"Boise Feis by the River"

"Sarah & Amy, ready to compete at the 2008 Boise Feis by the River"

This past weekend, our girls competed in a feis, also known as an Irish Dance Competition, and pronounced like "fesh". Feisanna are always an exciting, but exhausting time. Dancers come from all over to compete.

Amy has been recovering from a foot injury while trying to keep up her stamina by carefully bouncing on our trampoline for an aerobic period of time each day and also stretching to stay nice and limber. So, after several weeks of this, but not really dancing much at all, it came time for the feis. This is an all day event and we thought she'd have time in between each of her dances to elevate, massage and ice her foot. Well, it didn't really go as planned and after six dances in a row, she was in tears and wasn't sure she could even do a skip because of the pain. Her last dance was her trophy dance and it was a soft shoe dance. It's harder on her foot to dance in her soft shoes. (aka: gillies) I told her not to worry about it, if it hurt too much, just bow to the judge and move back in line. Well, she made it through the dance and received a fifth place trophy.

This award was in memory of Stephany Wood Perfect, an Irish Dancer that was killed in a car accident not too long ago. Quite special. Below is her receiving the award with the other competitors and who I believe is Stephany's mother. (long story, but I didn't hear the announcement. Got the picture, though!)

This was Sarah's first time competing in a feis, so she was a little nervous. Not as nervous as her mother, however. LOL I always tend to be nervous enough for both of them. Below is a picture of her, ready to begin her first dance. She looked up and saw me and smiled. Good girl!

Both of the girls danced beautifully, and more importantly had fun and did their best! We are so proud of them both. It is always nice to bring home medals, and they did, but it's more important to have a fun experience and know that there's only so much you can control. Our girls weren't wearing the flashy dresses that can cause dancers to get the judge's attention, and feel more like a "winner" or a "better dancer". We told them they need to be stronger mentally and to dance with even better technique to get the judges attention. They will have those dresses as they progress through the higher levels, but for this feis, they had their mental solo dresses on. I believe they grew a little more in character from this experience and that's always a great thing. Their friends were very encouraging and supportive and I hope we were as supportive to them. We had a great time and we're so very proud of our young ladies!

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