Signed up for Pittsburg Halloween Feis.
The fact that it is 3 weeks before my wedding does seem a trifle ambitious of me.
There were several things that swayed me into registering.
First: I bombed at Celtic Fling. Like, I have never embarressed myself so badly on stage. A month later and I STILL don't want to talk about it. Needless to say, that damned Slip Jig is still eluding me, and I want everything out of AB by the end of the year (which was my goal last year, but we see how that went). I need a few more to try and place out, and Pittsburg is close.
Second (and possibly more important reason): the Feis is located EXACTLY 7.4 miles from IKEA and I have been jonesing on some meatballs and flat-pack furniture like nobody's business.
Ah, the things that will motivate me to dance. So not normal. . . .
Anyhoo, the third reason was that I can dance in a halloween costume. Years of being deprived of halloween costumes as a kid has left me with a penchant for dressing up round-about October time. When I sat and pondered what I would dress up as, my usual halloween costume seemed logical - Hogwarts School Uniform. It's not totally unlike what I dance in already, would look super cute, etc. But then I thought that was boring, and I should get creative. I *do* have a closet full of Ren Faire garb, but pretty sure steel boned corsets would count as "carriage aids". Thoughts?
Then I thought about getting all ironic and finally making myself that dirndl that I've been wanting, so I can finally look like what I truly am - a dumpy german haus-frau irish dancing.
But I will probably stick with Hogwarts Uniform because it requires very little thought and effort. And Wizards are cool . . .
So, agenda for next three months:
- Make it to some summer session classes.
- Practice!Practice!Practice! Even if I can't drill steps, practice walking in turn out, up on toes, etc.
- start re-building stamina, so when full time classes start again, I don't waste three weeks wheezing and stumbling my way through.
- watch lots of videos of slip jigs and wonder what the eff I am doing wrong. . . .
Slainte, gang!
~M
Hi Meara!
ReplyDeleteI was hoping you could give me some advice. I'm going to start competing next month and my teacher wants me to start off in adults. While I think it might be a good way to get acclimated to feisanna, I'm concerned that I'm going to be dancing by myself or with less than five people. Do you run into the same problem with Advanced Beginner &overs? Do you have to go to a lot of competitions to place out of your dances? I would like to get to champs someday but I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. My region doesn't have many &over advanced beginners and it seems like even less adults.
I love your blog and good luck with your slip jig! St. Patrick's Day is my evil dance...
Hi Kay!
DeleteAdults it not a terrible way to start off. Depending on your region and the individual feiseanna, you might actually have more competitors in Adults then you will in &Overs. You say in your region it doesn't seem like there are many adults (or even &Overs), but it will often vary from feis to feis. In &Overs, the smallest competition I have been in was 2 people, which was annoying, especially when the adult group at that competition had like 9 people. Unfortunately, there is no rhyme or reason to it. I really wish they would stop dividing us into "Adults" and "&Overs" - I think the whole Adult catagory, with it's limitations, is annoying as poo. But I digress. . . What are you possibilities of traveling out of region to competitions that have a larger adult and/or &over crowd? The travel might be a little more expensive, but you might end up having to do less competitions, so it might even out. Sadly, small competition numbers just comes with the territory no matter which side of the adult/&overs divide you fall on. Honestly, if your TC is recommending go with adults, I'd go with it. It stands to reason, that if that is what she prefers, that might be the general attitude of the region, therefore you will find more competitors in Adults. . . .
That being said, there are lots of pros to dancing with Adults that I never got to experience -from all the friends I've talked to that dance in adults, there is certainly alot more camaraderie and support of other competitors. Also, you are less likely to be dancing against people who are sometimes, quite literally, half your age. I chose not to go the adults route though cause I like the challenge. Either way, if you want to push through to champs, you will have to drop down eventually anyway, and once you get out of AB, the numbers in the competitions do go up. My novice dances I always have so many more competitors.
Hope this helps give some perspective, but I accept the fact that it is probably just me randomly babbling! ;)
It thrills me to see that people love my blog! I am glad you enjoy it - and thank you for the lovely compliment and well wishes for my *&%@ &^%* %@*$ slip-jig. Also, there is a reason I don't talk much about SPD, so you aren't alone on that one ;)
Slainte!
~M
Thanks for getting back to me! I'm going to do some research on some feisanna that draw bigger numbers and maybe plan on going to a few. I have family that live in Pennsylvania and New Jersey so that could be an option. In the mean time I could always use the small local competitions as practice for the bigger ones.
DeleteThank for the advice!
Hey, how did it go? I'm an adult dancer as well and just found your blog (and I'm way old - 33 next month) - how was the Halloween feis? What did you wear? Hope it was fantastic. :)
ReplyDelete