Sunday, November 9, 2008

Long time no post.

Well it has been a long time since I have posted. I have talked with lots of you about floors and what to do.

Since my last post my middle daughter has had her first feis and even a second. She is doing great and really loves the performance. She had me scared the night before her last feis. She was practicing her Slip Jig and I was not sure she knew it. I even asked my wife if we should pull that dance. She did it one more time and she did it well enough that we decided not to pull her off that one.

Good thing we didn't pull her from it, she stepped on the stage and something just clicked. She took FIRST Place!

Never under estimate what they will pull out of their hat!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Other Springy ideas

I was at the Emerald City Fies this weekend and chatted with lots of folks about the flooring article in IDM.

One dancer I talked with said they put plywood in the garage to dance on and pushed it up against the wall when they needed to park the car. They also put Velcro on the edges to keep them from moving. (which is like the Jubilee flooring squares). Great idea!

This is a great use of space but bad for your knees, ankles, back, etc... I encouraged her to put foam squares on the bottom of that plywood, every square foot like I did on the floor we put in. I attached them with Liquid Nails. If you do it this way you can still push them up against the wall, out of the way, when you need to park the car in the garage but you will have a sprung surface rather than a hard concrete floor.

I also was looking at the dance floor that the Feis had laid out for the competition. They had plywood with vinyl (Marley) over it. For their "something springy" they used carpet padding. Here is an idea. Go to you next Feis and see what they use. Whatever it is it has to be easy to install because they put it in for the day.

peace

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Something springy

Hi all
Well I hope you saw my article in Irish Dancing magazine this month (January 2008). I promised to have more online but it has been a crazy new year. so I am finally getting to it.

In my little diagram I say you need "something springy"

what I used was a gym floor foam like found on these websites
http://www.matsmatsmats.com/exercise/exercise-floor/soft-floor.html
http://www.softnsafefloors.com/page%203.htm
http://www.mygymfloor.com/Products/ValueGrade/tabid/78/Default.aspx

But this is not the only option. I am doing a review of commercially available flooring and each manufacturer uses different foam.

Check out this foam I just saw.
http://www.rei.com/product/688668?vcat=REI_SEARCH

it is only $4/sq foot! wow! I haven't checked it out to see if it might be too springy

You could consider the old fashioned foam camping mats. or insulation foam used for sealing garage doors. use your imagination but TEST first! you don't want too much sprint or your dancer will be fighting the floor and may even hurt themselves because it is too springy.

whatever foam you use. You will place it every square foot. one of the comercially available floors comes in snap together strips of engineered hardwood. it has the foam affixed in a strip under the snap together edge.

More to come soon.

I hope you have fun making your floor. send me pictures when you get done. I will post them here so others can learn from your experiences too.

Enjoy