I'm terrible

I knew this would happen. I was so eager at the start - I knew it would tail off. I haven't done a thing since my last post! Well, not strictly true. Here's a short list of things I've done in handy bulleted format:

• Read through High Cauled Cap, watched the video a few times, sorted it all out in my head (last weekend)
• Quizzed myself on music and I can now separate most tunes into 6/8, 2/4 or 4/4 (last weekend)
• Quizzed myself on the 8 ceilis I know so far giving 1 mark for each of; correct movements in right order, right # of bars, jig/reel identified correctly, any other music notes, type of dance (round, long etc) identified correctly, and formation drawn correctly. I got 37/39
• Ordered the ceili music and set dance CDs

Must try harder. WILL try harder.

Rince Fada

Easy easy easy easy easy.



The Rising Step - Right Wheel - The Rising Step - Left Wheel - Advance Down Centre - Dance Around.

Love it for its easiness.

Earlier at work (after my 2-3 mile walk) I tested myself on set dances (just their names, sorted into jig, 2/4 hornpipe and 4/4 hornpipe categories). Out of 38 I managed to think of 29 tunes, and of that 29 I got 25 in the right categories. Not awesome but a start. And last night, I went to circuits which was pretty awesome. Admittedly I didn't put in as much effort as I could have done, but you don't want to push yourself too hard the first time.

Plan for the weekend - well, none really. Revision I guess? I know eight dances by movements now, perhaps I should pause on learning new ones and just be able to write them out properly before I move on.

Harvest-Time Jig

First, an update on last night. I had planned to learn a ceili before dance but as it happened, I got caught up in revision. I started out by writing out the movements for each dance (going to have to start putting the bars each time now), and then started scouring through the past papers for questions pertaining to the 6 I already knew. I reckon I got 95%! And I was harsh marking myself. At class, I think I've sown the traditional set seed with one of the teachers. Hopefully we'll be taught them soon because I don't think I can do it on my own with Olive.

But tonight! I'm going to put the clip in first 'cause it's so cute! Ignore the caller though, she's not using the correct movement names:



So, the Harvest-Time Jig. I really don't think I need to note down what time it's in, right? Dancers line up in threes, facing, with a gent between two ladies. A thorn between two roses, is that the saying?

Advance and retire - Sides - Right hands across - Sides - Left hands across - Step and turn - Advance, retire and pass through.

Dead easy! Points to remember - sides go to the right first, then left. And it's a jig, so it's the rise and grind not two short threes.

Coolio! That's number 7! My eagerness is telling me to learn another one tonight - my sensible self is telling me to revise the ones I already know, writing them out with bars this time. I'm going totally against the grain and I'm going to be sensible.

Possibly circuits tomorrow night for fitness - so no dancing, but some revision.

An Rince Mor

No idea what it means, but I like this dance a lot. Reel time, round dance, as many couples as you like.

Ring to left and right - swing with ladies on left - swing with partners - link arms - lead round.

Pretty simple apart from the link arms bit - it's a chain of four links, the first three are link arms and the final one is take hands and turn. Should be easy enough to remember. And it's the first dance I've done that finishes with a lead round.

Ceilis in the sunshine

The sun is shining - it's absolutely glorious today - so I really didn't fancy exerting myself by learning the rest of the Blackbird. So I've done two ceili dances instead!

The Bridge of Athlone
Jig - any number of couples. Gent in one line, ladies in another, couples facing.

Rising step, advance and retire - down the centre - cast off - the bridge

I kinda like this one - I think it would be fairly easy to teach as well. But I can only find really amateur videos of it on YouTube, so I'll have to wait til I have the DVDs before I can properly check. Any dance that has a bridge is fine by me!

The Siege of Carrick
Jig - danced to Haste to the Wedding. Same formation as Walls, sets of two couples facing one another with lady on the gent's right.

Ring - right and left wheels - down centre and turn - up centre and swing

Down/up centre is a little tricky and when I watched the video, it didn't look at all how I'd imagined when I was reading the book. But it's a lovely dance, apart from the hooking arms which is just a bit Cotton Eyed Joe for my liking. There's clapping though, which I like. Will need to watch this one a few times more:

Review

A good friend sent me written instructions for the Blackbird. I feel a bit better about it now. It was clearly just a poor frame of mind on my part. Here's a ceili review:

Walls of Limerick
Advance and retire - half right and left - dance with opposite - dance around

Rakes of Mallow
Advance and retire - swing with opposite lady - swing with lady on right - link arms in centre - swing around

Siege of Ennis
Advance and retire - sides - hands across - advance, retire and pass through

Walls and Rakes both reels, Siege is a jig. Walls is for any even number of couples, Rakes is for any even number of trios (one gent and two ladies), and Siege is for any even number of couples. Rakes is danced to a tune of the same name.

Learning another ceili tomorrow night, finishing Blackbird on Saturday, learning another ceili at some point over the weekend.

I'm also going to start writing out the ones I know, it's about time. Revising music I will have to leave until a) my laptop is working and b) I have the correct CLRG set dance CD. Must buy Olive ceili music CD as well.

That is all.

Blackbird Part 2

This is me, hating on the Blackbird. She doesn't go slow enough and then what the dancers do doesn't look like what she did in all parts. Here's what I've got.

Hop down treble + back hop rock 23 hop rock 23 jump 23 jump 23 jump 23 + treble + back
Hop change change rock rock brush treble + back + treble + back
Tip onto your heel 12 12 tip onto your heel stamp toe heel.

I cannot get the last bit. She doesn't even bother explaining the end treble combination, it's shocking. I *think* it's: .

Change 2345 change point back rock 23. Then a load of trebles.

I actually need somebody to show me, in person, how to do this. I'm really worried now. She took St Patrick's Day really slowly, and although it took me ages I did get it. I was overly frustrated at myself during the Blackbird step but eventually got it because it's so repetitive, not because it was explained well. If I was now in the frame of mind to concentrate and try, I could get the thing that I think that I got. But anything after that is not going to happen tonight. I probably don't need someone to show it to me, I probably just need to NOT try and learn a dance after a driving lesson and not be such a baby.

Up yours, Blackbird.

Blackbird Part 1

This is just to say, it is floofing torturing me. I feel like a whale in pyjama bottoms, hopping on the spot.

Brush + brush tre-ble 12 12 + brush tre-ble 12 12 + brush tre-ble 12 12 + brush treble 12 12
Brush + treble + back + treble + back 12 jump 23 + brush tre-ble in front tre-ble behind.

THEN WHAT?!

OH MY GOD Olive, why can't you s-l-o-w i-t d-o-w-n! "That's easy enough!", she gloats. Yeah, if you've known it your whole life it is. I hope I never teach like this.

That is all. I have an hour left before the boys come home. I will have the set by then. OMG.

Siege of Ennis

Last night I decided which ceili dances I'm going to tackle next. I used the remarkably unscientific method of reading through the entire book, noting down which ones looked short (in terms of number of movements) and easy (in that I kind of understood most of them already), and wrote myself a little list. Then I put them in order from shortest to longest. Here it is:

The Walls of Limerick - 4 parts - done
The Rakes of Mallow - 5 - done
Siege of Ennis - 4
The Bridge of Athlone - 4
The Siege of Carrick - 4
An Rince Mor - 5
Haymaker's Jig - 5
Rince Fada - 6 (or 4 depending on how you're counting)
Glencar Reel - 7
Harvest-time Jig - 7
Haste to the Wedding - 8 (or 5)
Antrim Reel - 8 (or 7)
The Fairy Reel - 8
Bonfire Dance 9 (or 7)

Hence it's the Siege of Ennis tonight.

I actually remember doing this one many years ago, for a school play during 'Irish Week' called "Larry and Kathleen's Wedding". I had a line, too! My very own line; "Come on lads, play the Siege of Ennis!" To this day I can't say 'Ennis' in an Irish accent. Got a laugh from the crowd, did that.

Siege of Ennis is my first jig-time ceili, so it's got the amusingly-named Rise and Grind (hop, hop back, hop back 234). Obviously I've been dancing this move in light jigs my entire life but didn't know it had a name.

"Dancers line up in fours, two couples in each line; each set of two couples stands facing another set of two couples, each gentleman on his partner's left."



Advance and retire, sides, hands across, advance retire and pass through. Dead easy. What I don't get, is how to decide which couples make the arches. It says "each set of four facing the music raise hands". Facing the music, wtf? There won't BE any music. I'm probably just going to get the left hand lines (as you look at them) make the arches, same as in the video.

Other plans for the evening - practice St Patrick's Day, do some exercise. I'm not going to pass the dancing part with my current level of fitness. Tomorrow, review the ceilis I know so far, practice St Patrick's Day, and learn the Blackbird. I'm under the impression that one's harder, so maybe only the step. I'll see how I go.

Advance and retire, sides, hands across, advance retire and pass through.

The Rakes of Mallow

I like this one.

It's one of the ceilis danced to a tune of the same name, which is annoying, as that's now a tune I've got to learn and lilt, more's the pity. I can't do karaoke, what makes them think I'm going to be comfortable lilting?! Or be nice to listen to?!

Anyway, five movements of eight bars each. Danced by any even number of trios - but the trios have to be one gent with two ladies on his right. As in:
OOX
XOO

Advance and retire, swing with opposite lady, swing with lady on right, link arms in centre, swing out.

It's the little linky bits that are going to drive me nuts when teaching. Olive has the ladies dancing in to form the circle on the last two bars of link arms in centre, but that's not in the book. Just one of those little flourishes that people add I guess - it looks neat, though.

Enough philosophising. Here it is, Olive style:



The tune's bouncy, I like.

My progress so far

To date, my entire life, I've danced very few ceilis. Here they are;
- The 4-hand reel (only the body, and when I was about twelve)
- The Siege of Ennis (but not convinced we did it book-perfect)
- The High-Cauled Cap (only the body and first figure, but I know it very well)
- Trip to the Cottage (and I always mess up the basket thing whether I'm a lady or a gent. See, I don't even know the terminology!)
- Another 8-hand which for the life of me I can't remember

So, not much to build on eh?

Now that I'm the proud owner of the blue book, I can add Walls of Limerick to that list. Never danced it before but thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I know it. And I know the names of the movements, too! Advance and retire, half right and left, dance with opposite, dance around. A tiny milestone, one that any seasoned ceili dancer would scoff at (it is, undoubtedly, the easiest dance ever), but I've got to take encouragement from somewhere. Here it is:



My knowledge of traditional sets was limited - I remember joining in with the babies when my teacher was trying to get them through St Patrick's Day, but I only joined in because I was injured and helpfully, this was about five years ago.

So on Saturday just gone I rearranged some furniture, opened the patio doors, tied up my hair, and settled down with Olive and the gang for an hour. I now know St Patrick's Day! Okay, I haven't done it in shoes yet (kind of don't have any...) but at least it's in there *points to head* and so's the tune. Not to shabby for an hour's work - considering that I'm disgustingly unfit and had to take several sit-down breaks.

That's where I was until today.

Today, I've found a list of all the set dances along with their timing, and the number of bars in the step/set. I didn't know some of them were so short! Pencilling those in for the exam. I've also got an unexplainable desire to put Is the Big Man Within? on my list - it's a dead-cert they'd ask me to dance it, surely?

Also today I found out that the Rakes of Mallow is a similarly piss-easy ceili, so that's on my list for this evening. Right now in fact, once I've posted this.

Finally, my solo dancing and teaching. I have a champ-ish level reel, slip jig and heavy jig. I've got a standard-level light jig and hop jig but these are my own teacher's choreography so I might create my own for the exam using theirs as a base. I have absolutely no set dances anymore - I can remember bits and pieces of my last competition set dance - and no hornpipe. For those of you that don't know, I need 9 complete set dances (with no repetition of steps between them), 4 in jig time, 4 in hornpipe, and a floater which can be either (helloooo, Big Man!) Oh dear.

Rakes-of-Mallow-O'Clock.

Why I'm doing this...

Why am I doing the exam, or why am I doing the blog? One wouldn't exist without the other, so I'll tackle my reasons for doing the exam first.

I never achieved anything in my competitive dancing career. I was capable. Reasonable. I was a World Qualifier. But I wasn't a name that people would know, or a face that people would recognise. Always close to the bottom of the pile. Partly because I'm not a person cut out for competition, but mainly because I just never worked hard enough at it. I had a bag full of excuses ready to go - I'm injured, I can't practice at home, I can't afford an extra class each week.

So, taking the TCRG is my way of achieving something in dance. If I couldn't do well competitively, at least I can pass the exam.

I also think that a lot of what's covered in the exam are things I feel I should know. I should know the traditional sets - but I started after age 10, so I never needed them. I should know the ceilis, but my school was always too small to put a team together. Of course, that means I have a mountain steeper than most to climb, because most dancers already know their sets and a fair few ceilis before they even think about the exam. An observation, not another excuse.

So that's why I'm doing the exam. This? Because I like keeping diaries. I want to look back and think "shit, in April 2010 I knew one ceili and one traditional set. Now I know all the sets and half the ceilis!" Self-encouragement, you know.

I actually started my foray into Ar Rinci Foirne and Olive Hurley DVDs sometime last week, so my next entry will be a little backtrack into what I know so far.