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Don’t give up!
Do you remember when I tried to get back into pole dancing back in January 2022?
Well lets just say, the universe had different plans for me and I’m honestly glad it did! Before I get into that, let me refresh your memory on why I wanted to make a “comeback” in the first place.
In September. 2020 we moved into a new house, one we finally owned. The set up for my studio was great, but not ideal as far as ceiling height, With heels on I’m well over 6 feet tall. I managed to create new content for studioveena because, I’m committed to my students, but I was unhappy with life in general! The neighborhood lacked nature, it was mostly dirt and oh, yeah, it was 2020!!!! No one wants to live through that again!
By August 2021, I wasn’t dancing or doing anything active at all. I was dealing with depression big time, dancing for fun was the last thing on my mind.
The housing market here went bonkers so we took the opportunity to sell, and found our current home in November 2021. It’s 20 yrs old, but perfect for us. I was excited to try and get back on the pole. I knew it would be slow going as I hadn’t exercised at all, I wasn’t even walking the dog.
I did pretty well getting back into it. Click here https://www.studioveena.com/videos/view/61dc50b9-fd64-455d-a229-4277ac110005 if you wanna see that first day back. After I did my “journey back to pole” videos. Things took a turn.
By February I was creating a few tutorials for my social media accounts and website. Then comes May! I break my 4th toe, REALLY bad. Smashed it into a coffee table leg. It was so crooked and the pinky toe was affected too. I was on crutches for 3 weeks. Then hobbled for a while longer. I was walking normally by end of June. Then, the beginning of August, I broke my pinky toe, the one I had injured with the previous toe. Smashed it into the side of the couch leg. It didn’t take much force, I heard the snap and knew….it was broken. Thank god that toe healed quickly. I was back to walking by the end of August. I was even able to make some great active flexiblity routines for studioveena, sore toe and all!
I get back on the pole in September. Things are going pretty well. The night before my birthday, my Studioveena Instagram account was hacked. I thought I was chatting with an acquaintance. I didn’t know their account was hacked! My kids were visiting for our usual Sunday supper. I was cooking, chatting with them and I wasn’t paying attention to the last message sent. I just swipe to see it, but inadvertently clicked the link that was sent…..that was it. My account was taken over by bitcoin bastards. All because I was distracted, doing too many things at once. Years of content and connections, gone. My reputation took a huge hit as well. Some followers thought I was actually trying to sell them on bitcoin! I wss told other pole dancers were talking about how terrible it was that I wasn’t doing anything about it! They didn’t understand, I was doing everything I could. It took 3 months for IG to delete my old account after endless contact forms asking, begging them to delete my hacked account to protect my followers.
September through beginning of November. I focused on creating content for both my website and my Tik Tok, hoping to keep some kind of connection with followers. Let’s just say, I no longer use Tik Tok, super over it. I did create the Ultimate guide to inverts during this time. I’m very proud of that! Meanwhile, I’m thinking ok, I got this, I can make a comeback with my new Poletutorials Instagram account.
November comes around. I had just started going to the gym. It had been 10 years since I had set foot in a gym, it felt great! I was not doing any conditioning for my hips, pelvis or deep core, just lifting and stretching, that was my first mistake! I kept telling myself, I’d start conditioning next time.
Mid November. Second mistake, I wash the dog. I spend a good amount of time hunched over, not being mindful of my cranky low back/hips. Next day, third mistake, I take poodle for a walk up and down a huge rocky hill. I woke up in pain the next day. It’s pain I’ve had since I was a child, off and on, my mom and sister suffer from the same issue. It feels like something is out of place in the hip and butt area, making it hard to bend over or sit for a long time. I think nothing of it and hope it resolves it’s self like usual. It improves a little by December, but now I’ve started to have sciatic nerve pain, which has never happened. By mid December, sleep was tough, I had to sit on a hard chair with my back and pelvis in the perfect position or I would have terrible pain. I felt like I could never fully relax. I rested as best I could, I was improving, but very slowly.
Then we drove to Florida for Christmas with the kids. By the time we got there I was in horrible pain. I’ve had 4 drug free child births, I would rather do that again than have this incessant nerve pain. I had to move like a robot, no looking down and always aware of my positioning so as not to anger the nerve. Finally, I accepted it wasn’t going to improve by just resting. I spent our vacation doing research on causes of sciatic nerve pain. Ruled out budged disk, bone spur, piriformis syndrome. When I learned about SI joint dysfunction or Sacroiliitis. I ran through the tests for it, BINGO! We have a winner. Now, I could create a plan of action. I fly home instead of driving back with my husband and spend January working through exercises I either found or came up with. I’m still doing them to this day.
One other huge factor in my recovery was the audio book Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I found it when I was looking for ways to cope with chronic pain. For me, discovering this book was life changing. I’d been familiar with the concept of mindfulness, and I have his book “wherever you go, there you are” But this book took it to the next level for me. I highly recommend the audio version, the book itself is very large!
I hope my being honest about the past years will help someone who’s struggling to get back into pole or to come back to whatever passion they might have. Feel like it’s possible, if we only get out of our own way.
We have no idea what the future holds, all we have is this moment, don’t waste it by not being fully present 💜
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3 Replies
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Dear Veena
I am very sorry to hear that. I hope you are feeling a little better by now. Thank you for sharing this experience with us.
I had a similar experience when I had a herniated disc in my cervical spine. I had such severe pain for 3 months that I could hardly move, had almost no strength in my right arm (I couldn’t even lift an empty cup). Only very strong painkillers that made me totally high conquered the pain. Because I was so high on them, I still couldn’t do much. After 3 months I could start physio, after 6 months I could lift a cup with my arm again. It was a long road, I became depressed, needed the painkillers more and more as an “escape” rather than a painkiller.
After about a year, I plucked up my courage, stopped taking the painkillers and slowly started doing exercises again. With the help of your programmes like 30 Days Take Off, I slowly worked my way back up until I could exercise “normally” again about 7 months later. The whole journey was about 1.5 years long.In April 2022 I tore the TFCC in my wrist. In January I finally had no more pain and was able to start training pole dancing properly again. Currently I am doing the 30 days take off programme AGAIN.
I kept stopping pole dancing, but I never gave up!
From my experience I would like to share the following with you:
1. if you love something, for example pole dancing, keep at it and come back when you are ready.
2. I have tried many pole tutorial programmes, websites etc. but always come back to your website. Your tutorials have something that others don’t have: Focus on proper technique and safety and progressive steps. So I want to thank you for all that you have created!
3. I wish you all the best on your way. Whether it’s back to pole dancing or just back to a pain-free life. -
Ugh, how awful!
I’m glad you’re doing better now, it’s so frustrating to have one thing after the other. Pain killers where not an option for me. Thankfully I was able to use weed to alleviate some of the pain and inflammation. I couldn’t use it during the day and function though, so I understand that issue.
Yeah, I’m happy to be dancing again, though it’s only been once so far. But my focus is absolutely recovery first. Thank you for sharing with us!
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Another prone to injury and aging (ex)poler here 🙋ðŸ»â€â™€ï¸ Thank you for being so open with the struggle, we live so bombarded with picture perfect social media stuff that you may think you are the only one going through issues. I’ve been dealing with shoulder and ankle injuries for 2+ years. I had to stop poling in 2021 to rest and heal my left shoulder, then injured my ankle so dancing or pole fitness risking an “emergency landing†was no option. I tried to return pole in summer 2022 with some success but then I injured a muscle in my back/scapula so I had to stop again. Ankle is fine now but old knee and hip injuries are flaring up 🙄 So I do what I can to stay active and workaround my injuries but I’m accepting that, well, normal wear with age is happening so I will have to be mindful of my training. Pace myself. Don’t over do it. Listen to my body. Thankfully I’m learning to let go, acknowledge, accept, evolve. We’ll be fine. Love â¤ï¸
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