Someone once shared with me a helpful hint that worked for him.

When learning jig time, your emphasis in on the 1 and 4 of the 1-2-3-4-5-6 beats. My friend was taught to think of it in terms of accents and use the phrase "apples and oranges" in counting out the beats. You would naturally emphasize the first syllable "a" in the words "apples and" then emphasize the first syllable "or" in the word "oranges". This will get you away from just counting up to 1-2-3-4-5-6 over and over without any clearly defined pattern.

Incidently, reel time could be counted using the word "watermelon".

Just shining a bit of fruit on the subject!

Rose