Practice #4

So...I totally failed at posting after last practice. So in this post I'm going to try to update what has happened over the last TWO practices. :)

Last week, after reviewing skips and sevens/threes (which we pretty much do every class), the beginners learned our first JIG STEP. I promise that this is way more exciting than it may sound. The step we learned was a cross over and up step. The most complicated part of learning this was the fact that dancing in reel time (which is what the basic steps of skips and sevens/threes are all in) is in counts of three counts, while jig time is in counts of four. After learning this step to the best of our ability (which was mostly dancing it quite slowly), the experienced dancers came in for the joint class. We spent most of the joint class working on "Walls of Limerick" (the first progressive dance we ever learned), and then starting to learn another progressive dance, whose name I forget.

This week, class started with the weekly and ever torturous skip laps. You might think that skipping in laps around the practice room is no big deal, but it's actually INCREDIBLY tiring, especially when we go to music. After this, we reviewed skips up and back as well as sevens/threes in both directions. We then worked on reviewing the jig step, but this time going through it faster and then to music. Once the experienced dancers arrived, we worked on both "Walls of Limerick" and the other progressive dance. And then, after a short water break, we worked on "Trip to the Cottage" (the team dance we had started learning a couple weeks ago).

So that's the short version on the last two classes. Next class, we get to try on ghillies (soft shoes)!