Irish Dance GPT - How AI helps me coach dancers

 Taking AI beyond the Corporate World.......

I was listening to a podcast recently (High Performance Podcast) where Marc Matheiu talked about AI disrupting functions rather than industries.  AI being used in use cases that cross multiple industries really resonated and inspired me to share my experience of using AI.  

 

Take a moment and see how thinking creatively about your processes can produce AI benefits – even in Irish Dance!

 

Harnessing the Power of Generative AI to Elevate Training at Our Irish Dance School

As an Irish Dance coach dedicated to nurturing the talents of our students, I’m always on the lookout for innovative ways to improve training methods. Recently, I integrated generative AI (GenAI) into our dance school’s training process, so I thought I’d share how this “of the moment tech” is helping us in what might seem a very unlikely use case!

 

The Challenge: Managing Detailed Feedback

Irish dance is a discipline that demands precision, grace, and unwavering attention to detail.  Competitive Irish Dance is extremely intense – dancers training ferociously to make the 1% who compete at the World Championships (The Olympics of Irish Dance). 

 

Over the past two months, we’ve been documenting corrections for each dancer during practice sessions. Whether it’s a slight misstep in a jig, a timing issue in the hornpipe, or the need for more pointed toes during a reel, each element is so important, even more so the correcting of each element is crucial.

 

Now comes the tough part - categorising, managing, analysing and synthesising this wealth of information for multiple dancers is quite simply overwhelming!

With competition season fast approaching, I knew that simply keeping track of these notes wasn’t enough - I needed a way to distil the data into actionable insights that would help each dancer move the dial in the areas that matter most.

 

The Solution: Leveraging GenAI

This is where GenAI, came into play. I uploaded the dearth of documented corrections into ChatGPT and developed prompts to analyse this data in search for the most common themes. Within seconds, the AI processed the information and produced a comprehensive summary of the persistent themes for each dancer, in each dance.

The AI identified recurring issues, whether it was a tendency to drop the heel too early or a habit of arms moving on “high legs”. More impressively, it presented these findings in a clear table.  I then further prompted in search of a scoring matrix, this helped me understand just how common these corrections were being given – helping me prioritise the biggest issues.

 

Tailoring Individual Training Plans

Armed with these insights, I was able to create highly personalized training plans for each dancer. The AI analysis helped me focus on the key areas individual dancers were not fixing.  For instance, one dancer’s plan emphasized improving core strength to aid in posture, while another focused on enhancing timing through rhythm drills.

The beauty of using generative AI is that it doesn’t just save time—it provides a level of analytical depth that is unreachable manually. By pinpointing the most persistent issues, I can now direct teaching efforts where they’ll have the most impact. In essence each dancer is getting even greater attention on the specific areas they need, and our training sessions are more efficient and targeted.

 

 

Final Thoughts

GenAI has proven to be an invaluable tool in our Irish Dance school, turning a mountain of feedback into a precise route to improve.  As we continue to integrate this technology into our teaching methods, I’m excited to see how it will further enhance our training process and, ultimately, the performances of our talented dancers.

 

The future of Irish dance is here, and it’s brighter—and smarter—than ever before.