Just One More Step

the abandonment of the tumblr irish dance community means that i can post whatever hot takes i want and no one will start The Discourse with me. i can say shit like “male dancers are held to a technically lower standard than female dancers as long as they can do cool tricks” and there will be absolutely no consequences

Okay irish dance Tumblr is basically dead so I feel comfortable posting this. Lauren Early's post about how if you aren't stronger in your legs and core after quarantine it's not the fault of the restrictions on classes but "the restrictions you place on yourself" was so out of touch and is such a load of BS. I was still a student and I was more stressed than I had ever been, so no I don't make dance my number one priority. But I worked my ass off in class and improved in other ways (my stamina has gotten much better). Not everyone has the space for a home studio, like I am lucky enough to have. But I can only use that space at night after my dad finishes the work day, and I'm sure many people have similar situations. I voiced my thoughts about what she said in a comment on the Instagram post. It was deleted in less than 5 minutes. So I reposted it. I was blocked. I hope lost all respect for her and her team after this. Surrounding yourself with people who agree with you doesn't make you right

I saw that post and it made me feel the same way. There’s a reason I’ve been avoiding instagram almost completely during quarantine. I’m lucky enough to have a mostly empty gym at my apartment complex that I can take my practice pad to, but if I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t have any way of practicing (I don’t live on the first floor, and don’t want to make my downstairs neighbors think their roof is going to come down on their heads). 

Congratulations!! Ugly crying is the best kind of crying if you ask me; it shows how much the accomplishment means to you 🎉

As a former competitor who had to quit due to mental health issues and as a current teacher at a recreational school, I wholeheartedly agree with this. I was in therapy during my last competitive year, and my therapist once told me that my relationship with dance, something I once loved, had turned into an abusive one, and it was negatively affecting my health, both mentally and physically. That really stuck with me. I know I don’t have a lot of ID followers anymore, but if you dance competitively, please remember that mental health is just as important as physical health <3  

I am a former dancer and now a TCRG so I’ve been right where you are. I’ve found in my couple of years as a TCRG that it is hard to show everyone the support they need in addition to doing our job of teaching dance. I care for each and every one of my students and want what is best but unless I have a one on one conversation with them it is hard to convey that to them and learn what they need. Everyone is different and deals with pressure differently and there is no one size fits all answer when it comes to the competitiveness of dance and how people cope with the pressures. Thought I’d just put it in a teacher’s point of view for you that we do care but it is hard to constantly show it to individual students.

That’s actually a really great viewpoint – we don’t have many TCRGs on tumblr (or much Irish dance anything….) these days! And I agree with you, a teacher really can’t notice everything when they’re balancing so many students and so many duties at once. In hindsight I think my issues were less teachers and more that I was never cut out for an extremely competitive environment in the first place (and never realized this fact about myself until later in life, due to no one’s fault but my own). (And with teachers who I’d say did miss the mark, it was more questionable teaching methods and severely crossing a line with what should and shouldn’t be said in a class setting moreso than expecting them to notice the mental health of any student). I have a lot of faith in the new batches of TCRGs in recent years, because y'all younger TCRGs seem to be where it’s at. Better business practices, better training methods, better scientifically informed training programs – EVERYTHING is looking up for this generation of TCRGs. I think I just happened to get a perfect storm of verbally abusive instructors, which is what did it for me and competing. I don’t mind being yelled and shouted at to do better, but when it turns to shouting insults instead of corrections, I peace out. I pray I’m in the minority in having these experiences. So I guess I should have been more clear (or even read the original post better) that most my experiences have been issues caused by school environment, not struggling with anxiety and hoping a teacher would notice. Y'all TCRGs do a lot and can’t be expected to notice everything, you are absolutely correct!