And then we won! I couldn’t believe it!

I have to just take a minute here. To be thankful and grateful and feel blessed because I am. This past week I have danced every single day (till yesterday) and I made my TV debut!! We were asked to participate in Ireland’s An Jig Gig TV show- kind of like an Irish Dancing X Factor. After a 4 hour rehearsal on Monday night, we left feeling somewhat unsure of what we were going to get up there and do on Wednesday. None of us had any time to have another rehearsal so we knew we would have to leave it till then.

I left feeling a bit underwhelmed and it just seemed like it hadn’t hit us that this was a big deal. We were going to be ON TV! I wanted to feel more excited about it but I kind of didn’t. So I just went to bed thinking about the fact that this was a great opportunity for me, even if I didn’t feel like it at the time.

The next day was Tuesday- I had class that night and I just did NOT want to go. I didn’t want to go at all. I was questioning the whole thing. Why was I going to class at all? I just wasn’t feeling it. But of course I went. I said I was going to . I’m big on that. When you say you’re going to do something you should do it. So I went. And we did a 40 minute warm up. Time to get the fitness up is what they said. I danced like crap at first. Absolute crap. I got scolded a bit- saying I really need to get it together and this kind of dancing is unacceptable. I’ve heard it before. But this time I knew it was true. So after that- something just clicked in my head. And I DANCED. I just danced. I stepped it up a million notches and the rest of the class flew by. It is time to work. Everything I doubted earlier in the day just went away because I rediscovered that confidence I had in myself and my dancing.

It set me up for the next day- Wednesday- After teaching I went straight to the RTE studios where we were set to film our episode of Jig Gig. We got there and were asked to get changed straight away for our run through. We went in- sat down for a few and that’s when I started to get a bit nervous. I was a bit unsure of myself and when we saw the stage we were definitely surprised. So as I sat in my chair waiting for our turn to go up I just kept trying to run through the dance in my head but I realized that I just needed to get out there and go through it to get it together. We went up on stage and ran through it twice and it was AWFUL. You know what they say about a horrible dress rehearsal though… and it has been proven before with Take the Floor over the summer.

We got some commentary that basically was like- we know you haven’t practiced this enough… so go practice before the show starts. So that was another kick up the butt. I ran through it about 100 times before we went back out there because this time it was for real and this time there were people watching. People who I love were watching. So when we went back out there the next time I decided to do what I do best- perform. And I did! We all stepped it up and the performance was great! (We had to do it again though lol. Camera failures… ) After that we stood up there for AGES while we spoke to the presenter. Did I mention the show is completely in Irish? Yeah so I had basically NO idea what they were saying to us the entire time lol. It was rough. I just smiled and laughed the whole time- even if the judges were giving us criticism. I had no idea anyway.

When we finally got outta there we were thrilled! We had managed to pull it off and now we were free to relax! We were done! Or so we thought… We were all called out at the end to hear the results of who was the best act that night and who would move on to the semifinal. They placed us all in our spots on stage and asked us to look really serious for a minute… I guess to build up the suspense. Well that was the HARDEST thing EVER! Lol we all started laughing silently and then after a minute we just couldn’t stop! I think I was crying at one point. I couldn’t wait for the camera to turn off us so I could just let it out lol. They probably hated us. But they didn’t hate us that much obviously…

=D It was a great day! I learned an Irish word- Le Cheile- means together- the name that they gave our group and didn’t tell me! So naturally I remained clueless every time they called our name- and proceeded to shout out loud: OMG is that us?! HAH Well it was us. On to the next one =) November 6th- MY BIRTHDAY. Happy early birthday to me. And the lesson is this- take things seriously because you never know what you can accomplish.

So far this year I’ve directed my own piece, gotten back into dancing, been in a show, been on the radio (twice!) and now on TV. I never thought it would be this amazing of an experience. But my gut knew I needed to be here. Ireland, you’ve been an absolute blessing to me.