Confessions of a Feis Dad

Long time no post.

2008-11-09T17:03:00.001-08:00

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!

Other Springy ideas

2008-02-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

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

Something springy

2008-01-27T22:20:00.000-08:00

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

Why do you need a Sprung Floor?

2007-12-14T16:18:00.000-08:00

Well if you have ever attended your dancer's class you probably already know the answer to this question. Irish Dance can be brutal on your daughter or son's joints. Feet, ankles, knees, backs. Bangity Bangity bang. They pound their feet on the floor. I know other forms of dance are hard on the body but it seems that Irish Dance is really hard, but maybe that is just my view because my daughter is an Irish Dancer.

OK Dads, if you really want motivation to put in a sprung dance floor read the detailed articles at

http://www.hullachanpro.com/articles.htm

It will inspire you to do 2 things, 1) Put in a sprung floor 2) get some Hullachan shoes.

Check it out you need to understand this about your child's dancing

Next: Something Springy

Update on the sprung dance floor

2007-11-29T21:57:00.000-08:00

As I started to write up these next few posts about the dance floor I installed I got thinking. then I went into action See my Making-A-Dream blog post "Because I asked".

In the January issue of Irish Dancing Magazine you will read about and see some pictures of the floor I installed here at our house.

In the article I say to check this blog for further details on making a sprung dance floor.

So here goes.

The first thing I did was to go on line and do some research. both on why a sprung dance floor is important and how they are constructed. I found some great information about Irish Dancing injuries on the Hullachan Pro Site. He doesn't really talk much about floors but goes into great detail about injuries. Check it out.

Next I hit the professional dance floor sites. Roscoe, Harlequin, EFS, Jubilee and the like (in the February Issue of Irish Dancing Magazine I will do a review of these flooring systems) What I found was that all of the permanent professional flooring was quite expensive a the time. Some has come down in price recently and I am anxious to finish my review of the flooring for IDM to see what I would do today if I had it all to do again.

Through my research I found that most of the flooring systems have a similar structure

Hardwood
=======
Sub-flooring
======
something springy
======
The floor you are putting it on

Pretty simple right? Well no. what hardwood do you use? What sub-floor, what Something springy? I will go into each one of these questions in a separate post. they will all be posted by January, since the article in IDM references them for " further detail " so I better get on it.

thanks for reading.

Have any of you ever put in a sprung dance floor? let me know what you did.

Peace
Joseph

A Dance Floor for my Daughters

2007-11-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

I am a guy. So when my daughter took up Irish Dance of course it turned into a home improvement project with lots of trips to the hardware store and lots of Internet research!

We have a large studio where I do my painting and we run Celtic scrapbooking. My Daughter needed someplace to practice her hard-shoe and we didn’t want her messing up the nice hardwoods in the kitchen. So began my journey to install a dance floor in the studio. I wanted to put in some other kind of floor anyway so it wouldn’t matter if I got paint on it. So I went to the Internet and started my research.

The first think I found was that there are several types of flooring options available for dancers. I found that while lots of folks have hardwood floors what you really need if you want to protect your knees is a sprung floor. Irish Dance is one of the most percussive dance forms out there. So, I chose to go for the sprung floor. And no it isn’t because it would be cool (although it is cool).

My next few posts will be about how I chose and then installed our dance floor.

Peace
Joseph

Ode to Duct Tape

2007-11-14T11:50:00.001-08:00

Silver grey, sticky strong
Fixer of a broken fender
You are essential to life, as water
I never thought I’d find you
On the shoes of my Daughter.

JoHanna's New Dress

2007-11-08T21:21:00.000-08:00

In July JoHanna got the new school dress...it was not inexpensive. It is beautiful but expensive. Ok, Ok I know it really isn't expensive in the context of the other dresses she will have if she sticks with it over time. But heck it was pricey for me. Well my wife and I decided that she should have some skin in the game, so to speak, that she should have to earn the dress, more than just dancing at the level where she needs it.

Being the entrepreneurial type I thought she could do a small business to pay for it. So, it was spring. I talked with JoHanna and she was excited about the idea. we brainstormed ideas and landed on her growing kitchen herbs to sell. the investment was small (yes she used her own allowance for 'seed money'), seeds and dirt, we have a master gardener next door who has tons of pots. so seemed like a good idea. Well we planted them in a little green house in the closet with grow lamps on them and they did sprout. but it took forever! they never really did get to be a good size. Eventually we repotted them and moved them outside. Just the other day I was looking at them and thinking... humm maybe she could sell them after all. They would be winter plants for indoors not spring plants but hey she could sell them. I think I will talk with her this weekend about picking up the business again.

Anyone want to buy some parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregno, or cat nip?

Peace

Joseph

Confession #1

2007-11-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

Ok I confess. I did my daughter's hair for the first 4 feisianna. By the end I was doing about 250 curlers in her hair. it took about 2 hours to put them all in and...well...I miss doing it, it was really fun. Now she has a bananna clip wig. I am still in charge of putting in the wig (my wife braides her hair first I just don't have french braids down).

But I miss the curlers. But there is hope! My 5 year old just started dancing and she will do curlers to begin with, and we ahve another little girl who will start...well in a few years she is only 3 months old :-)

I am a feis dad

2007-11-07T20:57:00.000-08:00

I am a feis dad. My daughter has been dancing Irish Dance for nearly two years now and she is fantastic, and I am not biased....well ok I am.

Here she is at her first Feis

Oh come on, we all took pictures of them dancing at their First Feis. I don't anymore, just lots of candids.

got pictures to share please. share away.

Peace
Joseph

Hi, My name is Joseph and I am a Feis Dad

2007-11-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

And everyone said, "Hi, Joseph"