First Steps...

For ten years I have been Irish dancing. For ten years I have wanted to be a certified TCRG (which is the initials for the Gaelic words for certified teacher). I started after an obsession with Riverdance when it came on TV. I had danced when I was younger and always loved it and when I got the opportunity to take an Irish dance class from Tina Shelley, I fell in love with the dance form and wanted nothing more than to be an Irish dancer for the rest of my life.  I began competing at feisanna and loved that even more.

Along came the love of my life who swept me off my feet and took me to Colorado where there is, thankfully, a very strong Irish dance community. I danced with the Bennett School before moving to Germany. I was worried that the move to Germany would put dancing out of my reach since there was only one certified school in the whole country. Thankfully I was able to take classes briefly with the school there and loved every second of that, when that became impossible I decided to teach beginning Irish dance on post to the dancers there.

Then came the other love of my life, Jeffrey, and I thought I was going to have to give up dancing again because mommies don't have time for dance. Thankfully I was wrong and realized that mommies need time to themselves in order to be good mommies and continued teaching my sweet little dancers in Germany, always hoping that one day I'd be able to be a certified teacher.

With a move back to Colorado I went back to dancing with the Bennetts and have been able to dance a little (with all my breathing troubles) and teach a little more. Molly has always been very supportive of me wanting to take the TCRG exam and so I've taken the first official step towards that.

Today I ordered Ár Rincí Fóirne (the ceili dance bible!) to begin memorizing the 30 dances required for the exam. Mind you that's only one section of six I have to pass, but it's the one that's the most overwhelming to me. So wish me luck and know that if you see me between now and September 2012, you'll probably see my little friend too!