Mini Update

Old Dominion Feis: My school's feis is in less than a week, and I'm very excited!

• I will be dancing in all sorts of fun competitions including: old ladies open champs, 3-hand, 4-hand, and 8-hand competitions.  This will be my first local feis where I do some ceilis!
• When I'm not dancing, I'm running all social media outlets.  For champ results and more on the day, be sure to follow @OldDominionFeis on twitter, and like the Old Dominion Feis 2013 page on Facebook.  I hope all my years of blogging don't let me down!
• This feis also marks the start of my 6th year of feising!

Solo dress for sale!

• My red plaid solo dress. $450 with free US shipping.
• Dress was made in 2011 by Jennifer Blackerby.  It has been worn for a grand total of two competitions.  The dress is covered in hundreds of rhinestones I hand-glued on. There is plenty of let out room as it was altered from a 35” bust.  It fits comfortably on me now; not too tight, not too loose.  The dress also come with two headbands, but no bloomers…sorry.
• Dress measurements: 34” bust; 27.5” natural waist; 32” dropped waist; 15” across back shoulders; 31” total length.  It was altered down from a larger size, so there is let out room!
• Optional: I have size 5 (27” waist) pants that match the dress’ plaid perfectly.  I’ll throw them in for an extra $25.
• Drop me an email (RinceGoBraghBlog@gmail.com) for more info.

Nationals: Is quickly approaching in less than a month

• I'm looking into renting a nearby dance studio for an hour at a time when the school years is over so I have a nice place to practice with mirrors and a sprung floor.  Between my own practicing and scheduled dance classes, I'm hoping to dance five days a week.  While I know two to three weeks isn't much time to fix long-term issues, I'm hoping to hit stamina hard.
• I'm busy brainstorming my outfits for the handful of days I'm there.  In a perfect world, there is free wi-fi at the Hilton so I can quickly blog about my outfits each day.

I'm overwhelmed with the amount of positive response I've received on my new solo dress.  I still can't express how awesome it makes me feel when I dance, and having other dancers compliment my design idea is truly icing on the top.

The end of the school year is fast approaching, and with it, my wonderful summer break!  I can't believe how fast my first year of teaching went.  Here's to many more fun years!

Goals: Drill reels.
Days till NANs: 25

Irish Dance in the Public School

A major part Virginia fourth grade curriculum is studying the history of my lovely state, from Jamestown to the geography.  The culmination of their studies is usually (depending on the school) a 'colonial fair.'  For these colonial fairs, the students learn a dance (or more!) in music class or PE, the most popular dance being the Virginia Reel.  Upon my arrival at the school, I noticed just how similar this was to a certain ceili I've learned in my Irish dance days...



I knew that jumping in to being a long-term music substitute was going to be awesome if my fourth graders were doing ceilis every day.  And it didn't stop with the Virginia Reel/Haymaker's Jig.  The students were responsible for knowing six other line and square dances.  Armed with my New England Dancing Masters books (Ar Rinci Foirne for elementary music teachers), I learned and taught the other dances.  I was quick to see that square dances are like 8-hands.  They even had some of the same moves with different names!

Lead around  -----> Promenade
Chain            -----> Grand right and left

Once the students knew their square danced, and to encourage them to be serious about their own dancing, I told them I was an Irish dancer and showed them two Youtube videos: one of Haymaker's Jig and one of the Three Tunes.  The students were all impressed with how precise their handwork and lines were, and how well they danced without 'calls' with the music.  Of course, after introducing myself as an Irish dancer, brought on quite a few questions, so I decided to dedicate a day in the last few weeks of talk about solo Irish dancing, costuming, and yes, teach a jig.

Teaching a simple light jig step is attainable for fourth and fifth grade classes.  Most students were just happy to be jumping around and didn't care if they were doing it right or wrong.  A lot of the girls enjoyed it and told me how they practice at recess.  I was also surprised with the natural ability of some of the boys!  They're at an age where most think dancing is "for girls only," but if they knew how many competitions they would win as a naturally talented boy, I bet they would think again.

To culminate this activity, we watched my Lord of the Dance DVD. (skipping the "boring" singing and fiddle parts.  Also Breakout.)  Watching that DVD inspired my dancing career, so who knows, there may be some new Irish dancing students!

Goals: Re-figure SJ lead so there are no jumps off of bad foot
Days till Os: 170