-
What moves should I start with?
-
I hope this isn’t seen as hi-jacking your thread, but I find this ties in with something bothering me. I recently met a girl who wants to pole, but was unable to do a pole hold or even a step-around without feeling like she’s useless and will never be able to do it. What do you recommend I show her or any other girls (or guys) I meet in the future, for like taster-sessions or pole-parties for people who’ve never poled, without making them feel like they’re rubbish? I want to be positive and show people how much fun it is, while starting at the beginning with basic strength-building stuff and not making them feel like "babies"?! It is obvious that the people who can’t do anything at their first attempt feel really discouraged and put off when other total beginners fly straight into a fireman spin or pole sit with apparent ease! Which is totally understandable. How do you teachers deal with this?
-
Heey guys, I have literally just started doing the boomerang hold because I am finally able to do it strength wise, its funny because I used to do this hold on a pole we had in our basement (support pole) Its funny that it is an actual move. Anyways, Trust me I have been very careful, my friend has been poling along with me so we spot eachother and help correct each other. Some of the moves have taken us a long time to learn and others come extremely easily to us. We also take videos of us pole dancing so that we can review and make sure we arent doing anything improperly. I am literally covered in bruises though. Especially from the plank hold/ climbing into a sit position. I have never had this many bruises on my body before! And I am now tanning so I am praying that bruised skin tans or I will look ridiculous soon when they heal haha. Does any one have any at home remedies for curing sweaty hands. I am pretty sure there is already a thread on this on here though. I have found that when I windex the pole it helps a little bit. (I am hoping this is a good idea and not a bad one haha) After every move I am constantly having to clean off the pole or my hands get sweaty and the pole gets greasy and I slip right off. Is there any way to add videos to my profile so that you can comment on them and let me know what you think of how I am doing so far? Let me know!
-
@savyhomeowner:
Another tip on the boomerang hold when I started it I actually used my arm to support my upper torso- the part of my arm that came in contact with my side was above the elbow- this helped to stabilize my body into the hold. With any move though as a warning- ABC (Always Be Careful). Don’t jam your elbow into your ribs or jump into the move. Just a simple lift from floor and down. Over time you will be able to increase the length of time of your hold. And stretch your wrists thoroughly before and after to prevent wrist strain. Listen to your body- if anything doesn’t feel right- STOP.
That’s great you’re using a video camera to review your progress. That really helps. I also use windex on my pole for grip and am constantly wiping my pole- just today I worked on transition pirouettes and I had to keep wiping my pole after every couple of pirouettes because my palms were sweating like crazy. There’s a ton of grip aides on the market, however its best to learn stuff without it first and leave the grip aides to performances or down the road when you’re learning more advanced moves that require extra stick to the pole. If you become dependent on grip aides it could keep your muscles from developing properly in the natural progression needed in order to conquer moves without injury.
Kudos to you for using a friend as a spotter. Also as you progress its good to always start a new move on the floor and just move your legs or body into position to get into the feel of how things are going to work as you move them onto the pole.
To post a video simply click "video" on the top menu bar and off to the right there will be a green button that says upload your video under the box that says lessons, newletters, member video…etc. Hope that helped. https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_sunny.gif
-
Haha yes that’s true about just copying from videos – but I still think it’s a good list to look at for ideas of what to start with https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif you could take the names down from that site and then see what Veena has here. I just thought the page was arranged in such a way that it makes it very easy to scroll down the list and have a quick look for some moves you’d like to try, then you can refer back here for instruction on how to go about it https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif
-
I’ve start alone with youtube and got Veena lessons after 2 month to realise that i was doing too much, too fast. Since i got a regular workout with a day off in between and good explanation on how to do this i haven’t hurt myself like at did at first and got amazing result.
Take a look at the new 2 pole section in the forum will help you a lot, and don’t go too fast or you will get stuck anyway because you hurt yourself and don’t have the strenght to do more advanced moves. Take more time to get beginner move in perfect control and on both side before going to the next step.
Don’t forget it’s not the destination, it’s the journey https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif
-
Hey guys thanks for all of your help ful hints. Yes I actually have sat on the floor and put my body into the leg positions and arm positions in order to figure out where everything goes before jumping in to quickly! I will edit and post a video of what I have done so far. I warn you some of it isn’t very good and others are better. I am definitely sticking strictly to beginner moves until I am 100% confident in the ones that I have done so far. And I understand about what you mean about the boomerang hold and just resting on the elbow a little bit. I try not to jump into any position. If I can’t do it with out jumping then I don’t do the moves at all!. So no worries. I take a day for break in between my poling so I am not over working my body and so my muscles have time to recuperate. I also stretch every day as I am trying to increase my flexibility. I am still having troubles finding beginner moves, I want some more so that I am not constantly doing the same moves and bruising myself from repeating the same moves over and over again. I am having alot of trouble with bruising so I am now taking multivitamins, vit C chewables, and magnesium pills in hopes that it will help so I don’t bruise so much. I have arnica gel that I am putting on them since they are soooooo bad. My friend has about 4 bruises where as I literally have about 20 on each leg.
-
@ Savyhomeowner The problem with the boomerang is not so much that you might fall…..its also a matter of possible poor arm positioning causing injury to the shoulders, elbow or wrist this along with inadequate strength this can cause many new dancers troubles.
-
I just read your post again and saw your not happy with the amount of beginner moves….I should add if your taking the online lessons Savy….don't forget to include the strength building exercises. The strength building and beginner lessons add up to 85 lessons you can choose from!!
-
Thanks Veena I hear you most definitely, I am definitely working on building up my strength, as for the arm positioning with the boomerang it feels right, nothing hurts and I have found that my arm strenght is improving drastically. My boyfriend even felt my arm the other day and he couldn't believe how much muscle I have built!
-
Happy New Year everyone,
Hey PennyGirl, the good news is that possibly the pop wasn't a full fracture. However, a bruised rib still holds the same rules of recooperation and length of recovery. The bad news is that my one-month formal classes that I've been waiting to start since 11/4 starts tomorrow, and even with 800mg of Advil it's still going to be painful to perform any lifting myself onto the pole ; (
I was feeling a little better yesterday, and just to check my recovery rate I was walking by the pole (that is taunting me in it's new space) I lightly grabbed it and just leaned around it lightly and confirmed that all is not well.
I know what you were saying about muscle strength. I have a landscape company that I spend the summers throwing around 50# bags of amendment, and shoveling, and dragging tarps of soil and plants all day. It takes a good amount of the summer to get to that point where it's not hard or painful work. Unfortunately, it's been a few months since winter began setting in and I've gotten soft. Part of the reason I decided to begin pole dancing was to keep my strength up so when spring comes I could jump right in. Of course my other reasons are to keep my sexy in tact, and hopefully firm and tone my butt and abs. I managed to work my size back down to my old norm of size 4, so I don't want the winter off to creep that up any. Lol.
Ya know, after reading your thread about feeling on display with your pole in front of the TV, it made me feel like I was whining about my space still not being a great atmosphere. I'd seen some of the videos, with the rooms so girly and sexy and I guess with being a novice with my moves and pole ability, plus the space I was having a fricken pity party. I guess I take it for granted that I live alone and don't have to do anything but keep the bf out of the basement, away from my pole. (yeah, I know, bf away from the pole, huh? – it's a long, ugly story, and a whole other thread. lol) I'm sorry you don't have a place to have your own space away from people who might make you feel you can't explore your sexy self. Hey, at some point if you've got kids you can look forward to them going away to college, right?!! Then you can take over their room, woo-hoo!!
PennyGirl, Amy, Mora, Kobajo84, Veena, thanks ladies, I've checked out the links. Very helpful. I've bookmarked them for future reference. They kept me busy for hours!!
Kobajo84, I was reading your reply to Savyhomeowner about the grip. I was reading some threads about iTac2 shortly after I received my pole and realized that it wasn't sticky enough even being a "TG" (that's supposed to be more gripy). I read that using a grip product would actually help you work more muscles in your arms, back and shoulders, instead of just your hand/grip muscles. No? You don't agree? I haven't used it yet, since I injured myself before I received it and haven't tried it yet. Not that I have more than a few hours of poling so far. I thought it would make good sense, because I have problems with carpel tunnel. Do you or anyone else have any thoughts about that?
One other question, I've spent some time trying to find a video I saw around Christmas that was posted by a user "polemom" or something like that. It was a great video and I hadn't noticed the favorite button until days later. Does anyone have any clues how to find that video again?
Thanks all…
-
@Hotness- what I meant by the grip aids is that by using them it create less effort on your part to hold certain moves on the pole. I find that when I use a clean pole (no grip aids) I'm having to engage my body more as when I use a grip aid everything comes so much easier with very little effort at all.
-
Kobajo84 – Oh, I see what you're saying, that it's better to start without so that you engage the muscles more to build them before you rely on the grip aid. I get it now, and as I had my first formal class today and did half the class without, then half the class with an aid I could easily feel the difference. Whether a false sense or not, I did feel more in control of my moves with the aid. Prior to that I worried that if my grip wasn't tight enough my hand could slip and I'd slide down or slip off the pole. I think, for me, I'm going to do a little of both. I want to build up my strength, obviously, but if I can't do some interesting, or fun, but safe, moves by using the grip aid I may get frustrated with my progress and take the pole down or just feel crappy about myself, and that's not what I got the pole for, so I think that's going to work best for me to mix. Thanks for the reply…
-
I'm nursing a pulled intercostal muscle as well from doing too much too quickly. I even started at a studio… It takes about 2-3 weeks to heal (I'm at week two and it's much better).
Actually, the pulled muscle is what brought me here. As soon as it no longer hurts to get into a plank position, I'm going to start with Veena's lessons.
To the OP, I definitely wouldn't do too much too soon even if you're strong enough to physically do the moves. Sitting around waiting for an injury to heal is no fun.
-
@Jivete-
Oh, I feel for you. It's a difficult lesson we've learned, huh? That's great that you're in week 2. I'm still pretty sore. I just keep taking Advil and sleeping with a heating pad. I did go to my first lesson yesterday, it was awesome, but it was painful. Hopefully, it'll get better sooner rather than later. Good luck with your healing process. I'll probably start my Veena lessons as soon as I'm feeling well enough to do more than I'm doing now. I'm anxious to get started again, but I think that with the lessons, learning some floor moves will take the emphasis off of learning some of the more advanced moves. And you're right, waiting around to feel better is no fun! Take care…
Log in to reply.