I have a step.

No shit. Honestly, I've made up a step. It actually goes with the music as well, so long as I really rush that treble in after the over-and-down. Six whole bars! I could even do one of the simple treble combos while rotating to make it look fancier, ha. So a further 12 bars of genius required for the set before the week is out. This'll be easier though, I plan to use up the first 2 bars on a rock sequence and I can do a lot of stuff on one foot only, so filling sets is much more manageable when I don't have to backtrack due to realising I can't do said movement on left foot.

I've also realised that I when I top up my savings account this week, I'll actually have half of the exam fee. So I can apply. I. can. apply. Oooooooh dear lordy.

I just need someone to believe in me and look how quickly I can come on.

This week's challenge

Note to self.

Make up a set dance. Stop stalling and pretending you can't because you haven't danced in ages - just make one up. You might end up scrapping it when you get better at choreography but for now, just make one up. Make it hard for yourself by choosing a hornpipe set, but make it easy by choosing a shortie. The White Blankets, there you go. Do that one. By Saturday class, you will have a hornpipe set that you have actually danced rather than just thought through. You might even be brave enough to show your teacher! Do it. Stop looking at hornpipes on YouTube and stop blogging about it and just do it.

Tunes n Trip

I've spent the last two nights revising from the Olive videos, saying the movement aloud before the dancers get to it, watching the trickier bits, and making a list of mistakes. Personally I didn't make many but it did give me the opportunity to tidy up a few things in my own mind.

Next week, I'm planning to teach The Three Tunes. I've told them there's a "fight scene" in it so they're dead keen! But, I always mess up the order. I know the order of the repeated moves, I know that Sides comes first and Lead Round comes third, and that Thread the Needle comes before the final Roly Poly. I CANNOT get the other movements straight.

In correct order, the movements are:

Sides
Rings
Lead Round
Stamp and Clap
See Saw
Roly Poly
Hook and Chain
Rings
Sides Under Arms
Stamp and Clap
Thread the Needle
Roly Poly

Racking my brains and this is the only way I can think of to remember it: See Saw comes before Sides Under Arms in the Sweets of May. Hook and Chain goes in the middle. Or Hook goes with Haste. Hmm.



And, Trip. I know this one quite well but when writing it out I can never work out who goes under who arch first. Tops make the first arch so the order of passing under is: Opps under tops, opps under opps, tops under tops, tops under opps. Opps, opps, tops, tops. This makes no sense to anybody :)



Doing this has made me realise though - I do NOT know any of the ceili tunes. Not well enough to lilt in an exam anyway. I could get by with St Patrick's Day and Haste to the Wedding I reckon, Roly Poly part of the Three Tunes, but nothing else. This needs WORK. Off to iTunes to create a playlist I go - I got 100% in a music quiz earlier so I can park that for a while and work on ceili music instead.

New steps

I love the smell of new things. New car smell, new magazine, new clothes fresh from the shop, new carpet. Naturally new steps have no olfactory qualities, but with them comes the very faint scent of passing the TCRG exam. I finally did it. I finally went to a class and started learning steps. I died a horrible death in the warm up and when trying to demonstrate the slip jig that used to be my pride and joy, but I went! And in my defence, I didn't do too badly. Everything is well remembered, everything was executed to a higher standard than I was expecting. I'm not going to pass yet, but I'm on my way. There is time to polish and time to learn more. When I have more steps in my locker perhaps I can choreograph some of my own as well. I already have a potential step in my head for the White Blankets.

I just loved the class as well - it was freezing and it reminded me of winter competitions in chilly sports halls, when I'd win all my grades and come home with armfuls of plastic trophies. I did some teaching, I did some learning. It was exciting, inspiring. I have plenty to practice before next class, and plenty of revision too. My music is fine, so I'm going to have a good read of the book, a good watch of the videos, and start regularly drilling them to keep them fresh. On it.

Class tomorrow

Oh my Christ. I've got a solo dancing class tomorrow. A genuine solo dancing class, not just me practising on my own - a real class with a real teacher. For the first time in years - actually the first time in nearly SIX years doing prelim/open level steps in front of a real teacher. Shit the bed. I'm actually looking forward to it believe it or not, but as always I have "first time nerves". I just need to get the first class out of the way (for want of a better phrase) and then I'll be fiiiiine. Tomorrow is the day I take the final step towards the TCRG exam.

"If you get it wrong, you have to get it right. You can't just leave it."

The second post with this title! It does surprise me, how often I return to the wisdom of a ten year old. I have got to start putting more effort into this. I really, really want to be a teacher and I don't have the handy excuse of not being able to afford the TCRG exam anymore. It'll be a stretch but I CAN afford it, so why the delay now?

I know the ceilis, all of them, just need a brush-up and some more practise paper...well, practise. I've taught or contributed to teaching probably half of the ceilis now, including many of the eight hands. I reckon virtually every candidate gets at least one eight hand so I need to do as many of those as possible and be comfortable with them.

Music - fine, brush-up only.

Traditional sets - three out of four ain't bad. They too need a brush-up, and they need to be practised IN SHOES.

Solo dancing...I have a new philosophy on this. Surely, SURELY, they wouldn't mark too cruelly if you'd nailed the traditional sets and writtens, and done well on the teaching. SURELY this is the least important part of the exam. I'm going to try hard not to worry too much about this, and keep it simple. I have a handful of tricks I can throw in and hopefully that'll be enough. I have options for reel, slip jig and jig. For the sets, as short as possible and as simple as possible, with the odd trick in the set part. I am telling myself repeatedly that this will be enough, and that as a prospective teacher it's better to do well on the theory and teaching than on the dancing. Yes?

Solo teaching is something I never do. Hopefully I can start contributing soon, but through watching dancing more frequently I know I can spot faults more readily than I used to. I'm actually quite breezy about this, with my main worry being the difficulty of the steps. I've thought of a way around that, I think...