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Long term motivation?
Question for all you long term polers out there: what do you do during “plateaus” in your learning curve? What do you focus on when the tricks aren’t coming as fast? I know stretching and strength conditioning is necessary to get to the next level, but how do you keep yourself motivated and excited?
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13 Replies
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Just keep trying and pushing through…..it isn't fun, but I have been in a rut for quite some time. I couldn't get the extended butterfly for SIX months…..actually couldn't get anything new! Then within ONE week, got my Brass Monkey, Extended Butterfly AND my Shoulder Mount! Just be aware you will have times where you feel like that, but it happens to us all. There was a great article someone posted a while back about the learning curve of a pole dancer and it was so true. Would like to see that again…..I should check with Chemgodess on that, she will know where it is.
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practice and polish the ones you know, try new combos, play a bit, experiment! have some fun with what you have accomplished, and of course, keep working on dancing, stamina, flexibility and strength, you cant have enough of that 😉
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Don't feel 'limited' by pole. Try other aerials, like silks and lyra. Try other flow arts, such as hoopdancing (my other passion). ALL forms of dance are so connected and when you are always learning, your techniques will carry over and vice versa.
You can always 'clean up' your moves you already know. Play with variations. You'll never come to the end of what you can do and how you can vary your movement, in any style of dance.
Yeah and flexibility. 🙂
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During my last slump I worked on dance and I’ve been very happy with the results. I didn’t even bother changing clothes. Just went to my pole room fully clothed, put my music on shuffle and danced to whatever came on, sometimes for hours. Also, I’ve posted here for combo and trick ideas when I’m stuck and bored. Lots of great ideas here!
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Learning curves was posted here 🙂 http://aerialamy.com/blog/2011/11/04/learning-curves/
I struggle with motivation allllll the time and write about it in my blog pretty regularly, if you do a search for it a bunch comes up 🙂
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Ah, here’s one: http://aerialamy.com/blog/2011/05/06/keeping-it-fresh/
I’ve been piling since 2007 so believe me, I know how you feel! 🙂
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As many have said, work on polishing the tricks. Try doing them on the opposite side. See how long you can stay up on the pole and how many "tricks" you can flow together without touching the ground. See how slow you can make a move or how fast. Hold it the longest time you possibly can. Play with hand placement, foot placement, what would be the best angle if you were giving a performance. Handstands, shoulder stands, forearm stands, headstands…work on lifting into them. Get that body roll as slow and low and sexy as you can. Work on ways out of an invert.
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Everything chemmie said. It’s about stopping looking at pole as a series of benchmarks to meet and start approaching it like you would approach a classical study. For everything, ask: why did I just do that? What could make that better? What was really good? Could what was really good be even better? Does that look like I pictured it to look? If it doesn’t, why not? For every new move you want to learn, ask: what muscles techniques does it use? Do I have all those techniques? If not, what other moves/conditioning can I work on that will hone those techniques?
I think whenever I answer one of those questions, I’ve learned something that will help me.
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Apart from all the other stuff people have said (conditioning, polishing, working on dance, cross-training) I find that when I'm hitting a plateau with a really hard trick it helps to do two things:
1) Diagnose why the trick isn't working and come up with a plan to solve it (whether it's adding weightlifting or extra stretching, etc.) Just implementing the plan may help you feel like you're making progress.
2) Find new tricks to do in the meantime, even if they're just silly little things. If you can't find any, make some up. The other day I was playing around and realized that if you do a flying ballerina upside down it's an Allegra.
I also loved the other suggestion to take another type of aerial class. I do lyra and fabrics. It will help you so much because it's great core training and the moves are not entirely different to pole.
Finally, remind yourself why you're doing this (whatever your reason is).
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Electra:I love this…Finally, remind yourself why you’re doing this…
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Electra:I love this…Finally, remind yourself why you’re doing this…
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Three words: Doubles.Pole.Dancing.
Bahahahaha! Give that a try if you're feeling bored!
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Thanks everyone! I am a teacher, and I think that adds to it sometimes as I can’t always take a break. I also posted this for my students as many of them are reaching a leveling off point simultaneously as they build more strength for new moves. This weekend Itook a vacation and was able to take a pole and an aerial silks class, and I also saw a burlesque show with pole dancers (I’m in Vegas) and I had so much fun! I would add to this list: go see a dance performance. I am really feeling inspired! Thanks again all.
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