Sean-nós & Set Dance with Maldon
Specializing in easy to follow step by step instruction for all levels
Live classes, past, current and future.
Hello dancers,
Welcome to Irish Set Dancing at PCC. We will focus the next 4 classes on the dancing from County Clare, Ireland.
Dance List
11.20.2026 – 3rd Friday ceili John Whelan (held at 3300 SE Woodword Street)
I decided to record my dance practice this month, partly for my own benefit so I can look back, but also to share how I practice and how I’m trying to develop that practice.
Some of it will be learning steps, choreographing, learning to work with a metronome, or just plain dancing to tunes and albums. Whatever comes up in my practice this month!
Some of it may be of interest to you, and you might find something helpful for your own dancing. Mostly, I want to share the process. It’s not all perfect. There’s experimenting, trying things out, getting stuck, playing, and creating. That’s all part of the practice.
Kitty Lie Over is such an amazing album. I’ve listened to it hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
I’m working on developing my own dance practice and making it more internal—creating material for myself to perform, practice, enjoy, and play with, alongside the material I create for teaching.
I’ve decided to work my way through each tune on this album, creating steps, little chunks of dancing, and hopefully complete, mapped-out sequences that follow the tunes.
Sticking with a mapped-out step is a weakness in my dancing, and something I want to work on. I’d like to practice a sequence enough that I can dance it comfortably up to speed, then bring my natural inclination to improvise into and around it.
I also want to bring in vocabulary and steps I don’t always use, giving them enough time and attention that they become more natural in my dancing and start showing up more often in my improvisations.
And I get to spend more time dancing to music I love.
Student guide | Fridays, September 25–October 16, 2026 | 6:30–8:20 PM
Over four Fridays, we will explore three sets from Cork and Kerry, then meet at the Third Friday Céilí to dance with live music. We will learn a few movements, put them into dances, and review familiar moves as they appear again. Come to enjoy the dancing. There is no need to study or practice between classes. Also each week if you would like to dance the set of the week to live music we will be dancing it at Steeplejack on Hawthornes Tuesdays at 6:30pm.
We will learn the figures that fit our time and our group. The lists below are references for anyone who wants to look back or explore further; you do not have to memorize them.
On each weekly page you will find video references and under the resource page you will find video and music playlists as well as more set dancing resouces.
Missing a class or forgetting a move is no problem. We will review as we dance. I have your back!
County Kerry · We began with the polka step, moving in place and around the set, then practiced the swing, house around, and square the house. We found our places in the set and brought those movements into Televara. The set includes jigs, slides, and a reel.
The movements below listed in the order they appear in the dance. A move is listed when it first appears, so recurring moves are not repeated.
From County Cork
Instructions and music reference
This week we’ll build on the polka step and partner movements from our first class, introducing Borlin’s quarterhouse and bringing the skills into the set.
Find the rhythm with the polka step, dancing in place and traveling. Briefly revisit the swing, house around, square the house, and home positions as needed.
Introducing the quarterhouse: jump kick. Practice slowly with a partner, then try it with music. Offer a gentler heel-drop option for the jump.
Practice the crossed-hand lead around and follows chain. Bring the movements into half sets or full sets, reviewing familiar skills where they occur.
Begin with Figure 1 — Follows Chain, walking through the movements and then dancing with music.
Continue one figure at a time as the group is ready:
The hornpipe figure is optional.
If there is time: Revisit a familiar figure from the Televara Set.
Dance reference: https://setdanceteacher.ie/borlin.htm
Waverly United Church, 3300 SE Woodward, Porltand, Or. No expeirence needed.
7-10pm
Dance List
Places to dance Sets in Portland
Hello dancers,
For the next 8 Wednesday evenings
The goal of this course is not to collect as many steps as possible.
The goal is to be able to dance.
Some of my favorite dancers have only a handful of steps. What makes their dancing compelling is not how many steps they know. It is how they use what they have, how they listen, and how they play with the music.
This week we begin with three pieces of vocabulary: 3 Shuffles, 2 Shuffles, and 4 Heels.
Intermediates you will have grapevine step & triplets.
These are building blocks, not a routine you have to reproduce.
One movement is enough to begin. A handful of movements can make a lot of dancing.
And one step is enough to begin.
Intermedates
Practice does not have to be long, formal, or happen on a dance floor. Thirty seconds counts. One small piece counts. Coming back to it counts.
This week, beginners learn Cross Step and revisit 3 Shuffles, 2 Shuffles, and 4 Heels. Intermediates learn a cross step with extra beats and build on Grapevine and triplets, exploring direction, both sides, and connections to familiar movements.
Our focus is on making the movements more comfortable and finding our way from one to another.
I once found myself practicing a tiny piece of a dance step in the cheese aisle at the grocery store. It helped change the way I thought about practice.
You can practice while the kettle boils, while waiting for something, or during a little pause in your day. You don’t always need music or a whole step.
This week we’ll use a word I say often: woodshed.
To woodshed something means to take out one small piece, slow it down, repeat it, listen to it, and then put it back into the larger movement.
When something feels tangled, ask:
Where is my weight? Where does it need to be?
Notice which foot is available for the next movement. Sometimes changing a step to a tap—or a tap to a step—opens up a connection.
Make the weight change obvious at first. You can make it smaller as it becomes familiar.
Choose two movements. Dance the first into the second, then reverse the order.
For beginners, try Cross Step and one movement from Week 1. Intermediates can try Grapevine and something already in their feet.
If the connection feels sticky, practice just the end of the first movement and the beginning of the second. Then put them back together and try with music.
These are experiments. You don’t have to memorize a particular sequence.
Choose one comfortable movement as your Home Base. This is the step that is easies for you and that you can come back between playing with these steps. My dance teacher Mick calles this is banner step.
Put on a jig. Begin with your home base step and bring in another movement when you’re ready.
If you get lost, return to home base. Listen. Choose again.
You don’t have to use everything you know every time you dance.
Choose one thing that helps today:
This is a menu, not a checklist.
What felt more comfortable this week? Where could a tiny moment of practice fit into your day?
Different people learn in different ways. You may need to see something, hear it, copy it, stop watching it, slow it down, repeat it, understand the weight, or feel the whole thing first.
You may even need a different approach for different movements.
This week we add 8 Shuffles and begin treating our practice tools as a Learning Menu.
A restaurant menu gives you choices. It is not a checklist.
You would not go into a restaurant, look at the menu, and think: “I have to eat all of this.” You couldn’t. You’d make yourself unwell!
Our Learning Menu works the same way. Choose one thing that sounds useful. Try it. If it helps, stay with it. If it doesn’t, choose something else.
Don’t eat the whole menu.
https://maldonmeehan.com/there-isnt-one-right-way-to-learn/
Listen to the sound first, without music.
Then ask a new question: can the same or similar sound be made with a different movement?
Intermediates – run on and madness
What do my feet DO? What do my feet SOUND like?
Experiment with step, tap, shuffle, or weight change. Then return to The Black Rogue.
If you are stuck, you do not always need to try the same thing harder. Change your approach.
You do not have to use my menu. You might say the rhythm, write something down, use your hands, sleep on it, or invent another way that works for you.
Instead of “I can’t do this,” ask: “What else could I try?”
Leaving something alone is not the same as giving up.
Giving up says: “I can’t do this.”
Leaving it alone says: “My feet don’t have this yet. I’ll come back.”
Use exactly the same concepts with more vocabulary: Step-Heel-Step, hips, Run On with Pause, triplets, weight changes, direction, and anything already in your feet.
Progression: Hear it → make it → repeat it → change it → remember what you did.
Music note: Tatter Jack Walsh — 80 / 100.
Intermediate additions: Explore making Tip Step with Click two-sided; deliberately choose whether to repeat or change sides. Try a drum in different jig rhythms.
Tonight’s reminder: “You’re already dancing. Three movements are enough.”
This is a midpoint observation, not a report card.
Minimum practice: dance three times this week and choose one focus.
Years ago, I was teaching a mixed-level sean-nós dance class at the Milwaukee Summer School.
I gave the intermediate and advanced dancers a step to work on and went to help the beginners. A little while later, I looked across the room. Everyone in the intermediate group was standing still. Not dancing. Just standing there.
Something had clearly gone wrong.
When I went back, I discovered the problem: me.
I had started by teaching the step correctly, then somewhere in the middle I had gone in a completely different direction.
They had already spent so much time working on it that I did not want to say, “Sorry! Forget everything I just taught you.” So I didn’t.
We kept going. I took the place where I had gone wrong and found a way to finish the step from there.
The mistake became a dance step.
What emerged was part of Rónán Regan’s lovely Aer Arann step and part of the unexpected direction I had taken. I still dance it. We call it the Milwaukee Step.
When we are learning, it is easy to think a mistake means: Stop. Go back. Start again.
But when you are dancing, the music is still going.
If something unexpected happens, try to keep dancing. Maybe you add an extra shuffle, land on another foot, change direction or rhythm, insert something, or forget what comes next.
Ask: What did my feet do?
Then, if you can: Repeat the mistake.
Do it again. What happens when you make the same movement on purpose? Can you repeat it a third time? Can you find your way back to something familiar?
The first time may have been an accident. The second time is an experiment.
Somewhere along the way, the “mistake” might become part of your dancing.
Intermediates – Mick Advance & Retire as a jig
Once Tip Both Sides is comfortable, do not assume there is only one way to dance it.
Pick one idea. If something unexpected happens, ask What Did My Feet Do? Try to repeat it.
Sometimes your feet do something you did not plan. Your first reaction might be: Oops. That was wrong.
This week, ask a different question: What did my feet do?
Put on a jig and dance. If something unexpected happens, try not to stop. Keep listening. Go Home if you need to. We now have enough vocabulary and steps to dance to any jig. I have designed these steps specifically to help you improvise and play. Each step or chunk ends with a tap or a step, which alows you to transition to the other foot or stay on the same foot. As you play with dancing this is one of the most helpful tools the ablity to do anything next based on a step or a tap. It creates so much freedom.
The first time may have been an accident. The second time is an experiment. By the third time, you might be making a choice.
Try making mistakes on purpose.
Start with something you know and mess with it.
Collect the mistakes.
How many ways can something go “wrong” while you still keep dancing?
Some will be awkward. Some will make you laugh. Some will not work. Every once in a while you may think: Wait. I like that.
I make “mistakes” every time I dance. That is partly because I am making choices while I dance. I am listening, responding, and trying things.
Mistakes can be evidence that you’re trying something new.
Choose one mistake that made you curious. Ask: What can I do with this?
First, find it again. Then change one thing.
Don’t eat the whole menu.
Try changing emphasis without necessarily changing the movement.
Try putting something in the middle of two familiar movements: a shuffle, tip, heel, step, tap, or pause. See if you can find your way out.
Try the other side. Notice what changes in weight, transition, or what you want to do next.
Then stop experimenting and dance. Do not try to demonstrate everything you found.
You don’t always need more vocabulary. Sometimes you can do more with the vocabulary you already have.
Put on a jig. No exercise to complete. No required vocabulary.
Start when you are ready. Make choices. If you make a “mistake,” keep going. Go Home if you need to.
Collect a mistake if something catches your attention, but do not turn the whole dance into analysis.
Reflection: What mistake did you collect? Could you repeat it? Did it become an experiment? Did you keep anything? Did you reject anything? What happened when you kept dancing instead of restarting?
Intermediate: same concept, richer vocabulary. Deliberately manipulate beat, direction, emphasis, weight, endings, and transitions.
Teaching is the final stage of learning. Learn one, do one, teach one. Teach your step to someone else. This will help you clarify the step and help you figure out exactly what is going on with the step.
Hello dancers,
For the next three Wednesday evenings, I’ll be leading a guided Keep Her Lit dance session:
September 2, 9, and 16
6:00 PM Pacific
Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84235671611?pwd=XQ3CucBEyzT016HK0O4Ts7zKNGiJ2p.1
These three sessions will lead us into our new eight-week fall course, beginning September 23.
I’d like to approach these weeks the way I prepare for a performance. We’ll revisit tunes, tracks, and steps from our library of past material, while also relying on what comes naturally to our own bodies and feet.
I’ll do a bit of both—dancing set steps and simply improvising or freestyling with the tunes.
Practice as much as you like between sessions, or just show up and dance what you’re able to. Come ready to have fun, keep the tunes and steps lit, and be kind to yourself.
See you Wednesday!
Maldon
Wednesday, September 2
6:00 PM PT • 7:00 PM MT • 8:00 PM CT • 9:00 PM ET
Join me on Zoom for a guided old-style step and sean-nós dance session. I’ll provide the playlist, and we’ll dance together.
You can dance your own steps or try material you have learned in class. This is a safe place to practice your steps with music.
Keep ’er lit and dance full-out, enjoy the tunes and see what comes out of your feet, or dance one step for the entire session. It is entirely up to you.
This is a chance to bring your steps up to dance speed, play with the music, and see what happens.
We’ll begin with these dances and steps, then see where the music and our feet take us.
Choose from:
Dance the Sunday Set steps to jig music. Notice what changes and what your feet naturally want to do with the different rhythm.
Choose from:
Choose from:
You do not need to remember or dance everything on this list. Choose what feels familiar, repeat one step for an entire tune, improvise, or simply see what comes out of your feet.
We’ll start here and see what happens. Keep ’er lit!
Open dancing to the playlist if there is time.
Mix and match and pull from all the movement to dance to other tunes.
I had planned to continue with our September playlist tonight, featuring some great musicians—including several who will be at the O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat.
But today is a sad day. Paddy Keenan passed away.
Paddy was one of the musicians who started me on Irish music. When I was a teenager, I listened to hours and hours of The Bothy Band.
In the two weeks leading up to the Third Friday Céilí, my dad would bring out album after album to get us geared up. The closer we got to the céilí, the more music filled our house. Paddy was always in the mix.
Years later, I had the pleasure of producing a Portland concert with Paddy and Tommy O’Sullivan. Their album has been in my regular rotation since it was released in 2001.
Tonight, we will listen to Paddy, dance to his music, and enjoy the amazing body of work he shared with us. I will review our Keep ’er Lit steps so we have them in the mix, but mostly, tonight will be about listening and dancing. Try any steps that suit you.
Paddy was very generous with his words and his music. He will be greatly missed.
Steps: Connemara Reels, Connemara Jigs, Páraig Ó Haibicín’s Steps, Maybe: Maggie Pickie?
Mix and match last weeks steps and elements with this weeks steps and elements.
Wednesday, September 9
6:00 PM PT • 7:00 PM MT • 8:00 PM CT • 9:00 PM ET
Choose from:
Choose from:
Week by Week
| Mondays | Wednesdays | |
| Week 1 | 3 Play with a varity of videos and instruments. | 5 Work independently on a video of your choice. |
| Week 2 | 10 Contuinue to work on your videos. | 12 Contuinue to work on your videos. Find the same tune by another musician or instrument. |
| Week 3 | 17 | 19 |
| Patti teaching her steps | Keep Her Lit – Tolka Polka | |
| Week 4 | 24 | 26 |
| Keep Her Lit – Accapella Jigs, Grapevine jigs | The Sunday Set | |
| Week 5 | 31 | |
| No Class! |
Throughout this month, we’re using video recordings of musicians and different instruments to explore how the musician can guide our dancing.
Watch how each musician creates the music. For example:
I’ve created a YouTube playlist for the whole month. If you find a video that inspires you, please add it to the playlist.
Find a video featuring a tune, musician, or instrument that inspires you to dance—something you’d like to explore—and bring it to class on Wednesday.
We’ll work individually with our own selections and then come together as a group to explore what each tune, musician, and instrument brings to our dancing.
If you’re working with a whole set of tunes, or you want to jump directly to a particular moment in the video, save the link at the exact timestamp you want.
On YouTube:
That way, in class you can go directly to the B part, a particular tune, a musician’s phrase, or whatever moment you want to explore.
Here are the tunes and musicians everyone is working with. I’ve also added them to the full playlist in case you’d like to explore each other’s selections.
You are all wonderful dancers, and you’ve chosen some really interesting music to dance to! Each of you chose your music for different reasons, and I think we can learn a lot from one another by exploring what the others are hearing, seeing, and responding to.
I learn so much when someone sends me a musician or tune they’re listening to—it often makes me hear or see something I hadn’t noticed before.
Niall & Cillian Vallely
Cormac Begley
Nathan Gourley & Laura Fedderson
The Maid of Selma
Listen to Shannon’s breathing and notice the space she creates when she takes a breath. Katrina asked a great question: Can you dance in the space? Absolutely! My instinct when working with a wind instrument or a singer is often to leave that space—to let the breath be part of the dance. But that’s only one choice. You can also dance through the space, play with it, fill it, or respond to it in another way entirely. There are so many ways to dance to traditional music. That’s exactly what we’re exploring!
Martin Hayes
Step-by-step teaching. Great for breaking down the tune and learning it in your feet. Sheila spent a lot of time just listening to the music. This is such a great way to learn a tune: get it in your ears before you put it on your instrument—or, for us, into our feet. As rhythmic backers, we’re creating our own backing for the tune. It may take us even longer than a melody player to really learn the tune, hear what’s happening inside it, and discover what we want to dance within it and create something or improvise.
Reel Set: Brenda Stubbert’s / The Ale Is Dear / Barrowburn
Beth has a whole set of tunes, so the timestamp trick will be especially helpful here.
There are some very cool variations and rhythmic patterns happening throughout these tunes. It could be really fun to explore all three and notice how your dancing changes from tune to tune.
These patterns may show up in other tunes, too, and by exploring them here, you’ll have more rhythmic options in your wheelhouse. It might also be really interesting to take some of these rhythmic patterns and try them with completely different tunes. How do they land? Do they still work? Do they make you hear or dance the tune differently?
Martin, Roberts, Compton & Jordan
Watch the musicians’ fingers and see how you might use their movements to inspire steps, rhythms, or movements in your own feet.
Katrina has worked with this tune before. I love returning to tunes I already know because each time I come back, I discover something I didn’t hear or see before.
Sometimes knowing a tune really well gives us even more freedom to explore. We don’t have to concentrate as much on learning the tune, so we can pay attention to other things happening in the music—or notice what the tune brings out in our dancing.
This week, we continued working with the tunes and musicians everyone chose during Week 1. We are listening more deeply, noticing what is happening within the music, and allowing our dancing to grow from what we hear.
I noticed that almost everyone began sharing their work by telling us what was wrong with it, what wasn’t finished, or what they didn’t like.
I want to encourage all of us to notice that habit.
I have been studying life coaching, and one of the things I want to bring into our classes is helping you develop confidence in your own dancing and creative work.
There is no wrong here.
As sean-nós dancers, we are playing—or backing—the tune with our feet. There is so much freedom in that.
Traditionally, sean-nós dancing was often learned informally. People watched, listened, copied, experimented, and found their own way of responding to the music. Steps were shared and borrowed, but the dancing was not about reproducing one prescribed piece of choreography exactly.
That freedom is still available to us.
A movement might feel wonderful with one tune and completely different with another. You might leave space, dance through the space, follow the melody, answer the musician, create a steady rhythm underneath the tune, or move across the musical phrases. These are all choices—not mistakes.
When you share your work, try beginning with:
You do not have to apologize for work that is still developing. Exploring, changing, and experimenting is the work.
Beth has narrowed her focus to Barrowburn and is working with simple steps, including Róisín’s Connemara steps, while adding her own variations.
Set is dancing it at 80% speed. In the A part, Beth has a lovely upward movement with her heel that makes me so happy every time I see it!
During the second time through the A part, there are also some beautiful long bow sounds that could be fun to explore. Beth might lengthen a movement, allow something to stretch, or discover another way for her feet to respond to those sustained sounds.
The B part contains some busier sounds, and Beth is dancing some lovely “grinds” there. The contrast between the long sounds in the A part and the busier rhythms of the B part gives her many possibilities to play with.
Katrina’s steps for the A part are set, and it is so lovely. I love how she dances them again when the A part comes around. They fit so well.
In the B part she has space and more variations.
Katrina is also working with Trip to Sligo.
Edith is practicing steps she wants to develop.
She is also experimenting with dancing across the bars rather than always keeping a step contained neatly within one musical phrase or following the tune exactly. This creates a lovely feeling of movement and continuity.
It is exciting to see Edith use the tune as a place to strengthen familiar material while also exploring a different relationship to the musical structure.
Patti’s piece to The Maid of Selma. She is dancing it at 90% speed.
She has been listening closely to Shannon’s breathing, varations and to the spaces created within the music. Patti can continue deciding when she wants to honor that space, dance through it, fill it, or allow her own movement to breathe with the music.
We also talked about sharing the finished piece with Shannon. It would be wonderful for her to see how her playing inspired Patti’s dancing.
I am working with Ger Commane’s reel and exploring how my feet can respond to the tune.
I am doing the same work I am asking each of you to do: listening, experimenting, trying ideas, changing them, and allowing the dance to develop over time.
My work does not begin as a finished dance, either. I discover it by spending time with the music. As you know I can not dance right now so I am doing all of this with my hands and voice to create the sounds I am hearing. I have one phrase in the a part where I want it and am still listening the the whole tune. I sepnd an hour to get to that far. Be pacient with yourself creation takes time.
Keep working with your chosen tune or video. You do not need to finish or perfect anything.
Instead, notice:
Most importantly, begin by noticing what is working.
You are not trying to find the one correct dance hidden inside the tune. You are building a relationship with the music and discovering how you want to dance with it.nt to dance with it.e building a relationship with the music and discovering how you want to dance with it.
Patti is dancing The Maid of Selma at 90% speed.
I love the strong pulse she creates with the run-on step. She also dances a variation the second time through the A part, which gives it a lovely sense of development.
Patti has been listening closely to Shannon’s playing and responding to Shannon’s variations. So cool!
In the B part, Patti is exploring some very cool offbeat steps and double toes.
Katrina is continuing to practice her reel and is also working with The Chieftains’ recording of Trip to Sligo.
She is exploring a grapevine step and Kieran’s jig step. Here are a few additional options from the website that she—or anyone else—might enjoy playing with:
The Coatroom Jigs include the step-shuffle-and-bang pattern that Katrina says is so satisfying! There are lots of options here to play with and try against the tune.
This week, we will work in pairs in breakout rooms and take turns teaching our steps to each other.
Teaching is one of the final stages of learning or creating a step. When you teach a step to someone else, you discover more details about it. You have to slow it down, understand the weight changes, and figure out exactly what your feet are doing.
The secret to improving my dancing—and creating cleaner sounds—has been teaching. Teaching has allowed me to practice steps for much longer than I might have practiced them on my own. It also helps me understand exactly what is happening inside a step.
Dancing slowly helps us discover things, just as dancing quickly helps us discover different things.
There is a philosophy of learning:
Learn one. Do one. Teach one.
This week, I want each of us to learn someone else’s step. Through this process, both the teacher and the student will discover new things.
The teacher may:
The student will have an opportunity to:
Each of you is doing very cool work and finding your own ways of responding to the tunes. Teaching your step to another dancer is one more way to deepen that connection—to the step, the music, and one another.
Remember: you do not need to teach your step perfectly. Your partner does not need to reproduce it perfectly, either. We are exploring together.
Each person will have a turn as both teacher and student.
When you are the teacher:
When you are the student:
Most importantly, be patient and curious with yourselves and each other. This is not a test. It is another way for us to listen, explore, and dance the tune together.
The Maid of Selma – Shannon Heaton
Patti – please correct me if I’m wrong on any of this. PDF file with Patti’s notes.
| A | B |
| Part A1: Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L) Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) heel-down (L) step (R) shuffle (L) Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) shuffle (L), step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) heel-down (L) step (R) shuffle (L) Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L) Heel (L), heel (R), heel (L), heel (R) Part A2: Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L)Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R)Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L)Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) heel-down (L) step (R) shuffle (L)Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L) Heel (L), heel (R), heel (L), heel (R) | Part B: Slide together (extend L out, follow with R) Heel-toe-down (L) heel-toe-down (R) heel-toe-down (L) (ie: 3 hips) Heel-down (R) heel-down (L) Heel-toe-down (R) heel-toe-down (L) (ie: 2 hips) Heel-down (R) heel-down (L) Heel-toe-down (R) heel-toe-down (L) (ie: 2 hips) The last “down (L)” from above becomes the “Step (L)” below: Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L) Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) shuffle (L) hop (R) toe (L) hop (R) (“toe” is point of left toe tapping behind) Step (L) shuffle (R) hop (L) toe (R) hop (L) (“toe” is point of right toe tapping behind) (The hop can be a heel drop.) Step (R) shuffle (L), step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) heel-down (L) step (R) shuffle (L) Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L) Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) shuffle (L), step (L) shuffle (R) Heel (R), heel (L), heel (R), heel (L) repeat opposite |
| A | B | C |
| A | A | E |
| B | C | C |
| A | A | D |
| B | D | D |
This is a simple breakdown of the phrases in the tune.
Tolka Polka
Week by Week
| Mondays | Wednesdays | |
| Week 1 | 29 | 1 |
| NO CLASS | NO CLASS | |
| Week 2 | 6 | 8 |
| Leitrim Thrush | Leitrim Thrush | |
| Week 3 | 13 | 15 |
| Aarons Key | The Star | |
| Week 4 | 20 | 22 |
| Tolka Polka | NO CLASS | |
| Week 5 | 27 | 29 |
| Tolka Polka Review & Keep Her Lit | Review & Keep Her Lit |
Play with variations, adding ornamentions into your steps and improvising your steps. You can map these out or keep it lose and in your toolbox to bring out while dancing the tune.
3rd tune in the set. July Music Recordings – These are rough recordings for learning and practicing only. These are from the Colúr band (Autumn, Ben and Maldon).
Week by Week
| Mondays | Wednesdays | |
| Week 1 | 1 | 4 |
| No Class | Jigs | |
| Week 2 | 8 | 10 |
| Hare’s Paw | Hare’s Paw (no video) | |
| Week 3 | 15 | 17 |
| A&R Mick & Wilie Clare Battering 1,2,3 & Mick off beat | A&R Mick & Wilie Clare Battering 1,2,3 & Mick off beat | |
| Week 4 | 22 | 24 |
| Teampaill an Ghleann | Waltz Clog | |
| Week 5 | 29 All Material |
Build on steps and play – No video for this session. Work on your own with the steps and make them your own.