Our school consists of a very small group, and we would love to make it larger!  If you are interested in starting Irish dancing, again, please let me know and we would be happy to welcome you into our school! 

Here, everyone helps everyone, not just the teacher teaches!  If one is ahead of the other, I have them help the one behind; it helps both the person ahead and behind learn how to teach, and learn how to be taught.  It is a whole new learning experience!

Class:

First we do our basic stretches and exercises to loosen up our legs, knees, ankles and feet.  These help immensely before dancing, and should always be done before you dance, or you may hurt yourself. 

Next, we go over our dances (or if you are new, I teach you the first basic steps) 1-by-1, and correct the errors in each one, and go over them again. 

After we have done this, if the girls have mastered their previous dances, I work on teaching them a new one, or a new step to a dance.  Usually I teach them a new step each week, and they go home and practice it each day so they do not forget during the week or get sloppy.  :)

The first dances you must learn are “beginner dances” and they are taught in “soft shoe” or “ghillies”.   

The second dance is a bit harder and they are taught in ghillies and so on until the I think they have mastered soft shoe and are ready to move on to a more advanced level of Irish dancing: Hard shoe.

Hard shoe is much more difficult then soft shoe, and it differs greatly in steps and how they are to be performed; it is almost like dancing a completely different dance, and this is why I insist that we master soft shoe first before exceeding into a more advanced level of dancing.  (You can find more information on shoes and what you will need for the class on our “Information” page.)

In hard shoe, you start out with a beginner dance, just like in soft shoe, until I think you have mastered that dance and are ready to go on to a more advanced one. 

Our school is part of a respectable organization that holds feises, Irish dancing meetings and such. 

Please contact me at rttew@yahoo.com if you would like to join, have any questions, comments or suggestions! 

Thank you and I hope you enjoyed reading about our school!

Thanks again,

Richard Tew

Madison Grimm, Webmaster