Do you have any tips on how to world qualify? I've been working super hard up until this point and oireachtas is only a week away, I'm scared that I won't reach this goal because my group is too difficult
Unfortunately, that kind of thing is out of your control. You can only focus on dancing your absolute best. It also differs drastically in each competition, as some age groups will qualify over 20 people and others will only qualify 5. When you say your group is difficult, it could mean that you would get 20th place in your group and 8th in another, all based on your age group and competition even if you danced the same. That is the nature of a competition where judging is subjective and you canāt control how many other dancers show up or whom they are, or even how they are going to dance.
However, what you can focus on is dancing strong. It took me 8 years of Oireachtasi to qualify for Worlds. It has taken me almost 19 years and Iāve never placed higher than 4th at Oireachtas, after 15 times. It is tough. Iāve always been in a difficult group of talented ladies across the board. What kills me and affects my performance is when I focus too much on how I stack up against them instead of focusing on what I can do. And I can relate to you on the stress of Oireachtas because I always seem to perform better on a larger stage, and Oireachtas can be high anxiety and high pressure for me especially knowing there are more than 20 girls vying for the top 10, and easily 5-8 of us who could win no problem and/or have won before.
Assuredly you are a talented dancer. You are trained, have prepared, and are capable of dancing well on your best day ā well enough to qualify for Worlds. What you canāt have is a mindset of fear, because that will affect you too much and put too much pressure on you. Let it go. Enjoy the dance. Be strong. Fall on your training. Dance freely, with passion, with oomph.
If thereās anything you can do in less than a week to be even more ready, itās NOT TO DANCE REALLY HARD IN CLASS. One of the biggest mistakes is that dancers train super duper hard the last week thinking it will help. NO. You have to taper your training off and allow your body to rest and recover. I promise. I have tested this personally and thereās a lot of research in athletics to back this up. Do yourself a favor and rest. You will dance better if you do. But anyway, what I meant to say here is that the one thing you can do to help a lot in just this last week is to visualize. Not only visualize yourself dancing well, getting all your steps, heeding all your TCās corrections, but visualize yourself qualifying. Fill yourself with positivity and not with fear; be as confident as you can be each time. The good news is that visualizing will help a lot and will also mean you can let your body rest.
I hope that helps! I have definitely been where you are (and in my own way am in that boat, trying to get off it, this year myself) and have tried to mentally shift so that I can actually dance my best. I will always care what other people think, and will always wish I wouldāve danced/placed/felt better, but the goal is to make sure I have no regrets, knowing I did everything I could. And I have had a number of those moments in my career and it is comforting having that feeling even when the placements donāt match it. So, therein lies the disconnect I mentioned in my opening paragraph, and I hope you can conquer your fear and succeed in dancing amazingly at your Oireachtas. It takes conscious effort mentally and will go against everything youāve been thinking as of late, but you can do it. You have to do it.
