Cowal Fling Challenge - music

Sorting out the music was a major issue for my initial fling and could have been a problem for the Cowal Fling.

However, I decided that rather than becoming concerned whtether the music was exciting I needed to make sure that it told me where I was in my challenge.

So I decided to work from my old music and just add to it.

This gave me certain milestones where I could quickly and easilly determine my progress:

The music changed after 16, 32, 38 and then 44 steps and after this I should be able to plan my final few steps.

Pulling the music together only took a few minutes - and updating my trusty ipod only a few seconds.

SO by the start of August I was good to go (really!!!)

Cowal Fling Challenge - memorising the steps

Now that I had the steps sorted it was time to commit them to memory.

How?

Repetition.

I printed the steps (in large type) and stuck them on the mirror of my dance studio and my daily schedule was roughtly as follows:

5.00 am - get up and walk through the steps as an aid memoire and also a bit of a warm up

5.15 am - put the music on and jump through the steps

5.30 am - dance the 50

5.45 am - ease the legs out

I then tried to repeat this at night (once the gang had gone to sleep!)

Cowal Fling Challenge - steps

Figuring out my steps should be fairly easy since I had already done & scripted 42 - well not as easy as I thought!

One of my main difficulties in my 40 step fling in April was recalling the steps - not during practice sessions but when the adrenaline kicks in and tiredness starts to bite - I was determined that this would not be an issue with the Cowal fling.

There are a great number & variety of old fling steps (way more than I needed for this challenge) but I needed some that would be interesting, could be danced at speed and were easy to remember.

I decided to link my steps with the music - the music changed after 16 and then 32 steps and so it followed that I should change steps at those milestones also.

The plan was -

1 - 16: 1 first step then 15 backstepping steps

17 - 32: 8 toe and heel steps then 8 shake / rocking steps

33 - 42: pointing steps

43 - 50: 6 crossover then 2 last steps

I sorted out the steps and then started the challenge of memorising them.

Cowal Fling Challenge - how did it go?

Well, after several months of planning and several weeks of intensive training Saturday 29th August (and time for my Cowal Fling challenge) came along very quickly.

It was my favourite Cowal games weather - cool and wet - and the ceilidh tent was packed. Adrenaline, music, cheering, screaming (and that was just in my head) and some 12 1/2 minutes later it was over - 50 steps.

Want to know a bit about my build up? - OK

Muscle rub anyone?

Anyone got any spare muscle rub?

All contributions welcome, Gareth Mitchelson, 74 Dalhou.......

Fling challenge update

Training is up and down (and that's not just the hopping!)

Just back from a week's holiday and had no opportunity to train so after a quick 40 last night and another this morning the legs are a bit stiff.

Not to worry - plenty muscle rub in the drawer.

Check the Cowal Ceilidh tent blog for details

My next fling

I am back in training again.

Cowal Games have generously offered to assist in my campaign to spread awareness of the Duchenne condition by making available time in the Ceilidh Tent on the Saturday for me to attempt to push my forty step fling a bit further.

I am now sure of all the details, not have I started looking out the steps, but will keep you posted.

Gareth