Jig and Jog

I am now on the other side of the TCRG exam, by two weeks, and it feels good.

I flew out to Atlanta on a Wednesday afternoon – and arrived at the hotel close to 11pm.  Thankfully, my first portion, the written exam wasn’t until 4pm on Thursday. I got to sleep in, do a short workout, enjoy a quiet room service lunch and cram in some last minute studying before heading down for the written and music exams.  I decided not to bring my book or any study materials with me to avoid feeling any last second crushes of panic, and I think that helped.

They corralled us all into the ballroom (there were probably about 45 or so of us taking the written portion,) and began by going over the exam rules, and then reading through all the exam questions.  The moment we started reading through the 16 questions, I felt more relaxed.  The first 12 questions were each worth 5 points, and the remaining 4 were each worth 10 points.  After reading through the questions, there weren’t any the stuck out to me as being impossibly or so difficult I needed to save it for last, so I simply proceeded by answering the questions in order.

I ended up finishing the written portion about 35 minutes before time was up, so I spent a few minutes going back over my answers and correcting some of the things I noticed I had missed.  Then, when I realized I couldn’t do anymore, I turned in my papers and left the ballroom for a bit.  They let us keep the exam questions, and after the music portion (which I felt really confident about) I went back to my room, and read through the exam with the book. I realized there were quite a few little mistakes that I had made, but I don’t THINK anything too, too major, and hopefully I did well enough and earned enough partial credit on those answers that weren’t 100% correct to earn a passing 70%.

Friday morning I had my practical dancing portion, which, after the music portion was probably the section I was least worried about.  They tell you to prepare two steps in each of the 7 dances (reel, light jig, slip jig, single jig, treble jig and hornpipe) and you have to know all 4 (soon to be 8?) traditional set dances, and submit 9 contemporary set dances ( 4 jig time 4 hornpipe time and 1 additional of your choice).

They had six of us on one panel – with three examiners and one supernumerary who is training to become an examiner. Thankfully I knew one of the examiners from Los Angeles as she is a local teacher here who I’ve known since I started dancing, which made me feel a lot more relaxed. Having a familier face was so helpful!

We ended up only needing to dance reel and hornpipe – two steps each, one at a time down the line.  Although the last woman in my group hurt herself pretty badly on her very first step, so that was quite stressful.

Then, they told each of us our first set dances. I ended up having to dance Piper, Hurling Boys and The Hunt.  While my dancing certainly wasn’t competition level, I didn’t feel like I had any truly terrible missteps or anything that would cause me not to pass.

Once we’d all danced 3 of our contemporary set dances, they brought the 5 of us (the sixth woman left after she hurt herself) back in to do the traditional set dances. I totally lucked out with St. Patrick’s Day and Garden of Daisies.  Then, we were done!

I had to come back at 4:30pm for my practical solo and ceili teaching portion. I went back upstairs, took a quick shower, relaxed for a bit and took a nap, since I hadn’t slept well the night before.   A girl I know from San Diego who was retaking a couple parts of the exam had lunch with me and then quizzed me a bit on the book before I went down to take the teaching portion.  Just before I went down, I watched the second figure of Humors of Bandon on the DVD because I wasn’t feeling confident on it and then went downstairs and tried to remain calm while the first girl on my panel did her teaching portion.

Because it was a Friday night, and there were a few accidents on the roads, they had a tough time having enough dancers for the teaching portion.  When the girl ahead of me finished they took four kids out of the room (you really only need 4 to do the solo teaching portion) and figured as more came in they would send them in. Usually each teaching panel has a minimum of 8 dancers so you can teach the dances with 8 people in them – but by the time we got to my group teaching portion, we still only had 4.

The panel asked me to teach Siege of Carrick which I felt went pretty well – I had a few moments where I got flustered and made a few mistakes, but the panel would ask me a question and I was always able to fix it and teach the movement correctly.  I was able to lilt the music and identify that it is danced to the tune “Haste to the Wedding” so I feel that overall that went pretty well.  For the second ceili the had me teach….wait for it….the second figure of Humors of Bandon!  I was so shocked and happy. I did still have a few tiny missteps, but again was able to think through and correctly teach the movement.

I won’t know the final official results until sometime in December (torture) but all in all, I feel like I did the absolute best I could have done on those days, and regardless of the results am happy with how I did.  I’m feeling pretty confident about it overall, but of course, who knows. So, now I’m just keeping my fingers crossed until December!

The title of this post will mean nothing to pretty much everyone, unless you happen to be an Irish dancer and/or are studying for the TCRG exam too.

Basically, even after 20 years of dancing, I am constantly baffled by how much I DON’T know.

Yesterday, I got my final confirmation email with the timetable for my exam next THIS month. So, you know, suddenly everything just became super duper real up in here.

The TCRG exam is a 5 part exam that I will take over the course of two days in Atlanta this month.

The first part, and the portion I am probably the most terrified for is a written exam on the 30 ceili dances (group dances) in the book, Ar Rinci Foirne. Many of these dances are still done in competition today, and I can attest to having learned and competed 9 of the 30 dances.  That’s barely 1/3 of the book – and sadly, almost all of the dances have extra pieces that aren’t competed. So, even those dances that I thought I knew pretty well, I’ve got more to learn.

The scary part about the written exam, however, isn’t just the task of memorizing 30 dances from a book that is not written with much of any consistency, and has wording in dances I know in my sleep that had me pulling my hair out.  The truly terrifying part, is that this exam features questions like this:

You are Gent #3 in the Three Tunes. Name the ladies in order you meet during the hook and chain, and which hand you give to each lady.

So, this question isn’t just Oh hai, so describe how to do this dance, it’s like “imagine you’re this one spot in this particular dance – now, in your head, figure out how all the other dances move around you in this movement.”

This is, one, not how dance is taught, and two, not how my brain works anyway. So. Yay.

There is also a music portion, in which you have to identify the name of 19 set dances, the time signature and the number of bars of music in the first and second portions of the tune. I’m less worried about this one because I can name almost all the tunes, and at the very least will get partial credit for being able to count the bars of music.

There’s also a practical dancing portion- and I am still missing a lot of choreography.

The final portion is the  two part practical teaching portion – where they stick you in a room with a panel of judges, and a bunch of dancers and ask you to teach solo dance steps and then ceilis.  With the ceili teaching, usually they’ll just give you a bunch of dancers and ask you to teach a portion of a ceili, probably not the first portion either so it’s another instance of mental gymnastics not only remembering all the movements to all 30 dances, but being able to pick one dance, and remember all the movements in order and correctly teach it to a bunch of children you’ve never met.

So, right now I’m moving into studying overdrive – I still don’t have most of the book actually memorized and have a terrible, terrible feeling I may never actually have it memorized – and I’m not just saying that. I am at a point where I do not feel like I will be absolutely ready for this (VERY EXPENSIVE) exam for which I am travelling across the country to take.

Hurray!

If you’re a praying person, please pray for me. Preferably to St. Jude who is the patron saint of lost causes. (Sorry, only a small smidgen of Irish Catholic guilt/humor)