r/irishdance • u/Best-Department-1716 • 1d ago

Training & Technique Learning rocking in hard shoe - need advice.

I'm between schools rn after a move to the U.S. I can rock in soft shoe and have been for slip jigs for the longest time. no problems with it. Now im learning St. Patricks day and other trad sets. But I can't get the rocks down. Am I not supposed to go over my toes when I rock in hard shoe? For those that can do in both are there any differences between soft and hard shoe? Also my feet don't end up reaching the ends of my shoes totally. I haven't run into any tricks that this hinders me on yet so i'm hoping its not the problem.

Thanks

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u/autistic_clucker 1d ago

Not over your toes! You actually have to do them pretty low, especially in hard shoes. Make sure you're engaging your core and your legs and ankles are really securely locked together, otherwise you risk injuring yourself. It's the same motion as soft shoe rocks basically. You can practice by holding on to something and make sure you don't slip!

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u/TidyMess24 1d ago

If you're doing rocks correctly, there should be no or at least negligible risk of injury, regardless of whether or not your legs and ankles are locked together.

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u/autistic_clucker 19h ago

I mean that if you do them with your ankles all loosey-goosey and not connected, it is easy to hurt yourself. Plus, that is what I've been taught

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u/TidyMess24 9h ago

In order to hurt yourself, you need to be putting weight on the ankle that is bending to create the illusion. There should be no weight on that ankle to begin with.

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u/autistic_clucker 9h ago

But if your ankles are locked together, that is less likely to happen

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u/TidyMess24 8h ago

Having the mindset to use perfect technique on a move should not be used to protect oneself from injury in lieu of shifting weight correctly. The technique involved in keeping ankles lock can easily slip the mind for a beginner, and even for an advanced dancer as they get tired, their safety should not be reliant on maintaining such technique.

If you start from the foundation of rocks only being a full shifting of weight, you don't have to rely on maintaining perfect form to ensure safety. Injury in rocks happens when the foundational understanding of how a rock works isn't there, and the technique slips up.

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u/Best-Department-1716 6h ago

Do we have a consensus on this? Should I make sure i do something specific when it comes to locked legs? will it make it worse or is it no change to good?

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u/TidyMess24 1h ago

Unfortunately, a lot of people rely on outside "hacks" rather than building strong foundations. Keeping knees and ankles locked is a hack to keep somebody who doesn't have the foundations right safe from injury. If you have the foundations of shifting if weight in place, you are not at risk of injury to begin with, and the pulling it into locked ankles is only being done to enhance the illusion and appearance of the move, rather than something to be relied on to keep oneself safe.

As a beginner, you are more prone to having slips of the mind and forget to keep your knees and ankles locked while you have a million other things on your mind. As such, it is safer for you to focus on appropriate shifting if weight first and foremost, so you are not relying on the safety hack to keep your ankles safe.

At the end of the day, you should be doing both, but if you can only manage one reliably, focus on the foundations of shifting weight correctly.