Excitement!

Oh! I just experienced a small but exciting moment of realisation. I know all the eight-hand ceilis!*

The excitement I'm feeling right now is a culmination of the last couple of weeks' work, and is the result of how my emotions towards dancing have done a complete turnaround during the same time. I'm right back where I should be. I love dancing again.

I don't suppose it ever fully went away. It was just disillusionment - more to do with external factors like my illness than the dancing itself. I was kept from dancing, and absence doesn't always make the heart grow fonder. In this case it made me angry at myself for not trying harder to fit dancing in, for how easily I let it slip away - however briefly. I won't be afforded that luxury when I have my own school and that responsibility for my dancers.

My dancers. Yes, I'll open a school. I'll be happiest with a small school. I've picked my colours already - in my mind, we already have a class dress and a little beginner's uniform. I've thought about how I'll structure it, where I'll hold my lessons. I'm actually daring to think about post-exam now, which isn't something I've ever allowed myself to do before. I'm beginning to feel a little confident that I'll pass.

I'm really good at the ceilis, the book-smarts. I've completely overdosed on Parades of Champions over the past couple of weeks - Southern England's, the NAFC belt, Canada. I wish the other regions would hurry up and have their Oireachtas already, so that I could watch their parades over and over. I've tried a few things. I don't think my own light dancing (or my attempts at teaching open dancers) would be so atrocious anymore. And I know I can get help with heavies, which has always been my weak point choreography-wise. Having said that, I even have ideas for beginner jigs and hornpipes. Like never before, I feel like I belong.

I'm back. Full of love for this ancient, glorious, silly, energetic, ridiculous, beautiful form of dance. How is that? Why does it refuse to let me go? Why is this the only hobby I continue to obsess about, out of all the others I've tried? It's the same for everyone, you know. There are very few people who manage to escape after they're sucked into Irish dancing. It makes everything understandable. Why we spend hours dancing on bloodied toes. Why we pay thousands for a dress. Why we'll fly abroad for lessons. Why the only websites on our favourites list are somehow concerned with jigs and reels.

There's only one thing I want to add, and it's the parade from the Southern England qualifiers. And I just want to draw your attention to one of my favourite slip jigs of all time, which begins at 06.50.



If, one day, by some miracle, I ever have a dancer like her, everything will have been worth it.





* For the eagle-eyed among you...I know I haven't typed up St Patrick's Day but I've been working on it for a little while and it's nearly there.