In the Club
The ultimate podcast for kids activity clubs! ClassForKids is an award-winning booking and management software trusted by 3000+ kids activity clubs.
From dance schools to football academies to gymnastics clubs to multi-sports clubs, we’re here to help kids activity providers grow and scale their business. In the Club is monthly music to your ears! Okay, not literal music, but all the advice, tips and inspiration you need!
Tune in to improve your business, hear inspirational stories and advice from across the kids activity industry and listen to our team of in-house experts answer your burning questions.What’s not to love?
Keep up to date with our podcast by heading to our social channels.
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/classforkidsuk/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/class4kids
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/classforkids
In the Club
EP 40: The Evolution of Irish Dancing
Get in touch with us directly today
Laura Davidson's journey through Irish dancing spans nearly 25 years, culminating in nine Scottish qualifying championships and a place among the world's top five dancers. But her path wasn't always straightforward. Despite dancing since childhood, Laura didn't qualify for her first World Championship until age 19 – a testament to her perseverance and dedication.
Get Social with Us:
this is another episode of in the club that doesn't have anything to do with you no, and it just shouldn't be like that, but that's the case.
Speaker 2:You're a part-timer these days, becoming a part time. I'm quite like you're slipping into the distance, like homer when he gets back to that thing and jumping in for the intro and taking all the credit. Yep, that's it I've taken. I've organized this whole thing. No, that's exactly not the truth. This podcast was organised and it was actually hosted by Saoirse from our sales team and she did a brilliant job. Not that I'm massively surprised by it, but it was like very good yeah, yeah, yeah, really conversational.
Speaker 1:I think it helps when it's in a space that Saoirse really knows Irish dancers. She was an Irish dancer for a number of years. The guest on the podcast is Laura Davidson, a very successful Irish dancer in her own right. So just being able to have that kind of similar background and have those conversations because they used to dance together so just I saw she was really really good, got some really good chat out of them and then just kind of going back and forward that more conversational, less interview, more conversational really brings out more information in a kind of formal sit down. How did you do this? When did you do that sort of thing?
Speaker 2:so it was really good to and she's a lot like a TikTok star in the dance space the first TikTok star we've really had on and you think that and you go, oh right, okay, I think we've done a couple of videos with her and they've blown up to 30,000 views, so it shows you what you can do when you've got somebody with such gravitas on board. And again, entirely Saoirse's. She was the producer on this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty much. I came in here, switched on a camera and pressed record and that was it. All the hard work was done by Saoirse.
Speaker 2:Well, I haven't seen it all yet. I've seen bits of it, so I'll watch it. Whilst you watch it, and whilst you listen to it, let's get right into it being interviewed by Saoirse Bruce.
Speaker 3:Here with Laura Davidson, nine-time Scottish qualifying champion. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. How are you? Good, good, first time in the Classwork Kids office. How have you found it so far?
Speaker 4:It's been marvellous. Everyone's so kind in here. Everyone's nice. It's not corporate at all, it's lovely.
Speaker 3:I feel like the second you step in the door.
Speaker 2:It's just everyone wants to say hi, everyone's my new friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you've made so many friends, congrats. Thank you, um, but today basically we are concentrating on Irish dancing.
Speaker 4:Obviously you have had a 25, 23 year competition, background dancing background yeah, well, I'm nearly, very nearly 28, which I can't believe, but almost just born into it because the family done it too, so I don't think there was a real start in age. So I just say that I've always done it, you've just always done it.
Speaker 3:Always done it. Yeah, lovely. So do you want to tell us a wee bit about how you started dancing and what you've found like your journeys, like being like along the way, competitions, how you find that?
Speaker 4:just give us a wee brief background, if that's all right yeah, no problem, I'll try to keep it brief yeah so when I was younger, and I mean like a baby child my sisters are almost 10 and 8 years older than me, um, and they danced as well. So my mum just kind of put me in it because the others were dancing they weren't quite as competitive and stuff. But as I grew older we realised I really liked the competitions and you know, I would say seeing the world.
Speaker 4:But you see inside a different premier inn and a different hotel, a school or a games hall yeah, but I really liked going away to competitions and I loved the class. I wouldn't ever miss dancing, yeah, no matter what was on. I would forfeit it. If it was a school party, I would say oh no, I can't dancing came first.
Speaker 4:I've got dancing, yeah, like I just absolutely going to it. And that was when I was very young. Competitively I didn't actually do very well until I was older, I recalled for the first time at the World Championships so that's for anybody that doesn't know that's making it into the top 50 competitors at the World Championships and being able to dance three rounds. I didn't actually make it in at that top 50 until I was 19. So it was quite late considering I'd been dancing so long. But after that and I suppose after we came back for competing, like during lockdown obviously we didn't After that I really took the dancing seriously and treated it as like a sport and that I was an athlete seriously. Yeah, and treated it as like a sport and that I was an athlete and all of a sudden.
Speaker 4:You know I was top five in the world's um, so it massively changed for me around that time yeah, when I started taking things what do you, what do you think prompted you to like?
Speaker 3:change that mindset into this is now a like you were going to class it as a sport and you were an athlete rather than just a dancer, if that makes sense, I think with it being lockdown.
Speaker 4:I didn't realise how much I loved it until I didn't have it Right and it was like something has to change here and I knew my time was coming. Albeit I had a few years left in me, yeah, but I could see that my time was coming, that I was going to have to stop competing, so it was an all or nothing mindset, I would make it happen, no matter what it took. Yeah, and I knew what it took. Yeah, I just had never done it before, 100% and obviously so.
Speaker 3:You've competed for years. You've passed your TCRGs, which is want to tell the audience yeah, the Irish dancing teacher exam.
Speaker 4:um, I sat it. Six weeks after my last world championships, which was last April, flew over to Dublin, I booked the exam and I mean I would say irresponsibly at the time, but it worked out fine. I didn't even have the book that you needed to study for the exam. I didn't own it when I booked the exam, but I was like I just need to make this happen and for six weeks my life was dedicated to studying. I would wake up in the morning and open the book.
Speaker 3:After the Worlds as well. You must have just been dying for a holiday or something. It was just nope study.
Speaker 4:Me and my two friends went on holiday the week after the Worlds. They were sitting the exam as well because they'd just finished competing and we were all sitting it together. We all took our books away with us to Mallorca and studied on the plane.
Speaker 3:I do think that's nice, I wouldn't have had the willpower. I would have been thrown out the window on the plane. Oh no.
Speaker 4:I mean, we didn't have a choice, we didn't have much time. So the teaching exam is very, very extensive. It's over the course of a few days. I think some people do it over three. Because we were flying in and out, we'd done it in two days between written and practical exams, music exam, the lot. So there was a lot to learn, of course.
Speaker 3:But you'd done it, passed it. Well worth it Teaching full time now. How do you think this compares to competing?
Speaker 4:I love it Do you? I absolutely love it See think this compares to like competing. I love it, I absolutely love it. See, just working with the kids yeah, it really and feeling like you're making a difference in some aspect of their life, yeah, is it brings me so much joy, so much more than what I could ever had with competing, yeah, and you know, achieving something for myself, you feel like you're achieving something for somebody else and that's why I love it.
Speaker 3:I feel like because you guys take kids on so young as well and then you see them like right, I mean you're saying like what, you're almost 28 now, you must be seeing kids like all through their life pretty much yeah and this close little, tight-knit community. That must be really rewarding.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, you look at the age I was when I finished competing our classes. Our tots class starts at age two, so we literally get to see them and obviously that's something I've not really experienced yet. Yeah, because I've been competing. But, like my teacher, I've seen people for their toddlers. Yeah, sharon, for the age two. Yeah, right through an adult. You see them through nursery, primary school, high school.
Speaker 3:I know it's like part of the family to be honest with the way you're seeing them through their life it literally as a family.
Speaker 4:I see more of them than I see my own family sometimes, um, what do you think like?
Speaker 3:obviously, like class for kids. We work with a load of dance schools, um, and I think Irish dancing is obviously close to my heart used to used to do the dancing with Laura herself once upon a time, once upon a time. Um, so I'm always really interested in how that industry is changing and, from the conversations that I have at like industry events that we go to as a company and from people I talk to day to day, one of the biggest challenges is how to utilize social media for their platform, how they like reach people through there, because that's where everyone is. Times are changing, everything is going online and automated. So what would be your advice?
Speaker 4:advice to dance teachers who are struggling with their social medias, because you've had quite a lot of success yeah, I think I've got a bit of a unique set of circumstances with it, because I started posting on TikTok when I was competing and the things that were really popular was when I was getting ready for a competition I would be doing get ready with me's putting my dancing wig on, and it was things that people had never seen before. Yeah, and that's a lot of the feedback.
Speaker 3:I got. I remember watching them and it was like because I had stopped dancing by that point and I remember it was almost like nostalgic for me to watch. I was like, oh yeah, all the wigs and the tiaras and you know the lippy and all that you would have those sort of comments.
Speaker 4:I would have comments for different communities, whether it be other dancing communities. You know people across the world saying I've never seen this before, we never knew you'd done this and stuff like that. So it was nice to bring that to a new audience as well, because I have since had people messaging and stuff saying we never knew about Irish dancing and what it actually was until we saw you. And now my child, who's four, has started the local dance class.
Speaker 4:So like things like that are incredible online but in terms of the actual business side of it, like the dancing class um we really try with graphics and stuff social media graphics. We use simple apps, um, such as canva, which is really easy if you go through and learn how to do it. It's really easy to learn and I think people stay away for that sort of thing, people shy away from it.
Speaker 4:It's, it's like the unknown, I think it is 100% people are uncomfortable with it yeah, and when they learn how simple it actually can be? Yeah, it's pretty easy to put together a wee advert for your class that says this is the times and days, this is who's welcome and this is the location. Yeah, and that's all you really need to spark a wee bit of interest, and we also like sharing what the kids are doing at competitions and things as well, like we snapshot videos.
Speaker 3:Is that what that?
Speaker 4:is like well, sometimes we do that in class because, like we're kind of limited to what we can film at competitions, but in class we'll do wee snapshot videos of the kids, um, and like, oh, we're training for this competition or we're training for that one, and it builds a wee bit of following online of people that are interested and they do get to know these kids yeah because I feel like I feel like irish dancing is a little less talked about.
Speaker 3:In the grand scheme of things, in the grand scheme of like dance as a physical art, I think it's a little less talked about and it's nice to have a platform where you can like show that to the world pretty much and have people engage and have people be like. Oh you know, I'm gonna start my four-year-old in a wee class like yeah that's amazing.
Speaker 3:You want people to like, gain insights, because I think the industry is changing so much and you have quite a unique perspective because you started it so young, you've done it through lockdown, you've traveled the world and now you're teaching. How do you think the industry has changed throughout that time? What do you think the massive changes are?
Speaker 4:oh well, I think I mean I make myself sound dead old, older than I actually am, just clear that up, but older than I actually am. But something I have seen is the way it's treated as a sport now in our class, in classes across the world. You see that massive change. You see the difference in the way the competitors, both boys and girls, look as well physically, are looking like athletes. Yeah, because they're training like athletes. They're eating like athletes. You know they're thinking like athletes and that's something that never was about years and years ago. Yeah, like you're now seeing people that have danced for 25, 30 years without warming up and stretching and cooling down and, you know, having the right nutrition, and now they're getting knee replacements, they're getting hip replacements it's such a young age as well yeah, because they're facing the sort of consequences.
Speaker 4:They're not doing any of that stuff, not treating their body well and thinking actually this is a sport and you know, some of our kids are training five, six times a week and they have to be looking after their bodies and we put much more emphasis on that now than what was done years ago. Like I can remember when we were younger, if it was a sunny day outside not any of them in Scotland, but if it was a sunny day outside you would get.
Speaker 4:Oh, we don't need to do a warm-up today, it's warm enough outside science in a million years.
Speaker 2:Should you say that now?
Speaker 4:yeah, like things like that are like do a quick stretch and you know, you just bend over and touch your toes, and that was you. Yeah, ready to go.
Speaker 3:I think that starts from like quite a young age as well, like whenever I started dancing was like dancing is dancing, and then sport was sport, like football, athletics, you know things like that. Rounders was class more of a sport, I think, than dancing. Yeah, and throughout the time of like competing, girls and guys obviously started going to the gym and taking care of the bodies and that was so good to see and like, looking back now I keep I just like I find it like incredible that we were going through this sport without warming up yeah or like if you were me and you barely tied your shoelaces on right.
Speaker 4:I'll be fine. That's the thing is. It was kind of sort of accepted that everyone was doing that same sort of thing, like we were turning up to dancing and just it just wasn't talked as as a sport, so you were just having a wee hobby, yeah, whereas now, like I got the recovery boots, the compression boots, my mum got me them as a gift one year for Christmas.
Speaker 4:That's all I wanted was those compression boots to recover for dancing each night. If you told me that when I was younger, I probably would have laughed at you.
Speaker 3:I think it's a sport and also you can make it into a career now, like that's how serious industry is becoming yeah yourself is like a prime example.
Speaker 4:This is your full-time job, though yeah, so there's different sort of career paths. You can go down with it. Um, you can go into one of the shows. There is now many, many irish dancing shows touring worldwide. Um, you know, you get them on cruise ships and everything now. Yeah, so there's so many opportunities for dancers that there wasn't before. Um, you know, there was years and years ago. You would get river dance, yeah, and even like before sort of michael flatley's time when he then came out with his own show.
Speaker 4:That that was your only option, and there's only a very limited amount of spaces in that, so your chances of being able to get on a show weren't as good as now yeah there's so many options in every corner of the world, so many routes that you can take.
Speaker 3:Where do you think, do you see any trends that point you in direction of like where the industry is going to go next?
Speaker 4:I can see a lot of people taking inspiration from other dance forums in terms of moves, in terms of how the classes are marketed, in terms of technique, like all these different things.
Speaker 4:People are drawing inspiration from elsewhere, which is really nice to see because it's so important to do things like that in order to get out your own wee bubble 100% and move with the times a bit. Yeah, so that's really, really nice to see. And a lot of people cross training as well um, not just with other dance forums, maybe pilates, um, you know, gyrotonics and actual gym training as well to build up the strengths and other areas. Yeah, that dance doesn't always help with, but you know it could really benefit from yeah, 100, I agree.
Speaker 3:Well, that sounds fantastic and thank you so much for coming in to have a wee chat about this, and I hope we've shed a wee bit of light on Irish dancing Me too and why your kids should do it.
Speaker 1:That was a fantastic episode and it's just talking about the mindset shift that's happening in dance, where they're treating their dancers like athletes. Rather than talking about turning up to a dance class and it's something you do after school, it's talking about conditioning, talking about dieting, talking about workout regimens and how the dancers in Irish dancing now.
Speaker 2:well, according laura and through her experiences, they're treating themselves and their counterparts as professional athletes and they're seeing the quality of the dancing just skyrocket I think I've heard the same in the chair space as well and but very much that they're treating them like professional um athletes and as they should. Some of the things that they're doing with their legs and their feet and they're whoa she said herself in one of the little videos we've done, but her legs are moving about as if independent from her body and, yeah, like it's amazing what they can actually do. And again, well done, saoirse, for getting such a good guest to come on. Maybe see a wee guest presenting spot in the future for Saoirse Could be, could be. Maybe we'll keep around this space. But the Irish dancing series there you go. We've got a new Irish Instagram account. That's true. Yep, so that is classforkidsire and yeah, if you want to follow that like share subscribe like share subscribe.
Speaker 2:We never do that in this one, but let's try and push that. That'd be good, but no, well done, saoirse and um. Thank you very much, and until next time we'll say bye.
