Official rules in the world of Irish dancing
There are many, many rules involved in Irish dancing, especially where the competitions are concerned - just as there are in any other competition sport.
CLRG has, over time, issued several rulebooks, all of which are in the possession of the CLRG-registered teachers. Trust us, these teachers know their jobs perfectly well, so we by no means want to list the complete set of CLRG rules here, there's no need for that.
You can have a look at a small selection of rules that a competition dancer should know, with a short explanation of each, on our "feiseanna for dummies" pages.
But.
Irish dancing is pretty young in these parts of the world. Many dancers - or prospective dancers - do not have access to a teacher on a regular basis, who can explain the rules clearly. Furthermore, most dancers around here are not native English speakers, and the rules being written in "rule-language" ;) (as rules always are, no matter what the original language, or the subject), they are often misunderstood or interpreted in...ehm... *original ways* 
As a result, we have noticed that there are many misconceptions, rumours, and strange interpretations buzzing around, not only on the Internet (fora and blogs and the like), but also over a coffee (or a Guinness 
) in the bar after a workshop, a feis, a ceili night...
In these pages, we will try to make some of the more misunderstood (parts of) rules a bit clearer, especially to the non-english speaking dancer, and most especially to those who depend on workshops for their learning, and do not have a teacher available on a regular basis.
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