Click on above ad for more
LOCK up your toes! Our regular beauty columnist, Mary O’Donnell, is taking to the dance floor as a contestant in Austin Stacks ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. The event takes place on August 23 in the Festival Dome. She’ll keep us abreast of her progress through a weekly column here…
LET me start with my history of dancing.
I was the only girl in Presentation school who did not possess an Irish dancing medal. While others could decorate their rooms with medals, I could not get my head around “heel, toe, one-two-three”.
Now I’ve always loved music but to me dancing never came naturally. My husband is not into the whole dancing thing either and would offer pints to his buddies to take me round the dance floor – to this day dancing is a bone of contention for us at weddings.
I like to take to the dancefloor and he does not and therein lies the problem. This usually results with me having a face that would stop a clock.
Continued below…
That is my history of dance, so with this in mind, when Maria Hickey asked would I like to be a contestant in the Austins Stacks Strictly Come Dancing fundraiser, I laughed.
But Maria is very persuasive, so I said yes…and then I said no…but again Maria persuaded me so here we go.
Our first meeting was with Jackie O’Mahony, our dance teacher and she told us that if along the way your partner will touch you inappropriately this is known as a ‘lift’.
In other words ‘get over yourself’. I was told my dance partner was Richard Walsh and we would be meeting for our first lesson.
I convinced myself we would spend the first few sessions talking music and dancing but not actually doing the dancing. I was very wrong.
One minute I was shaking Richard’s hand having been introduced and the next we were on the dancefloor.
There is no messing with Jackie – just dive in! We decided to dance the mamba – up until then the only mumba I knew was Samantha. The dance is very fast with lots of moves, so I am a work in progress.
I seem to get the moves and forget them just as easily. Richard can dance, which is a major plus, so all I have to do is dance for three minutes, remember the moves, know left from right, not fall and smile and look like I am having the best time ever.
Jackie and Richard have been very patient with me and really encouraged me that I will pull this off.
I have enlisted the help of Joe O’Connor of Nisus fitness to get me fit and he has made out a six week plan to up the fitness while Paola Kennedy of letsgetfitireland who teaches zumba will help release the latin dancer trapped inside me.
All the dancers have sponsors, my main sponsor is Terry’s Butchers and my other sponsors are CH Chemist, Expose Beauty Salon, Sean Taaffe Hair Tralee, Eucerin and Neostrata.
So the launch night is this Saturday night, where we will do our video demo for the big night.
The result of all this will be a performance in the Dome on August 23 and I use the term ‘performance’ in the loosest possible sense.
Next week: The Launch.
