How to Tie Irish Dancing Shoes
- 1). Place your right foot in one of your ghillies. The laces should cross several times along the top of the ghillie and then one last time directly in front of your ankle before wrapping around the back of your foot and going through a loop on the back of the ghillie. If there is no final cross over the top of your foot before your ankle, check to make sure the laces are not crossed behind your foot at the loop instead. If so, remove your foot and put it in again, ensuring that the laces cross in front of your ankle.
- 2). Pull the laces so that the ghillie fits snugly. The shoe should not be painfully tight but the lacing should not be so loose that the shoe can turn or slip on your foot. Check that both ends of the laces are approximately the same length. If they are not, adjust the lacing across the top of the shoe until the laces are within a few inches of the same length.
- 3). Pull each lace straight forward from the back of the shoe toward the front. Cross the laces in front of your ankle.
- 4). Pull each lace straight back from the front of your leg toward the back. Then cross the laces behind your lower leg.
- 5). Keep wrapping the laces around your leg, crossing in front and behind, until you have only a few inches of each lace left. As you wrap the laces up your leg, they should be snug but not tight. Point and flex your foot regularly as you work your way up to make sure the strings are not so tight that they limit your range of motion.
- 6). Wrap one lace under the other to form half of a knot then tie a bow with the remaining few inches, as you would with normal shoes—the difference being that the knot is probably about halfway between your ankle and your calf.
- 7). Tuck the ends of the bow under the lacing on your leg so they do not stick out.
- 8). Repeat this process with your other ghillie on your other foot.
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