Stuck or Overloaded: What Your Irish Dancer Needs Before the Oireachtas

The wig is out, the dress is hanging on the back of the bedroom door, and the video from the Great Britains, or whichever competition your dancer danced most recently, is paused on the same moment you’ve already watched again and again.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, there might be a thought you haven’t said out loud: if this carries on, they won’t qualify.

If that’s you, you’re not on your own. It’s one of the most common things parents feel at this point in the season, and it comes from how much you care. The instinct that follows is to add: an extra class, more drills, more full dances at home. Adding feels like doing something, and when the Oireachtas is just around the corner, doing something feels like the only option.

Here’s what I’d want you to know first...

Stuck or overloaded??

Most of the dancers I see at this point in the season aren’t stuck because they’re doing too little. They’re overloaded, working on six corrections at once and giving each one a tiny bit of attention.

A few signs your dancer might be overloaded rather than stuck:

Every practice is about a different correction. Toes one night, arms the next, kicks the night after.

One correction gets better and another slips. The moment the focus moves, the last thing they fixed goes back to how it was.

They can’t tell you what they’re working on. Ask them and you get a long list, or simply “everything”.

The same feedback keeps coming back. And it keeps coming back after all that work, which is the most frustrating part for everyone.

One correction often sits underneath the rest

Corrections are connected, and more often than not there’s one sitting underneath several others.

When I was dancing, I couldn’t get my kicks up. Everybody thought it was my legs, and in the end the kicks were taken out of my dances altogether. I still won the Worlds at 15, but nobody ever looked at my lower back, which was what needed unlocking and lengthening. I still work on it today, and at 34 my kicks are higher than they were when I was competing, because I’m finally working on the right thing.

All those hours went into my legs when my lower back was the one thing. That’s what happens when a dancer works on everything at once: the correction underneath gets the same small share as all the others, and the others keep coming back because the root never changes.

The calm plan before the Oireachtas

Here’s how I’d use the weeks you have...

Write down every correction your dancer has been given recently. All of them, without judging any of them. Seeing the list on paper usually explains a lot.

Find the one underneath. Look for the correction that, if it changed, would make the others easier. Your teacher gives your dancer the What, and finding the Why behind it is where the change starts.

Give that one thing the extra drills and work. Leave everything else for class, where your teacher is already looking after it.

Protect your dancer’s energy. In the weeks before an Oireachtas, rest counts as preparation too, and a tired dancer can’t show the work they’ve put in.

Park any big or new correction close to the day. In the last few days, let your dancer rely on their preparation and walk on stage thinking about their dancing.

For parents

Choosing one thing can feel like doing less when so much is riding on this part of the season. It’s the opposite. It’s the first time all that effort is pointed in the same direction, and dancers FEEL the difference when practice finally has a focus.

If you’d like to find your dancer’s one thing, my free quiz takes two minutes. It finds the correction that’s really holding your dancer back, and then I’ll walk you through a free 5-day challenge so you understand the Why behind it 💚

👉 Take my free quiz: movewithmeg.co.uk/unlock-your-1-focus