The Dongan Feis, An Injury, Two Camps, and a New Mindset
Hello,
So much to report! Let's stick with dance stuff for now. :)
Dongan Feis: Can I just start by saying that this place was so cool? Approaching it from the highway and seeing "the egg" was quite the sight and I've never been somewhere that was a) so huge (I literally practiced in a wing by myself and b) so organized. They had all the grades stages run at once and had the musicians just crank all the reels out before moving onto the next dance. They also had results, vendors, and professional pictures all in the same room as the dancing. It was really neat. I went solo because honestly, if I don't go by myself sometimes, I would never feis. Luckily, there were people from my school and I got to see some of my Prelim friends that I met at CRC.
Results wise, I ended up snagging a third in slip jig. I'd tried to do this new thing where I pretended that the judge was in love with me and that my first was guaranteed. Slip jig was my first dance and I feel like it really helped my confidence. The girl I danced with even said she thought I had it in the bag because the judge was watching me. Then I started to get anxious about who I had for a judge and if they were watching me and though I didn't have any major issues, I didn't get any other placements. That and did my new hornpipe steps for the first time in a very small group of really good prizewinners. One of them looked like she could have danced at Nationals "look wise". I left feeling a little disappointed, but still satisfied.
The Injury: That night, I felt a pain in the side of my foot and it seemed to get worse and worse as the weekend went on. With dance camps and Oireachtas season beginning I didn't want to mess around so I went to see an Orthopedic doctor. My first doctor took x-rays and put me in a boot for three weeks. I will be honest and tell you that I only wore the boot for two weeks before I felt like other parts of my feet and shin began to hurt so I went back to wearing two shoes. It felt better to wear shoes and roll it out. I followed up with a new podiatrist today and she thinks I might have tweaked something at Dongan because I had relaced my shoes and tied them really tight. Regardless, I'm SO relieved!
Dance Camp Week One: The first week I helped my TC out with "little kid camp". I'm teaching more classes this year so we thought it would be good to get a head start. I ended up working with some of the Novice dancers on technique and taught a brand new group of hard shoe dancers how to do a treble jig step. I also helped her with a class of brand new baby dancers all of which registered for the fall! The last day my TC had to catch a flight to Texas so I was in charge of 30 girls but we all survived.
Dance Camp Week Two: I attended my own Oireachtas boot camp last week. In someways, I am incredibly proud of how it went. I now have everything I need for my three rounds and learned how to do some cool leaps that I never thought I'd be able to do. I also made new relationships and strengthened several I already had. However, I felt really intimidated by being the lowest ranked person in the solo group and I totally headcased. It was not pretty.
Looking Forward: One of the things that we did at camp was watch videos with a sports psychologist. He works with Olympic Athletes etc. He suggested wearing a bracelet and that every time you have a negative thought to switch it to your other wrist. I've been doing it for about a week and I'm actually surprised. I'm not moving my bracelet as much as I thought I would and I'm starting to figure out what makes me have negative thoughts (THE OIREACHTAS) I'd like for this to be better someday, but for now I'm aware and it's making me think about my attitude.
I had a private lesson today that also helped my morale and outlook. All my feis steps are solid and my TC sees improvement. My rounds are in good shape (I have a weird new thing in my 3rd hornpipe step) and my TC seems happy.
I've decided that I'm done worrying about placements. No more "pretend I already won", "pretend I'm already in prelim", or "pretend the judge is in love with me". I'm not going to worry about girls in brand new Gavins or girls that have toe stands in novice. I'm not going to watch the other dancers at all. I am going to go to a feis and just enjoy myself. There have been moments where I ask myself why I dance since it brings stress to my life (JB hating it mostly) but it's the way I feel when I learn something new, when I get a jump the champ girls do in their steps, or the way I feel when I'm all dolled up waiting to dance. That's why I know I'm not done and I won't be done for a long time. Now to just remember why I started (Not trophies, but because it looked like fun) and the rest will fall into place.
Bye,
Kay
So much to report! Let's stick with dance stuff for now. :)
Dongan Feis: Can I just start by saying that this place was so cool? Approaching it from the highway and seeing "the egg" was quite the sight and I've never been somewhere that was a) so huge (I literally practiced in a wing by myself and b) so organized. They had all the grades stages run at once and had the musicians just crank all the reels out before moving onto the next dance. They also had results, vendors, and professional pictures all in the same room as the dancing. It was really neat. I went solo because honestly, if I don't go by myself sometimes, I would never feis. Luckily, there were people from my school and I got to see some of my Prelim friends that I met at CRC.
Results wise, I ended up snagging a third in slip jig. I'd tried to do this new thing where I pretended that the judge was in love with me and that my first was guaranteed. Slip jig was my first dance and I feel like it really helped my confidence. The girl I danced with even said she thought I had it in the bag because the judge was watching me. Then I started to get anxious about who I had for a judge and if they were watching me and though I didn't have any major issues, I didn't get any other placements. That and did my new hornpipe steps for the first time in a very small group of really good prizewinners. One of them looked like she could have danced at Nationals "look wise". I left feeling a little disappointed, but still satisfied.
The Injury: That night, I felt a pain in the side of my foot and it seemed to get worse and worse as the weekend went on. With dance camps and Oireachtas season beginning I didn't want to mess around so I went to see an Orthopedic doctor. My first doctor took x-rays and put me in a boot for three weeks. I will be honest and tell you that I only wore the boot for two weeks before I felt like other parts of my feet and shin began to hurt so I went back to wearing two shoes. It felt better to wear shoes and roll it out. I followed up with a new podiatrist today and she thinks I might have tweaked something at Dongan because I had relaced my shoes and tied them really tight. Regardless, I'm SO relieved!
Dance Camp Week One: The first week I helped my TC out with "little kid camp". I'm teaching more classes this year so we thought it would be good to get a head start. I ended up working with some of the Novice dancers on technique and taught a brand new group of hard shoe dancers how to do a treble jig step. I also helped her with a class of brand new baby dancers all of which registered for the fall! The last day my TC had to catch a flight to Texas so I was in charge of 30 girls but we all survived.
Dance Camp Week Two: I attended my own Oireachtas boot camp last week. In someways, I am incredibly proud of how it went. I now have everything I need for my three rounds and learned how to do some cool leaps that I never thought I'd be able to do. I also made new relationships and strengthened several I already had. However, I felt really intimidated by being the lowest ranked person in the solo group and I totally headcased. It was not pretty.
Looking Forward: One of the things that we did at camp was watch videos with a sports psychologist. He works with Olympic Athletes etc. He suggested wearing a bracelet and that every time you have a negative thought to switch it to your other wrist. I've been doing it for about a week and I'm actually surprised. I'm not moving my bracelet as much as I thought I would and I'm starting to figure out what makes me have negative thoughts (THE OIREACHTAS) I'd like for this to be better someday, but for now I'm aware and it's making me think about my attitude.
I had a private lesson today that also helped my morale and outlook. All my feis steps are solid and my TC sees improvement. My rounds are in good shape (I have a weird new thing in my 3rd hornpipe step) and my TC seems happy.
I've decided that I'm done worrying about placements. No more "pretend I already won", "pretend I'm already in prelim", or "pretend the judge is in love with me". I'm not going to worry about girls in brand new Gavins or girls that have toe stands in novice. I'm not going to watch the other dancers at all. I am going to go to a feis and just enjoy myself. There have been moments where I ask myself why I dance since it brings stress to my life (JB hating it mostly) but it's the way I feel when I learn something new, when I get a jump the champ girls do in their steps, or the way I feel when I'm all dolled up waiting to dance. That's why I know I'm not done and I won't be done for a long time. Now to just remember why I started (Not trophies, but because it looked like fun) and the rest will fall into place.
Bye,
Kay
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