attending what I can to support my fellow dancers and dance school.  I will post my full schedule at a later date, but look for me in the D.C. St. Pat's parade!

Since I can't dance quite yet, I'm taking the Mad Abs March challenge!  This is mostly a personal thing, since the February one failed around the time I hurt myself and couldn't catch up with what I missed.  Feel free to print it out and complete it yourself!

I attended my first pub session this past Monday night at Ireland's Four Provinces in Falls Church, VA.  While I did not dance, I did sing one song (I only really know one Irish sing well enough to perform).  I will learn more so I can contribute more!  I mostly enjoyed listening to what the others were doing.

I have started an Irish dance tumblr.  Mostly because there are so many fantastic Irish dance photos out there to share, and I want something more photo-friendly than this wordy blog!

Check out this article by Christy Dorrity for Feis America's online site at Irish Central.

Also, you may see a familiar face in an upcoming issue of IDM!

Goals: keep healing!

St. Patrick's week adventures, part 2

Today was overall slightly less adventurous, which probably stemmed from the lack of freely flowing alcohol. However, this did not dampen my excitement and general good spirits once I woke up and started moving. But before I get into my day, who's brilliant plan was it to have Shamrockfest the night before we lose an hour due to daylight savings? I needed more sleep last night than what I got...

After a hectic morning of waking up late (ahem)... I did end up making to the Metro at exactly the time I had planned, fully wigged and dance dress and other attire in tow. This is not the first time I have Metroed into DC looking like this. I'm not going to go so far to say it's a regular occurrence, but it certainly seems to be an annual one. One of the more exciting parts of my day happened to be the Metro ride this morning. Aside from the general odd looks, I had one group of guys "slyly" take a picture of me. I say slyly because I was on to their shenanigans, andcheesed it up. I also had a family of 16 from Hawaii end up talking to me and taking a group photo with me after we got off the Metro. I have apparently reached minor celebrity status.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent between decorating the car for the parade, freezing my butt off, and generally getting ready to be in the parade. Despite the cold and breezy morning, the weather warmed up nicely during our time in the parade. We got to see a great deal of it as they passed by our float on the way to the main parade route, which was nice. As for our time in the parade, it was essentially a free for all for us dancers on the float, just calling who was going to next and with whom. By far the most interesting part was performing for the grandstand on the float, which was bouncing up and down and generally unstable feeling.

We concluded the day with a little performance at Fados. Little here is not metaphorical. The pub was literally packed from a mixture of Caps fans who came after the game, and parade watchers who walked down afterwards. Needless to say, us 11 dancers didn't have much space, so I guess it's good to say we're Irish dancers and not doing crazy things with our arms.

One of the more brilliant things I did today was to bring my new jig shoes and wear them all day long, which means now they are almost broken in! The completely not brilliant part of today was my lack of sunscreen, and while my dress and tights covered most of my body, my face was exposed to the sun all morning and afternoon, which has left me with a sunburn of epic proportions. My face is still getting redder and redder as it all settles in...

And I'm going to conclude by including a nice little shout out here to the GMU basketball team, who will be playing the second round of the NCAA tournament on Friday against Villanova. Go Mason!

Goals: turnout, finish breaking in shoes

Days till worlds: 39