Oh, hi there. Welcome to my shiny-new 2012 diary. Let me introduce myself for those who are new here: I am a 30-something dancer and teacher, obsessed with and focused on most things Celtic, but with far-reaching dance tastes, were I only to have the time to pursue them all...

My expertise is most concentrated on Irish (I am considering going back to school and doing a cultural studies PhD on it some day), and these days I also take Highland and Ottawa Valley Stepdance pretty seriously, and I've also dabbled somewhat-seriously in ballet and West African dance.

Common themes to be found in this diary will be, but are not limited to: being driven to exhaustion by my little hellions (my youngest students), being driven to exhaustion by trying to cram too many dance classes in a week in addition to my adult day-job responsibilities, being driven to exhaustion by saying yes to too many performance opportunities and choreographies for competitions and extra practices...Yeah, mostly I just whine about being tired a lot. But the other alternative is not dancing, or dancing slightly less often, and surely most people reading this diary on a dance web site will understand that that is just a silly suggestion.

My 2011 diary, mostly for my own reference, is here.

In the last entry of that diary, I speak about learning how to say no, how to recognize my own limits of stress and exhaustion. Because mostly my life operates on a very fine balance: everything fits just so, as long as nothing extra happens. This past December, a lot of extra happened and I kind of lost the plot for a bit. I'm now ending a stretch of 11 days spent mostly at my parents' house, away from my current town and its busy-ness, and it's been just what I needed. I believe that sometimes you need to reach a place of utter boredom before you can move on and be busy again, and that's pretty much what I've achieved here (as much as reaching a state of boredom could be described as an achievement!).

The only thing I hate about an extended break is how hard it is to be physically active again afterward. I am looking forward to my first step into dance again, a performance group rehearsal, on Friday, but I know it will also be frustrating. I will admit that there is a perfectly good pair of running shoes here at my parents' house, mine in fact, but I haven't been bothered enough to put them on throughout these holidays. My fault, and I will pay for it shortly.

It being the new year and all, how about some goals?

Highland
--Place in 5 more competitions this year, so that I can move up to the Intermediate level in 2013
--Actually start seriously practicing the basic movements I have to master in order to not be laughed out of the room by my future Intermediate competitors: highcuts, Sword pas de basques, Fling turns (actually, any step with a turn), leaps, anything on half-point...
--Narrow down the heaps of feedback I get from my multiple teachers to one thing to work on per week, and actually work on it
--Become confident enough to start including bits of Highland in my choreographies

Stepdance
--Practice it for once! Once per week, somewhere, drill the bits I've abandoned and dismissed as un-danceable for me
--Actually make an effort to use my arms as my teacher wants me to -- to work on presentation

Irish - as a student
--Drill crossover and turnout at home, one step per week
--Work on speed/sharpness in the corner when it's not my turn to dance at class
--Break in my year-old hardshoes enough already! Clearly I didn't wear them enough in 2011...

Irish - as a teacher
--Finally, once and for all, figure out if I will tackle the TCRG exam again, and how much being a competitive teacher matters to me
--Hone my ability to coach champ-level dancers, by drilling students more in my own class (when my teacher lets me) and coming up with exercises to add sharpness and oomph to competition steps
--Being continually aware of my individual students' goals and needs, and thinking of new ways to meet them while serving the entire class (this is hard! It will require more specific sub-goals once I figure them out)

Performance group
(The cross-Celtic group I co-direct that just got started, that is)
--Establish regular practices and get a few "signature" choreographies done so that performances can be booked without too much prep
--Find us paying gigs around Paddy's Day, festival season, and wedding season, and start to make a name for ourselves in the region
--Get enough income to start the process of getting flooring, costumes, and team T's and jackets

That's plenty for one year, isn't it? And I reserve the right to keep modifying this as the year goes on.

But for now, the goal is pretty simple: get off the couch! I'll start by choreographing a half-step for my lone competitive champ student that I coach while she's away from her TC. She wants something more suited to her strengths (more power & points, less grace), so this will be an interesting challenge.

This is mostly for my own reference, or for anyone with a geek-level interest in dance shoes, but I've got to keep track of what I currently own, and like and dislike...

Stepdance shoes
--Bloch split-sole tap shoes, Oxford style, with jangly taps added on, size 9.5M. These have lasted me forever, mostly because I wear them for 30 minutes a week. They're super-comfy and I'll definitely buy them again when the time comes to replace.

Irish shoes
--Rutherford hardshoes, flexi (black suede) sole, unknown tips, size 6. Damn you Rutherford, for making the best hardshoes for my feet yet also the most painful to break in. I still can't do toestands in these, although they are now comfortable, mostly. Great sound and a good size. I really want to try the new Hullachan hardshoes, 'cause I owned the older version of them and loved them. But I can't justify buying more until these wear out, which at this rate will be when I'm 82.
--Corr's Wild Irish ghillies, possibly a size 8 or so. I wish I could remember the right size. But these are pretty decent shoes. I will not wear any shoes now, in either Irish or Highland, unless they have the Hullachan-style lacing (pretty much standard now in Irish, not so much in Highland). The leather on these is thin, so they stretch and wear out pretty quickly. I have two pairs kicking around -- really old and getting old.
--Hullachan 2 ghillies, size 7. A great shoe, but very stiff, thick leather and so you've got to get the right size. A size 7, turns out, is slightly too small, and so these shoes have been pretty painful. But I've finally got them to the point of wearability, so I mostly save these for performances and wear the Corrs for practice.

Highland shoes
--Hullachan Sadie Simpsons, size 7.5. These are great, with a nice shape and a thick-enough leather (but not as thick as the Irish H2s). I've got them stretched to the point where they fit nicely over my thick Highland wool socks, so I tend to only wear them for competitions and performances.
--Toe & Heel Black Golds, size ?? (5 or 5.5 or something). These were just OK. They've got the double-eyelet lacing at the instep, which is rare in Highland ghillies. But they've also got a full sole, which I hate. They are now just practice shoes.
--A brand who I cannot remember (Capezio or Bloch or something of that nature), size 8ish. I hate these shoes -- they were bought out of desperation when I needed something snug to wear over thin pantyhose that we wear for National dances. Now they too are mostly practice shoes, or perhaps shoes for those occasions I have to dance outside.
--Hullachan HHC, size 7.5. Just got these in the mail, as I needed a nice shoe for my National dance performances/competitions. Softer leather than the Sadie Simpson, and a half-sole as opposed to the sort of tapered 3/4 sole of the SS. They'll do well, I think.
--Hullachan Two-toned Jig shoe, size 8. Just got these, so not sure what I think of them yet. They're snug but I worry they'll stretch too much -- this is the paranoid Irish dancer in me talking, who has to suffer in hardshoes for months on end before I like how they fit. Scottish Jig shoes are weird things -- they have jangle heels for clicking, and these in particular have a smooth wood sole where a hardshoe tip would be. So bizarre (and expensive) that I have to own a new pair of shoes just for one particular dance. But then again, hopefully that means these will last me forever.

Second-last day of my holidays, and not only did I choreograph that reel step for my prelim student, but I also practiced the last two steps of my stepdance waltz-clog over & over until I got them right! I may be emerging out of the booze and rich-food coma after all.

Yes, I have emerged, and am doing not too badly so far, although it's always dispiriting to return to physical activity from a break and realize from how far back you must start again. I don't even think it's worth revisiting Highland class from yesterday -- I was not in anything near top form at all so I kind of gave up and gave myself a one-week-only free pass for sloppiness. What I did feel a sense of accomplishment about, however, was my Broadswords group's ability to get through a good chunk of the steps with minimal argument and an actual remembering of the changes we made to the initial choreography last year. I still feel panicky at the thought of performing it a month from now, but at least we're not stuck at the beginning or anything. I now have to squeeze in an extra Broadswords practice on Tuesdays, which totally sucks because it's not like I don't have enough classes already -- not to mention 2 on Tuesdays. But I signed up for this, I guess.

Yesterday our fledgling performance group, augmented by our respective dance schools, performed an hour-long show at a seniors' home, and it was the first time I performed all 3 of my specialties (Highland, Irish, step) at one show. The whole hour was kind of a blur, actually, as I whipped costumes on and off (6 times total!) and tried to remember what dance style I was supposed to be performing as I lined up to go on stage. But it was a lot of fun, and we had a really big, enthusiastic crowd of residents and some of their family members. My next task is to actually find some paying gigs for our group -- as much as I love performing at retirement homes, we're bleeding money as we pay for rehearsal space and so on -- and some stuff to occupy us during the week leading up to Paddy's Day.

This week is going to be that familiar mix of stress and exhaustion again -- it's the first week I've had 5 days of dance for a few weeks now, so I'm about to dive back into the madness. Best cook myself some healthy lunches/dinners now, then.

Taught my adults tonight after 3 weeks off, and I was pleased to see that no one forgot the choreography -- in fact, it's looking just fine. I stood in the "audience" position and just watched it once through, whereas normally I watch it from the back where I have to dance it from. And it looks pretty much as I had envisioned it, although there a couple of sloppy places that I know I won't be able to fix in time for the performance. That's OK -- I'm just happy it's looking good and no one is that stressed over it. (I did manage to freak out a few of my dancers by making them learn a Scottish country dance today to also be performed on the 21st, but I wouldn't do that if I didn't know for sure that they can handle it. Sometimes adults need to stress about something for a bit and then it's just fine once they actually get down to business and do it. I know because I'm one of those adults myself.)

It's funny; after all the figures and movements I made up or appropriated for this dance, my favourite part to watch is a simple stepabout at the end. The music changes, and everyone gets a turn to show off, and everybody's clapping, and the students just give'r. And each of the dancers seems to have extra oomph behind their steps -- I'm not sure if it's because the music changes, or everyone's clapping for them, or what. But I see hints of just letting go to the music, which as a teacher totally makes my heart sing.

Also awesome about tonight was the excitement of my prelim student about the step I choreographed for her. She really likes it and when I saw her finally nail the weird turn I put in it, I got really excited. I'm so pleased that I was able to understand her style enough to choreograph something that suits her. I wish I could do this for all my students, actually, but having 31 individual reel steps would be a bit much, perhaps.

The stepabout is my favourite part too. It's the most perfect ending to the dance -- our reward for making it through the rest of it without totally humiliating ourselves.

My youngest class was totally impossible tonight. Just completely wild. To the point, actually, where the parents of my boy student heard me yelling at him repeatedly and poked their head in the door to see if everything was OK. (All my parents are great people, even when their kids are driving me to get my tubes tied.) I've also got 2 new students in the class -- the younger sister of an existing student, who is pretty much the cutest round little redhead ever, and an older girl who seemed to fit in quickly. This would have brought me up to 8, except that my former littlest student is not returning this winter, due to the fact that her parents don't like driving in the winter, or something like that. I was sad to hear that -- I know I'm not supposed to, but I take every departing student personally (I've lost 2 total on Wednesday nights, and 1 and possibly 2 on Mondays), even if their departures have nothing to do with me. It's just that I invest something in every single student, a little piece of myself, y'know?

I did gain another student in my second class, a girl who, strangely, came to my little recreational class from a very competitive school. I'm not sure she'll stay, though, since she's miles ahead of the other 2 girls in the class. And I've got an additional adult that I used to teach back in the day, and he's a delight so I'm thrilled to have him back.

All in all, as much as I do invest myself in the classes, teaching on Wednesdays is really wearing me out. I know, it's only the first class of 2012! It's just that Wednesday is such a hump day for me, and I always seem to struggle at work and then fly out the door, mind racing, to get to class on time, and then it's an hour of travel time and dinner wolfed down in the change room of the studio and then 3 hours of teaching, starting with kids who totally zap me of any remaining energy I had left. Thankfully my third class of the night is my second-year adults, who are mainly self-sufficient and who don't need me to go over skip23s for the ten thousandth time (sometimes I get tired of teaching beginner movements, I must admit, given that I'm building these new classes from scratch with nothing but beginners).

Anyway, that's a total whine, and it's way too early in the season to be whining, but I don't think I'm starting off my dance year in quite the burst of productivity, nutrition and rest that I wanted to. Right now it's 20 to midnight, and I have to finish cooking dinner and then answer a bunch of emails and complete a few other tasks before bed, making it the third night in a row that I'll get less than 6 hours sleep. No burnout allowed before at least February! I must rectify this right away!

Well, I treated my premature exhaustion the best way I know how: by squandering my Thursday and Friday. On Thursday Irish class was cancelled due to wintry conditions, so I basically went home and ate cereal for dinner and got to bed at a decent hour. On Friday I ran errands after work and ate toast for dinner and got to bed at a decent hour (after watching terrible television, of course).

(Side note: I probably sound like the worst eater ever, but I have pretty healthy breakfasts and lunches and the copious snacks I eat right before dance are not so bad either. I just give up when it's evening and I've been running around for 14 hours straight. One of my goals for this year is to allow myself laziness in evenings, but not resort to bread products before bed. I also need to eat more vegetables.)

Today was of course Highland in the morning, which I hate (er, wait -- I don't hate Highland; I just hate that it starts at 9 in the morning). I'm just not really functional at that hour and it's robbing me of one day a week I could in theory get caught up on my sleep. I always start off dancing really terribly -- it doesn't help that we start with an 8-step Fling, often followed by a 6-step Fling. There's just no way I can show off any technique there.

Things usually get better halfway through class when I'm actually awake and better warmed up. Today was a much-needed runthrough of the Laddie, which I haven't worked on in ages. In fact, there are many dances I haven't worked on in ages and I really need to start practicing those, along with the "extra" steps I have to know for my theory exams this year. I also really need to review my theory because we haven't had a theory class in forever and I forget pretty much everything.

Finally, the Broadswords choreography is coming along not too badly, but we're still only halfway through the dance with a month to go. Gah.

Back at home, I've been somewhat productive. I practiced the Broadswords choreography steps so that they don't leave my brain, I did quite a few runthroughs of my stepdance Waltz-clog, because I have to perform it next week, and then I cut some music and came up with an ending for the little choreography that will contain the Waltz-clog plus the Highland Tribute. Then I did a 30-minute workout from my "Nike Training Club" app which about killed me. Now I have to do boring Saturday chores, but I'm hoping to work towards the reward of going to see a movie this evening.

Here are my goals for tomorrow, which I will fit in around a performance group show at a retirement home, and a performance group meeting after that:
--run if possible (it's really cold outside, but I've tackled cold running before, and it's also really snowy, but I'm hoping by tomorrow enough of the snow will be packed down for me to run upon)
--15 minute Nike workout, focussing on arms
--practice highcuts
--quick readthrough of theory notes

Strangely, I had a dream about competing at a feis last night. That has never happened before -- in fact, I don't really dream about dance often at all, and never about competition (probably because I only compete in Highland these days, and the atmosphere is so much more laid back than Irish that I don't stress about it). Most of the time my dance dreams, when they happen, involve me trying to dance but I'm floating and not able to land down on the ground -- kinda like attempting to dance in a bouncy inflatable castle. I have running dreams like that too, and I know they're fairly standard.

Anyway, in this dream last night I couldn't remember the name of the set dance I was performing. The organizers were getting annoyed with me because they needed to know. And not only that, but I wasn't sure whether I was doing a jig or hornpipe set because I had no idea if I was supposed to be performing a reel/HP combo or a TJ/SJ. I couldn't figure out the answer. And then I needed a competitor number but I forgot to pick one up when registering and I was apologizing profusely to the organizers, saying, "I haven't done this in a while."

Well that's certainly true -- I think my last competition was the 2000 or 2001 Oireachtas (I've honestly lost track). And for the most part I've never felt like going back to competition, although I did briefly consider it as I was studying for my TCRG, as a way to kick my butt into gear for the dancing portion. But I would indeed get my butt kicked in any feis these days. I don't have a competitive dancing style anymore, or rather my dancing style isn't in style at the moment. I've got a really nice slip jig, but it's not very attack-y. And I've always been praised for my rhythm in hardshoe, but I don't bang enough. I'm content to be where I am, so it's just so weird that a dream would bring up the issue again.

Anyway. It's now 8:45 and I'm not half done my chores (non-dance chores) and I'm really not gonna get my to-do list done today. I was not as productive this weekend as I wanted to be. What I DID manage to do is a half-decent performance this afternoon and a productive performance group meeting, and I also just read through my Highland theory textbook. Ugh, all it served to do is remind me of the questions I need to bug my teacher about and the examples I forget of way-too-specific foot positions. I have a lot of work to do in that department.

The run is definitely not happening today, as I killed my legs performing on bad flooring. And I'd like to squeeze in the arm exercises, but realistically I've got to cook some lunches for this week and wind down my day to be in bed around 10 -- I want to start my week off right. So the highcuts will have to wait for another day too.

Let's set some goals for tomorrow night, then:

--Do arm workout after teaching dance
--If time, while dinner is cooking away, also practice highcuts

I'm not having a very good relationship with my body right now, I must admit. And no, not in a triggering way, just in an I-need-to-whip-this-ass-into-shape kind of way, 'cause it's true. Sometimes, because dance is so slow in terms of measurable progress once you overcome the first learning curve of getting used to your respective form, I crave cold, hard numbers. I think it's why I turned to running. One day I couldn't run a kilometre without huffing and puffing. A year later I ran 10 in a row. That's an achievement, and I can measure it with watches and metre sticks. I need that again, so I need to start running. Otherwise I'll be stuck like I was tonight, practicing highcuts over and over without really knowing if it was doing anything at all.

To stay on the highcuts for a minute (yay to me for completing my admittedly short to-do list, including the arm exercises), I just can never do them to one of my teacher's satisfaction. I always get demoted to singles instead of doubles and I feel like the dunce of the class and still don't really understand what I'm doing wrong because the "right" way feels absolutely no different than the "wrong" way. Tonight I suppose I made some progress in that regard. I get yelled at a lot for banging the back of my leg instead of brushing my foot kinda past my calf. But my leg is doing what it's supposed to, my closer examination tonight reveals -- it's just that my turnout isn't fantastic in that position. So the angle of my leg sends my foot straight bang on my large calves, instead of brushing by them.

Anyway, that's far too technical an explanation for anyone reading this who doesn't Highland dance. But it's just one example where I sometimes feel totally stuck, like I could work the rest of my life on improving this one thing, but I have 37 other dances which each have 10 of those "one things". I can maybe get highcuts eventually, but it would be at the expense of everything else.

While I was looking down at my legs I was having another little moment of despair, this time of their appearance -- I've got some serious bruising happening these days, and more visible blood vessels, and I don't know where it's all coming from except that I beat up my legs a lot through dance and I have the worst sensitive skin to begin with. I'm not creamy-pale, or milky-pale, I'm translucent pale. Like you can see all of my veins if you just look a little closer. And my skin holds marks/scars/rubs/burns way longer than necessary. Like I did pushups on my knees (on a yoga mat) the other day in the mid-afternoon, and when I went to bed I still had red marks on my kneecaps. Basically, this is a really vain thing to say but sometimes I worry I'm ruining the lower half of my body through dance -- there's the ankles that are permanently broken-blood-vessled from kicking them, there's the solidly thick shape of the whole leg...Most of the time I'm pretty accepting of myself, but once in a while I despair and wish I chose a daintier activity so that I don't have to feel embarrassed about wearing shorts in the summer. Some new, hardier skin would be really nice too.

Anyway, that's a long rant about very little tonight. Luckily I have very little to say about my adults tonight -- they're performing the choreography quite well and it's pretty much set for Saturday. I feel strangely zen about this performance.

Goals for Tuesday:
--go through first step of the treble jig, focusing on speed and on keep my feet closer together
--go through first step of the Sword

I'm such a keener that I go to dance class even when there is no dance class! Bad weather is prevailing in this neck of the woods, causing my Highland class to be cancelled. But not my step class, annoyingly. So because step and Highland are in the same building, I snuck into the empty Highland classroom with two friends for about a half-hour before step class. Look at me, being productive with my time! Well, productive when I wasn't whining about my poor aching shins, the same shins which are now being heavily iced (it may be time to bring out the kinesiotape again, something I haven't had to do for months and months).

I ran through the steps of my Broadswords choreography a couple of times, and I think I've got those down now. I then bravely moved on to practicing the first step of the dreaded sword dance...And it is here that the rest of the evening began to resemble a children's book I remember called "That's Good! That's Bad!" The book consists of a series of statements, qualified by good or bad assessments. So if I were to write the rest of my diary entry in the style of the book, it would look something like this...

Seannetta tried to land all of her pas de basques with feet close together and was semi-successful. That's good! But then her observing friend pointed out that she seemed ready to topple over on all of her turning PdB's. That's bad! But almost all of her highcuts were doubles and almost easily done, compared to last night's troubles with them. That's good!

Over at stepdance class, seannetta was unable to move at first because of shin pain. That's bad! But the pain seemed to subside enough to dance. That's good! Seannetta's teacher asked to look at her waltz-clog choreography for this weekend and she got nervous performing it for said teacher and screwed up several of the steps. That's bad! But later when practicing the steps over again, the teacher said her style and arms were much improved. That's good!

Outside after class, it was pouring freezing rain, making all the snow slushy and the roads slippery. That's bad! But a bus came almost immediately, minimizing the time spent outdoors, and not only that but the connecting bus came almost instantly too. That's good! Sadly, shortly after getting off the bus a car barrelled through a big slush puddle, seemingly on purpose, soaking seannetta's entire left side. That's bad!

She arrived home an hour earlier than normal because of the class cancellation. That's good! But she also chose an especially complicated dinner to cook, resulting in way too much time spent in the kitchen late at night and a giant mess of dishes. That's bad! Now she sits, icing her legs and feeling tired but not as cranky as usual. That is, I think, pretty good.

My five-year-old students seem to instinctively know when I'm at the end of my rope with them, because after wanting to lock them all in a closet last week, they behaved really well tonight. Part of it may have been that the wildest girl was absent, and that the boy was given a serious talking-to by his parents beforehand. Both helped. I feel I've really got to step it up in terms of them learning actual dance, though. They've been taking one class a week since September, and so far they can do rudimentary skip23s, one step of the reel which includes back23s, and the very beginnings of over23s. That's about it. It's difficult to correct them one-on-one, because if I pay attention to just one student, the rest start screaming and running around the studio. But tonight I had them all sitting on their "lily pads" (little green mats) while each got up one by one to show me their skips in a circle, and that worked pretty well. Sitting equals quiet for this class, it seems. And those lily pads are sheer genius -- I don't know how I'd get them to line up without them.

In other news, I received my Jig outfit in the mail for Highland, and for some reason I'm all excited about it. Mostly just because I like getting new outfits of any kind, dance especially. My jig skirt and cummerbund are reversible, which means I can have a green skirt and red cummerbund, or red skirt and green cummerbund! Such choice! I think I like this outfit because it's so simple -- the blouse and green or red skirt looks pretty classy, even if the jig dance is nothing of the sort. It's not stupid and ridiculous and ugly like the hornpipe outfit I have to wear, nor kinda old-fashioned dainty-lady like the Aboyne outfit. Anyway, I now have all 4 of my Highland dance outfits, and thank goodness because that was an investment and a half when you count all the shoes that go along with them. I'm hoping not to have to buy any dance outfits for a long long while now, except perhaps for my performance group.

First Irish class of 2012 and I miss one-third of it because I waited 45 minutes in chilly wintry conditions for a bus to finally show up. And then two came at once. It's not even me worth getting me into my fury over this city's bus system, but stupid commutes and dance class unfortunately oft go hand-in-hand.

Class wasn't so bad; I got yelled at for the usual stuff (not dancing fast enough, not crossing over enough) and was sternly given the homework of fixing a part my teacher doesn't like in the Dreaded Treble Jig Step (my excuse of hating the step, period, was immediately rejected). I also learned a new reel step that is quick quick quick and therefore will look terrible on me, but I'll give it the ol' college try anyhow. So that I remember, it goes like this: "one-two and turn and turn and down two-three and step kick down and point up down entrechat and down and down, step-double down and point and point." There.

I've got to set some goals for the weekend, but I'll come back and do that later because once AGAIN it's almost midnight. I've REALLY got to figure out a way to get to bed earlier.

Alright, so I've got a big evening coming up but wanted to deal with Highland stuff first. This morning in class, we went through the Barracks and I actually think it's looking not too bad, except for that awful last step where I have to do 3 Fling turns in a row and have no traction for any of them. I'm not totally sure what to do about that. My backsteps are still awful, too, in both the Barracks and the Fling. I think maybe that's something to work on this week.

I'm officially really stressed out now about our Broadswords -- we still haven't even started the last half of the dance, and none of us remember a thing about that section. I REALLY wanted to avoid a repeat of the last-minute cramming we did with this dance last year, but now here we are again with an awful sense of deja vu. And I know our new person in the dance is super-stressed and is not getting the steps very quickly (not her fault, we need to simply practice it more). I just don't want to go up on stage worried that one of us will forget something. I want to get to the point where we know the dance well and are just working on technique. Is that possible in 4 weeks??

So my adult class's big performance is tonight, and I'm now getting excited. I think it's gonna go over really well. But I can't believe after all that work on the choreography, this is it! I keep thinking to myself, "oh, we need to work on that one part next week..." Luckily the dance will live on in our performance group, but I will be kind of sad to go back to our solo dances on Monday.

I've just got to make sure I do my waltz-clog well tonight...I was going to drop the arms I was attempting to do as flourishes in favour of simply remembering the steps, but now I can't do the steps without the flourishes. I'm a bit nervous about this one because the dance is so new to me, but I'll try to carve out a little time to practice it before show time.

And in the meantime, I just found out I'm dancing a hornpipe at a separate Highland performance tonight, so I'd better go practice that too. Then I've got to make a CD and ipod playlist for tonight's performance, write some introductory notes, pack my various outfits, and maybe get some housework done in between. I am not going to do a workout or run today in the interest of saving my throbbing shins for the performances tonight, but I'll try to squeeze both those things in tomorrow. We've also got a performance group rehearsal tomorrow, and I should practice my new Irish reel step and Stepdance jig step too. Oh, and I really need to write out some derived foot positions for Highland theory, because I'm not remembering them so well. Whew, here we go...

The performance was great! My adults did really well and the audience was very appreciative -- lots of people came up to me afterwards to tell me how much they enjoyed it. One young guy in particular said that he goes to all the monthly ceilis, each of which have a different dance school performing, and he has never enjoyed a performance as much as ours. Hey, thanks!

One thing I'm proud of is being just a little bit different than the norm when it comes to Irish dance performance. People always comment that my choreographies are "creative", and I take that as a compliment because that's exactly what I'm trying to do. And I'm even more excited about our Highland/Irish/Stepdance performance group now, seeing how much people loved the dances that blended the styles. My next step will be to adapt last night's choreography for the performance group in a way that's flexible enough for different numbers of dancers.

But that will come later. I've got a performance group practice early this evening, and a drinks date with a friend I haven't seen in forever after that, and I'm starting to have a little freakout about how much I have to get done in the 3 hours before I leave. I need to work on prioritizing a little bit better. For the second weekend in a row, I'm not running because I have to cook lunches for this week instead. And I don't have time to exercise today either or do Highland theory. I really have to run out and do a couple of errands, and get the newspapers read (it's part of my job; I'm a journalist) and answer a couple of emails and clean the apartment and get to bed at a reasonable hour. The thing I hate most about dance taking up a good chunk of my life is that it leaves no time for normal-adult activities, or rather those cleaning/cooking/bill-paying/errand-running activities have to be crammed into weekends and therefore I don't feel rested at ALL on Mondays. I need to learn how to stop being so stressed and tired, but still filled up with dance. I've hinted at this before, but it really does have to be my main goal of 2012.

In the meantime, here are some modest goals for today and Monday:
--get a few performance-group-related emails sent
--assess what dances need to be worked on next after tonight's performance group practice
--try to do 15-min arm workout after teaching on Monday

Small victory #39: figuring out a place to put all my dance shoes. This is a big deal, trust me -- these days they've been piling up all over the place and I scramble in the mornings to find the right pairs (after reminding myself what style of dance I have to do that day, of course). Tonight I cleared out a box stool that doubles as storage of its usual contents and transferred the shoes to it. This makes me so happy it's kind of pathetic.

Tonight's adult class was quite good; most impressive was the fact that nobody forgot the solo steps we haven't worked on in forever and a day because of intensive choreography rehearsal. It felt good to settle back into working on steps and technique, but I am going to make a choreography of an a-cappella hardshoe for the class. Not necessarily for performance -- just to get them listening to their own rhythms and those of their classmates. It worked really well the last time I did that a couple years ago. Tonight, though, I'm really regretting starting it on a day when I didn't bother to bring my hardshoes; all that banging in my dance sneakers has killed my shins, which were starting to heal from the last assault.

I am not going to get my arm exercise homework done tonight, as I need to go to bed any minute now to make up for the fact that I got 5 hours of sleep last night. But I solemnly swear to attempt it tomorrow, before I head off on my little work trip. I will also run through the Fling and Seann Triubhas that I have to perform on Sun.

I am sitting at home feeling guilty for a) not doing my exercises or practicing more dance (I'm packing for my work trip instead and answering all the emails I didn't have time to answer today), and b) being a bit of a petulant teenager to my stepdance teacher tonight. I was the only student due to classmate sickness, and I barely tried, and I for some reason got mad when my teacher tried to make me dance more like her, with feet closer together and the working front foot more parallel for these tip things I was trying to do. This happens, strangely, in stepdance more than anything else. Most of the time I just obediently do what my teachers tell me (with much whining, that is), but today I just didn't wanna do it her way at all. This is also coinciding with the same teacher picking on my technique more often, after 2 years of being entirely benevolent. Maybe I'm just getting my back up because of that, I dunno. But I have to stop -- if I'm going to class, I have to at least try once in a while. My problem is that there are aspects of stepdance I don't like at all, but parts of it I really love, and I have to suck it up and accept both when I dance.

Our Broadswords practice went not too badly tonight; we actually basically finished the dance by ourselves which made me super proud of us. The new addition still looks absolutely terrified, but one of my dance mates booked us 2 Sunday practices with a teacher. Great, another day of dance! But we need it 'cause no teacher has actually looked at this thing yet. Still stressed, but seems slightly more doable today.

OK, off to the work conference tomorrow -- no dance for 3 whole days, yikes!

I don't think I can put up with our teacher being completely benevolent for two years. I want someone to correct my technique since I'm not entirely convinced stepdance has any in the first place. I'm fairly certain my clog is the worst dance on the planet right now, but our teacher seems to think it's coming along nicely even though I feel like I'm having a seizure every time I'm doing it. If it was me, I'd have started beating us from the get-go. At least then we'd know what we were getting into.

So my legs are pretty much the princess-and-the-pea of flooring. I mean, two little hops on an innocent-looking surface, and these shins will scream loudly right away if there's even a hint of concrete lurking far beneath. Right now they are not so much screaming as protesting insistently that perhaps doing a mere 2 Highland dances on artificial turf was perhaps not the best idea. But whatever, shins, you're not going to convince me to take up tai chi or swimming instead.

It's been a whirlwind few days and I've got a lot of housework and grownup stuff to do, sigh. But briefly I'll say that Highland class yesterday saw a pretty good runthrough of the Broadswords, mostly because I decided to get a little bossy on our group. Not in a mean way; just to organize ourselves better and get through sections quicker. It meant having to outright say a couple of times, "no, you're doing it wrong -- try it again" and I definitely slipped into teacher mode when counting out a part we weren't getting. I feel slightly uncomfortable about this, given that they are my peers and not my students. But I think they understood that we need some direction at this point, only 3 weeks to the competition date. Thankfully we have two practices scheduled in the next couple of weeks where we'll have a teacher's full attention.

Last night I went to a contemporary ballet (RWB's Svengali), and now I'm just not sure if I enjoy story ballets or not. I mean, on the one hand it was wonderful to see a ballet again, since it's been a while and I am forever in awe of ballet dancers and that impossible blend of big physicality and small delicacy. And there were some very clever ideas and cool choreography in this one. But I think my problem is that story ballets have to be very literal, and I get quite impatient with the progression of story. Perhaps I prefer something more abstract, I don't know. But there were several sequences where I was just thinking, "OK, I get it, let's move on" and other sequences where I didn't get it at all. Maybe it was just the quality of this particular ballet, but despite the very strong dancers nothing in it has really stayed with me.

Thinking about it more, I guess my favourite contemporary ballets are ones that still have that classical beauty I love, but more abstract in feeling so I can draw my own conclusions. The best one that does this, in my humble opinion, is Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room. It's so beautiful, and the end with the music and the buildup of people all moving at once is so strangely emotional that I had tears in my eyes when I saw it. Can someone please get on choreographing another one of those?

In the meantime, I've got to focus on my own dancing, of course. The rest of the day must be spent cleaning and grocery-shopping and laundering...Don't think any physical activity will happen, unfortunately. Thankfully my next month is not quite as insane as January has been, so I'm hoping to get on the running and strength training again shortly. Well, I have to, since I just signed myself up for a 10k race in May...

For some reason, I don't have much to say about the last couple of days. Business as usual, I guess. But I did want to take a quick moment to acknowledge a small moment of triumph in Highland class tonight, where me and one of my Broadswords teammates demonstrated our choreography to our teacher/choreographer for the very first time. Even with half our group missing, our teacher was actually grinning at our performance of it at the end. "Ha, you probably think I'm out to get you! It's hard, isn't it?" she exclaimed. "I forgot about some of [describes intricate bits of choreography]. Well done, that's great!"

Well that just made me nearly skip out of the room -- that we managed to figure out this choreography all on our own, that it IS a hard dance and we're doing it ok, and that watching us made my teacher happy. I really needed that validation.

The hellions: they were their usual selves tonight, except for several blissful moments when I managed to get them sitting QUIETLY while each person took a turn doing their reel step. OK, so I may have threatened them by saying we wouldn't do the freeze dance unless they were quiet, but I am not above the occasional bribe. Then they all fell apart for the last 5 minutes when parents are permitted to watch, of course.

In my second class, which originally had 2 students around age 9, I've now got a third. Two weeks ago, at her second lesson when I last saw her, I was kind of despairing because she had two left feet and zero natural talent and I thought it would take forever to get her caught up. Well tonight she came skipping into class -- literally skipping her 123s. "You learned your 123s!" I exclaimed in shock. "I practiced them," she said brightly. She instantly, of course, stole my heart.

Later in the class, we were doing treble-hop-backs as an introduction to hardshoe, and new girl remarked, "this is similar to that other step [one with back23s in it]. I wonder what came first? And did they think of this and then add it to the other step, or the other way around?" I had no answer whatsoever. Nobody has ever asked me something quite so historically technical about Irish dance, let alone a 9-year-old whose stuffed cat toy perches atop her bag and "watches" while she's having her lesson...

After class I was a good little Irish dancer and came up with a new middle part to my Dreaded Treble Jig Step. Now if I can just actually perform it tomorrow, my teacher may be less inclined to beat me. I didn't practice the new reel with the two skater-turns in a row, however. My teacher told me I can take one of the turns out, but I really wanna do it just to prove an old fogey can. But I suppose that would involve practicing, now wouldn't it?

I've been pretty productive this weekend. On Friday after work I let myself have one of my much-needed sprawl-on-the-couch evenings, but otherwise I've been busy but not stressed. Highland class and theory on Saturday morning, then errand-running and hair-appointment, then a thorough cleaning of the apartment and laundry and groceries. This morning, a performance group meeting plus a shopping trip for costume supplies, then a 4K run, a 30-minute workout, lots of stretching, and now I'm about to cook like crazy for the week ahead. None of this is probably anybody's idea of a fun or relaxing weekend, but for me it feels good to start the week off right. I'm less of a basket case on Monday this way.

I've got a lot to practice in the next little while, but I need to figure out how to fit it all in. On Thursday at Irish class I learned a new hornpipe, a new reel, and I attempted the new reel with the double-skater-turn but that didn't go so well (I keep falling out of the second turn, which isn't doing much for my goal to show that old fogeys can do it too -- I was instructed to take out one of the turns and do a skip instead, but my ego wasn't too bruised when I realized a girl half my age had to take out the second turn too). The timing of the hornpipe step keeps flitting in and out of my head; my teacher choreographs stuff way differently than I do so it always takes forever for me to fully inhabit new steps, especially hardshoe. I can't always hear the rhythms that well.

So all of that needs practice, and so too do my competition dances for the Highland comp in 2 weeks. Generally I have not been cramming a lot in my evenings because my to-do lists were resulting in great stress and too few hours of sleep, but I must squeeze in 10 minutes of practice a day of Highland, on top of my classes (I know 10 minutes is not much, but it'll have to do). This is my plan, then: I've got 12 days left before the competition, so that's 3 days per dance. Let's tackle the Sword first, since it's by far the worst of my dances:

MON:
-Full runthrough of a 3&1 (just to start to get used to doing a torturously long Sword)
-Step 1: watch out for landing my feet together, landing on half-point, and practice a few highcuts
-Full runthrough of a 2&1 (my competition steps)

TUE:
-Full runthrough of a 3&1
-Step 2: watch for getting my open pas de basques higher (the jump before them, I mean), jumping higher into each point, and making that last turn really snap
-Full runthrough of a 2&1

WED:
-Full runthrough of a 3&1
-Step 3 (quicktime): try to land just one half-point, jump higher, stay in the centre of the Swords, and hold the last spring point more
-Full runthrough of a 2&1

...And while I'm here, I'm going to review the theory notes we went over yesterday, because I've been way too lax on the studying lately. This list of movements is kind of random.

DISASSEMBLE
-movement of elevation begun in closed position, with weight on balls of both feet, and finished landing on the ball of one foot, with the other foot in a specified position
-no travel
-unless otherwise stated, during the elevation there is no extension of the foot you're landing on (one of the exceptions is the disassemble into the highcuts in the 1st step of the Sword, where you can extend into the first HC)
-example 1: to start the 1st step of the Fling (this goes from 1st position on balls to 2nd position on toe)

BRUSH
a/ Outwards
-working foot brushes ground lightly on half-point, moving outwards
-can move from 3rd aerial very low to 4th aerial normal (as in the brushes of the 1st step of the Seann Triubhas)
-can also move from the rear, passing through 1st (or, I think, 3rd) to 4th aerial normal (as in when switching from one foot to the other in the 1st step of ST)
-can also move from 3rd to mid-4th aerial low (as in when it's part of a shuffle)
b/ Inwards
-working foot brushes ground lightly on half-point, moving from open aerial position to closed position (e.g. mid 4th aerial low to 3rd for a shuffle), or to a closed position (e.g. 4th intermediate aerial normal to third aerial low for a hop-brush-beat-beat)

HIGHLAND FLING SHAKE
-place foot in 3rd/5th, extend WF to 4th intermediate aerial low, bring back toward SF a bit, extend with a hop of the SF to 4th intermediate aerial normal
-counting: oneAND a two or one andA two
-in the Shake & Travel step of the Reel, the HF shake begins on half-point

HIGHCUTS
-spring, hop or disassemble, bringing the WF to 3rd rear aerial
-extend WF toward 2nd aerial and return to 3rd rear aerial
-during the elevation, one or both legs extended toward 2nd aerial
-no travel, except in the toe & heel step of the Sword
-can be performed with or without extensions
-the disassemble into the first highcut in the Sword & Reel can be extended while the other HCs are not, but if you're doing extended HCs you must also extend the disassemble
-timing: oneAND twoAND threeAND fourAND (Sword) or one and two and three and four (Reel)

ROCK
-spring from 3rd or 5th to 3rd rear or vice versa, pointing the working foot on landing
-when danced in a series, may start from open position
-rear foot always pointed first
-example 1, starting from open position: rocking step of Fling
-example 2, starting from closed position: toe & heel & rocking quickstep of ST

BACKSTEPPING
-foot starts in 3rd aerial, excecute round-the-leg movement to 3rd rear aerial
-spring and slide foot down back of supporting leg, bringing other foot quickly to 3rd aerial
-can start from rear -- e.g. pointing & backstepping quickstep of ST

^If you're going to mention the HF shake in the reel, you'll also need to say that it's danced to 2a low/normal and not 4ia. And since the reel is in 2/4, that needs to be reflected in your counting, so highcuts would be 1 & 2 & 2 & 2 & and PDB would be 1 & 2, 2 & 2.

^Well then I'm definitely not going to mention them unless specifically asked. There are just too many exceptions to make it a useful example of a HF shake.

Tonight there was a rather hilarious (by my standards) moment in stepdance class where my teacher said, as she was about to play a piece of music for us she wants to use in a new choreography, "now it's a bit faster than you may be used to..." My classmate and I just looked at each other, eyebrows raised. You see, my teacher seems to have a rather warped sense of "fast." First there was last year's turbo-speed choreography, then there was this most recent even more turbo-speed choreography, which none of us are dancing remotely well at as it is. We sound like weak chicken scratches on the ground. And yet my teacher wants to introduce an EVEN FASTER piece of music? Hasn't she realized that I don't do fast? I'm seriously just going to wave my legs in the vague shape of the steps for this dance, 'cause there's no way I'll ever be able to make any sounds.

Now, I may not be fast, but I'm not slow either. I'm the perpetual Goldilocks. I hate dancing fast because I think it looks sloppy and it's a cheap trick to get the audience excited. The artistry from the dance disappears because you don't have the time to do fancy tricks.

On the other hand, I also hate dancing slow, like Highland championship speed. I get how it's a stamina thing, but I think the artistry is lost when you dance slow, too. It just looks like you're stuck in molasses and it can't be that interesting for the audience, surely.

I just want a happy medium -- slow enough to show off some nice technique, fast enough to be a bit challenging. Is that really too much to ask?

Anyway. Teaching yesterday was fine; I am really liking the a-cappella hardshoe time we all spend together as a class at the end. It gets everyone listening to their own rhythms and those of everyone else, and I'm hoping it eventually translates into more multifaceted hardshoe skills. Everyone, when they are first learning, can basically only do a treble one way, and it's really agonizingly difficult sometimes to convey the idea of several different types of rhythmic trebles -- fast ones, slow ones, syncopated ones, hornpipes ones, treble jig ones...It's especially difficult because I never actually learned it explicitly myself -- I just somehow came to understand with practice. I'm a weirdly musical person for someone who doesn't play an instrument, so it's a continual experiment for me to teach something that just comes naturally to me.

Tonight in my 30 minutes of Highland class before rehearsing the Broadswords, I had to do a Sword, so I'm excusing myself from practicing it at home tonight. I did dutifully do both a 3&1 and 2&1 last night, however, and I vow to practice it again at the studio tomorrow night after I'm done teaching. I still despair, though. Like, I actually get self-conscious at class and don't want anyone to watch me do my Sword because it's so bad. It gets back to the whole idea of artistry, I guess -- there's no art to a dance that's all technique and zero fun. But I'll practice, yes I will.