A La Cañada Elementary student is wowing international championships in competitive Irish dancing

Sometimes we pick our passions, and sometimes they pick us.

For a testament to the former, seek out any college student on registration day. To confirm the latter, look no further than La Cañada’s own Jonathan Shirley, an 11-year-old whose international career as a competitive Irish dancer began some seven years ago with a case of influenza and a VHS tape.

Shirley was in preschool and stuck at home with the flu with his mom, Deborah. Bored and sick, they were in need of something to keep them entertained.

“We didn’t have much, but my mom did have my grandma’s copy of ‘Riverdance,’” Jonathan recalled in a recent interview.

The youngster watched it and was transfixed by the impeccability of the dancers’ form and footwork. Their discipline, coupled with the creativity and flow of their body movements and costumes, was thrilling to behold. “Play it again,” he’d tell his mom at least two more times that day.

Over the following days and weeks, the youngster’s flu subsided but his desire to learn Irish dancing only grew, Deborah Shirley recalls.

“You asked for [lessons] for so long,” she says, laughing at the memory of her young son’s persistence.

Deborah and husband Chad eventually discovered Cleary Irish Dance, a family-run business that operates out of a main studio in Burbank and holds lessons in Pasadena, Silver Lake and North Hollywood.

Jonathan took weekly classes and was hooked. After a year or more, he competed in his first feis (pronounced “fesh” in Irish, referring to a cultural festival or gathering) and soon bumped up the lessons to twice weekly. As time went on he moved up the ranks, getting competitively stronger as his passion for dance grew.

Since then, Jonathan has competed in team and solo events from Seattle to San Diego and from Vegas to Virginia. This year, he spent spring break in Scotland and England after competing in the world championships in Glasgow. Next year, he plans to travel to Dublin.

“I’ve gone lots of places with my dancing,” he says, between sips of milk through a straw.

In July, Jonathan won first place in the under-11 category at the 2016 North American Irish Dance Championships in Orlando, Fla., in both the team and solo competitions. In April, he appeared with fellow Cleary dancers on the TV kids talent show “Little Big Shots,” hosted by Steve Harvey.

Margaret Cleary, who first founded Cleary Irish Dance for adults in 1988, says many folks come through the studio doors after watching “Riverdance,” wanting to learn more about what she considers to be both a sport and an art form.

“That basically brought attention to Irish dancing to the general public and the world,” the director said of the 1995 show-turned-video-sensation. “Now when people see Irish dancing, they say, ‘Oh, is that the Riverdance thing?’”

But what separates dilettantes and devotees of “Lord of the Dance” Michael Flatley from true Irish dance phenoms like Jonathan is dedication and a willingness to continually hone the craft.

“Hard work always beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard,” Cleary quotes a favorite maxim. “There’s no good having the natural talent if you’re not willing to put in the practice time and commitment.”

Commitment is something Jonathan has in spades. In his spare time, he’s performed assemblies at La Cañada Elementary School, where he’ll soon enter sixth grade, and at other schools. And somehow, he still manages homework and other non-dancing interests, like reading and science and engineering (in July, he attended Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala.).

Still, dancing rises to the top — Jonathan currently practices at least three hours daily from Monday through Friday and has classes on Saturday.

“Basically, I lose my weekends to dance,” Jonathan says. “But it’s still fun — it’s always fun.”

The Shirleys enthusiastically support their son’s passion and are pleased at all the good it’s brought into their lives.

“I’m so thrilled and grateful he’s found something he really loves doing and gets such a kick out of,” says Chad Shirley. “He’s already gotten so much out of it already.”

“It’s been quite an adventure,” agrees Deborah Shirley, looking at Jonathan. “I feel so immensely blessed, so fortunate, to have the opportunity to be along for the ride with you, kiddo.”

Jonathan smiles, his face still quite young but ages away from that fateful day when his future lay waiting for him, wound in the reels of a VHS tape.

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine