Robert's Blog

After a very busy weekend (3 posts!!) I wanted to do a relaxed Monday and just spend a bit of time in my accommodation. Unfortunately, nothing came of it. I had almost reached my doorstep after work (and a little snack with Tim) when I received the invitation from Laura to join her for some “Irish dancing”. Of course I couldn’t say no…

So we met shortly after 7 and walked through the whole town to the Sunflowers pub. I have been told earlier that it is quite strenuous because the Irish dance is very fast. It was clear that at least the women were allowed to take breaks, but there were only four men and I had to continuously dance for 1.5 hours. I can’t complain about a lack of exercise…

How it works: there is not really a proper learning phase in which one learns the individual movements. But there are only about 5 different figures and they are all not particularly difficult. The transitions can be very demanding, because everything moves very fast. Luckily, the dance teacher is calling out, what is to be done next, but since he speaks with a strong dialect, one still sometimes doesn’t know exactly how to proceed. This leads to smaller and larger collisions. Then you dance several sets, which are composed of the individual figures. At the end we danced five sets in succession.

I can only say that it was a lot of fun and I will probably go back on Wednesday.