Been a good long while. Got a kick in the ol’ bum after reading one of travel logs from my musician friend Loes (the cover above is a new recording featuring her partner in crime Honza) – let’s see how it sticks this time around.

Writing this may well be a form of procrastination – I’m supposed to be preparing for an exam (Product Owner certification – might be useful for the ol’ dayjob). It’s kinda interesting tbh – with me always being caught up in “scrum-but” projects of one kind or another it’s high time I dug a bit deeper into the actual framework. It’s kinda amazing that it still persists, I can’t fight the feeling that it’s (still?) not really applicable to most projects, with everyone being so remote and development processes so messy. And that’s without “vibe coding” involved. Would be nice though.

It’s been almost two months since I got sober (again 🙄) – feels like I’m slowly becoming more productive. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t nearly as bad as last time but that’s a different story for a different day. The important things are there though – job gets done, I’m hanging out with people more, and actually got started on cleaning up the endless queue of music to check out – the number of albums may well be in 4 digits at this point.

So much to do still – projects to get started on, people to see, places to visit, instruments to practice, steps to learn 🙈🙉🙊 even making a todo list sounds overwhelming. But then, I’d never look at it and it would be an eyesore anyway so… guess we’ll improvise as always.

And these “after a couple years” blogposts always feel weird anyway… but it might be a start. Unless if it ain’t 🤷‍♂️

Aaaand possibly a start of a new era for the project 🙂 Finally got all the ducks in the row to start recording some stuff at the ol’ pub – look forward to more of these! For now, just a quick reel performance as an intro 🙂

“Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.”

― Winston Churchill

So how exactly do we get into this improvising thing? What is it that you do? How many steps in advance do you know? Personally, I barely know a couple bars at most, and even then I’m not sure that those are what’s gonna come out. I toyed with the idea of exercising this away through attempting to memorize a four or eight bar sequence as I’m dancing it and then repeat it, either on the same or on the opposite leg, depending on where I land. Didn’t find it fun so I didn’t carry through, and also I had forgotten about it until now. My refusals of discipline aside, there is this scary idea of having to plan things ahead and probably while you’re dancing.

My day job is Software Quality Assurance, and there’s a thought I want to take from there. The first phase in Software Testing is what we call “Planning and Control”. Note the “Control” part – meaning, keeping track of how much the initial plan is not being fulfilled and adjusting both the activities we carry out and the plan itself. Cause things never go according to plan – not only in QA too, this is pretty much how anything in life goes.

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September always ends up being the messy month. Last year it was a real emotional roller coaster ending in my amicable split with Erin’s Fiddle, after 8 years that no one would ever believe. It was an incredible time that I wouldn’t trade for anything but, with so many creative people in the same hub, well… the creative differences had to get real at some point! Now I needed a break.

So I treated myself to a “gap year” – I kept dancing in the sessions, but I wasn’t teaching and I wasn’t dealing with noooo dancing school, troupe or anything of the sort. I traveled a bit, attended some workshops, met a bunch of new dancing friends from different places. Got myself a concertina for some reason. Neighbors ain’t complainin’ yet. Overall, I must say I enjoyed it! But now the gap year was about to end. (more…)

The one thing you always get asked as a foreign Irish dancer is, well, have you been to Ireland. I was never really in a rush to visit – I figured the time will come. It was obvious I “had to” go at some point – the more I learned about sean-nós the more I understood that I needed to immerse to really be able to step it up and take things further. So, when Edwina Guckian announced that she’d do a week long adult workshop in Carrick-on-Shannon, that felt like a great opportunity to finally fly over to “THE ISLE” and see what’s up. (more…)

Well, been a while since I wrote – not that there was no material! Had a great visit to Zagreb dancers, and then we enjoyed a workshop with Emma O’Sullivan in Berlin, organized by Jigs and Reels back in March. However, somehow I’m always rushing around too much to sit down and write about these experiences and I only have myself to blame.

So, to avoid this little bad habit of mine, I’m writing this one NOW – just got back home from the airport, poured a bit of scotch, and now we can talk! I came back from Prague – they had a set dancing weekend, including workshops and ceilis led by Kevin & Carol Monaghan, and organized by one of the local Irish Dancing Schools – Sona Sól. To be more accurate, it’s a yearly event and if I’m not mistaken this was the fourth year it’s been organized. The music in the ceilis was played by the relentless Rise the Dust – you can see them (and set dancing!) in action here (the music starts around the 3:20 mark) (more…)

For better or for worse I’m pretty much self-taught in sean-nós dancing. I used my step dancing experience, as well as a plethora of instructional DVDs and a couple online courses. And a lot of reading up, watching dancers on YouTube and such. One thing that has really left a mark on me is the way Kieran Jordan and Shannon Dunne apply so-called “walking” steps into their methods. (more…)

So, Marko and I visited the Bernard’s Summer School this summer – it was his second time, and my first. Of course, the thing that brought the event to our attention was the sean-nós dance classes. While we’ve both been practicing the style for a couple years now, we never had a teacher prior to him visiting the School in 2016. This year, however, our interest was also piqued by a lilting class – apparently the first time the school was offering that. Later on we would find out that the organizers had wanted to have it for years, but had trouble finding a teacher. The Irish seem to find that to be so intuitive and natural that they have trouble looking at it as something necessarily “teachable” – you’re supposed to “just do it”. Therefore, there’s very few actual teachers. (more…)

And so, having banished myself from Irish step dancing, I’m projectless – which is a bit of a problem. And it’s been a while. But let me put that in perspective. (more…)