Managing expectations

Another November has come and gone, and with that, another Oireachtas! It's an especially crazy time of the year for me, traveling from NYC to Syracuse for a few days, down to Philadelphia (with a brief stop in NYC, since there's no direct transportation options from Syracuse to Philly), then back to NYC and work first thing Monday morning!

This year was particularly burdensome as I not only had some large Christmas gifts to get from Syracuse to NYC, but had to manage dragging my solo dress across two states just to wear it for 20 minutes on Sunday. Granted, I could have just worn my ceili costume for trad set like I did the year before, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to get my money's worth out of my solo dress (also, who doesn't like to look the best possible on stage?).

The exciting part of this year's Oireachtas is that my cousin's daughter was competing for the first time in ceili and traditional set. Unfortunately I didn't get to see her compete as we were on different days, but I at least got to hear from her about how she did. And there's always next year! (Assuming, of course, my aunt and cousin weren't traumatized from the experience.)

The numbers for all adult competitions this year were smaller than the year before, which is a little disappointing (I personally love having a healthy field of competitors), but just the nature of things. We still had good numbers in trad set (38 competitors total) and a decent number of ladies' 4-hands (15, in fact). The mixed and ladies 8-hand competitions were small, 2 and 3 teams, respectively. 

I won't go into all the minutiae of the event itself, as it was essentially the same as the year before. If you really want to read about it, it's all right here. 

This year, I had very mixed expectations for the various dances. I didn't feel very strongly about my own 4-hand, as two out of four team members were new to our ceili class (very hypocritical, I know, as I was the newbie on our team last year), and we had some weaknesses that I felt weren't present the year before. I felt a little better on our 8-hand, especially since we had a decent number of experienced dancers and didn't run into nearly as many kinks as we did in our 4-hands in rehearsals. For trad set, I set a pretty high goal for myself - I was aiming to place in the top 5, especially after missing out on it by one place the previous year.

For the upside of everything, all of our adult competitors placed (ceili teams and trad set competitors)! My 4-hand team came in 8th place, which was also the last ranked place in the competition. Even though a lot of my concerns about my team had gone away only in the two to three weeks before Oireachtas (we really rallied and pulled everything together in a short period of time), I knew there were a lot of strong competitors, and was happy that we placed overall.

We certainly had a much bigger shock with our ladies 8-hand, however. Last year, there was some very tough competition, and this year I felt (and I don't think I was the only one) that we didn't spend nearly as much time rehearsing the 8-hand as we did the 4-hand. As we got off stage after dancing, we joked around that at least we placed in the top three (out of three teams total)!

Needless to say it was much to our surprise when the third place team was announced and it wasn't us. When second place was announced and it still wasn't us, we could only stare at each other with jaws dropped. I think we may have cheered even louder than the kids' teams did (and boy are teenage and pre-teen girls very screechy!) when our team number was finally called in first place!

Victory photo with our mixed and ladies ceili champions!

The one result I had been waiting for most anxiously was for traditional set. As I mentioned before, I came in 6th place in 2014, and wanted to place in the top 5 this year. I felt very confident - I actually knew the dance going into it (as opposed to having finished learning it about 2 weeks before Oireachtas the year before), had been dancing it on a regular basis in both shows and competitions, and felt like I could relax in comparison to my absolute panic the year before.

So how did I do? 15th place. I didn't even make the top 10. I was hugely disappointed that I had placed lower than I had the year before, especially with a smaller field of competitors. I also felt the immediate need to mask how I was feeling, as a) I had to get onstage to accept my award; b) didn't want to offend one teammate who placed lower than me; and c) didn't want to ruin the moment for another teammate in the top 5, who also ended up winning the whole thing (hooray for Molly!!!).

The one thing I learned from all this is how to manage my expectations. With ceili, I expected to not place very well (or at all), so I worked my butt off to improve on everything I possibly could. And it paid off! With trad set, I set a high goal, but then refused to follow through on what it would entail to achieve that goal. I don't know how on earth I expected to place in the top 5 without putting in at least some effort, let alone practicing non-stop like I had the year before. I clearly (in hindsight) had very unrealistic expectations considering the fact that I put the absolute minimal effort into working towards that goal.

The good thing is that I learned a lot from this. The most important lesson is that it's ok to set high goals (I had a problem setting too-low goals for myself to avoid being disappointed), but I need to put an equivalent amount of effort into meeting those goals. This has been serving me well since Oireachtas; I put a lot of effort into preparing for the O'Rourke Feis back in February, which paid off with placing 7th in championship. I'm making much more of an effort now, which I believe will pay off in the long term and make me a much better dancer than I am today.

I know that when it's put in black and white, it seems incredibly obvious. But sometimes I (and I'm sure many others) need to see it in action before I take it to heart. So what does that mean for me? Continuing to bust my butt throughout the year and place well, so that I can finally earn myself a spot up on that podium!