Advice for the NANs

1. Haagen Dazs is a delicious treat that should be saved for after you dance.

2. Remember, excellence of dancing is not proportional to size of hair. Do not be intimidated by big hair.

3. In addition, excellence of dancing is not proportional to quantity of Bling.  Do not be intimidated by super-Blinged dresses.

4. In fact, don't be intimidated by anyone or anything.  Think of it this way: You are Kobe Bryant for the day.

Or if the Lakers aren't your team (they sure aren't ours), you can be Serena Williams.  Just fake it 'till you make it.

5. To tan or not to tan? That is not the question.  At NANs, if you're asking whether you have enough tanner on, the answer is no.

Also, tanning both legs is a plus.

6. Carb-loading the night before =good.  Redbull loading the hour before =bad.  No one needs multiple sets of wings...

7. Don't forget your kick pants.

8.  Note: Although it may seem like it, Nashville is not climate-controlled.  If you realize that you haven't set foot outside of the Gaylord since your arrival, it may be best to get some real fresh air at least once before flying home. That way you can talk about the weather, and actually know what you're talking about.

What you think:

What's true:

9. If y'all do decide to leave the mini world that is the Gaylord, y'all oughta check out "Cock of the Walk" where they serve the best catfish in the South (and also the only catfish in the South I've ever eaten). If that's not enough to get you excited, picture the most gigantic rocking chair ever.  It's there.

  10. Finally, you have worked hard enough for this, so now is your time to shine.  Don't let anything or anyone negatively affect your confidence.  Have faith in the work that you have put in.  And remember, as cliche as it sounds, have fun.

"If it's not fun, why do it?"  

-Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream corporate motto (now your personal motto--just don't say it when you're purchasing your celebratory Haagen Dazs)

Irish Dance Celebrity Guess Who Game

Presenting, a "guess who?" game to help you shape up on your ID celebrity knowledge, or else figure out exactly how miserably obsessed you actually are.
Here are the rules:  Look at each picture, and take a guess at who the ID celeb is.  When you have finished, scroll down the post to see the correct answers.  Give yourself one point for each correct answer.

For the artist's sake, we hope you score a perfect 7/7.  For yours,we hope you are more sane than we are, and that you just get a score of a 3 or so... like a normal, not-so-freakishly-obsessed
 person might get.

Best of luck!

1:

2:

Hint: He's a teacher from the US Western region!

3:

4:

5:

6:

Hint: He's a teacher from Birmingham!

7:

Answers:

1. Gavin Doherty

2. Tony Comerford

3. Lisa and Karen Petri

4. Dean Crouch

5. Jean Butler

6. John Carey

7. Michael Flatley

Happy Fathers' day!

Irish dancing is made possible by the generous support of the IDD (Irish dancing Dads).  So thanks, Dads.  You rock. (No pun intended).

A Stunning New Proposal

I know there may be some separation anxiety when I first propose this idea.  However, just to stir things up a bit, I'm proposing that we eliminate the word "stunning" from the Irish dancer/Irish dancing Mum's vocabulary.  If you haven't noticed it yet, you will now.  Every dress seller describes their "stunning" dress for sale, and every compliment discusses the "stunning" appearance of a dancer.

 So, here goes:

Main Entry:	stunning
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	beautiful, marvelous
Synonyms:	beauteous, bonny, brilliant, comely, dazzling,devastating, excellent, fair, famous, fine, first-class*, first-rate, gorgeous, great, handsome,heavenly, impressive, lovely, number one, out ofthis world, pretty, ravishing, remarkable, royal,sensational, smashing, spectacular, striking,superior, top, wonderful
Antonyms:	homely, ugly (Source: Thesaurus.com)

Next time you feel the urge to use the word "stunning" try one of these quality synonyms proposed by thesaurus.com. To ease the transition, I have provided some brilliant examples below. "FOR SALE: SMASHING open champion level Men's vest." "You look devastating in that $3000 Siopa!" "This dress is remarkably ravishing! How much are you asking?" "Wow, you look the opposite of homely in your new wig!" "Your dress looks out of this world with the added diamantes." "Comely neon yellow off the rack--33" bust" "Doesn't Gavin look bonny in his bright pink suit?"

Jig the documentary

Okay so since we're assuming that all of our readers are Irish dancers, we're also assuming that you are aware of the incredibly exciting documentary, "Jig."  The release of the trailer may quite possibly have been the biggest thing in Irish dancing since the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, or  at least since the invention of wigs.  If you haven't seen the trailer, you are not a real Irish dancer.  But, in case you've been living underneath a rock (or you're a legit Irish dancer who spends your time practicing rather than religiously reading the message boards, checking dance-again, and watching the Jig trailer), we've included the link above.  At the time that we're writing this, there are 250,988 hits on youtube.  Pretty sure we're at least 250,000 of those.

I don't mean to be dramatic or anything, but the first time I watched this trailer, I screamed.  The second time, I cried.  I was still crying when I'd watched it so many times that I had it all memorized ("He started out like everybody else: hop 2,3......") I'm assuming I speak for all of the Irish dancing community when I say that, although I didn't know it, I've been waiting for this documentary since my first feis.  Anyway, you get the picture.  This is big.

So, now to the point of this post.  After weeks of obsessing, the message we've been waiting for finally appears on my newsfeed: Jig is coming to America.

Here are our reactions in order of occurrence:

After we posted a couple celebratory facebook statuses and recovered from the momentary freak out, we realized we hadn't read the fine print.  Turns out, the fact that the documentary was going to be screened in our country of residence was really no more exciting than if we'd been told it was screening in Beijing...or Ireland for that matter.  Jig is being released in 5 places in the US.  The closest one to us is a 14 hour drive--I checked.  Reminder: the US is 120 times larger than Ireland... (It's sort of like when our Irish relatives call to tell us that they're finally coming to America, and we're like, "Awesome, I hope you have fun in New York, but we probably won't see you because it's not exactly nearby...")
I mean it's cool and all that the documentary is coming to the US, but my patience is dwindling...And let's face it, eventful.com does very little to satisfy the obsession.  The computer is on to me, and doesn't allow me to demand it more than one time. I've tried.

If you do live in one of the lucky few cities in the US that will be showing the documentary this week, maybe you could sneak in a video camera and email it to us?  Not sure about how that would fly with An Coimisiun, but a desperate girl's gotta do what she's gotta do.

The addicting art form of capturing the ever-allusive perfect leap photo.

Admit it. You've done it.  We all have.  Universal guilty pleasure of Irish dancers: capturing your leap on camera in front of the Cliffs of Moher. or the Grand Canyon. or the beach in Sacramento. or the cluttered interior of your friend's garage.
What use is being capable of a perfect leap, if you can't have hard evidence? Plus, everyone wants to be that person with the sweet leaping profile picture that collects 10 comments a day (with the added bonus of psyching out your competition if they happen to be stalking *ahem* looking at your profile pictures...).

The truly sad thing is all the wasted memory on peoples' cameras and computers.  I mean, seriously, think of how many shots it takes to actually get the leap photo (if you ever do at all), and then multiply that times every Irish dancer ever.  That's a lot of half leap photos.