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When a pole performance goes badly…
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Let me let you in on a little secret. When I did AGT, I had mentally prepared that routine all day before I went on stage. I forgot about 90% of my choreographed routine when I walked out there! I remembered my key points but I freestyled the rest of it. Of all the years ive performed, ive been told if you forget a move, dont put the feeling on your face – just solider on! It happens to all of us!
Ive done the same competition 4 times to make it to the finals. Its hard to put blood, sweat, tears into something and watch it all crumble within 3min. IMO, I think theres a time period where you can be down on yourself but you gotta pick yourself back up and press on. I give myself no more than a day to have a pity party, I take a week off, do some reflections. Then get back up and start over.
Its normal to be hard on yourself – you are your own toughest critic! You just gotta know when to learn from it and use it for the next competition.
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I love this thread!
Yes, it happens when you don't want it too…that's performing for ya. That's pole for ya. I often feel jealous of my fellow burlesque performers, for when they do solos, they are truly solo. But me with the pole, I feel that I am up there with another performer – the pole – and she can have a mind of her own!
This summer was terrible for poling, with the heat and humidity. The absolute hardest was this May at the Show-Me Festival in St Louis. Ya see, I *needed* to be in this festival and am forever thrilled I was accepted. I performed in the late show, and when they say late, they mean late. In addition to the fact that St Louis is one hour behind East Coast, basically I made my super important-to-me performance at 2am EST!! Holy crap, my body had never-ever pole performed at that hour, and almost immediately into the routine, my muscles were pretty much shot. That combined with the humidity in the air, the pole was practically liquid, it was so slippery. EVERYTHING was a struggle, EVERYTHING was almost impossible! But I fought. my. ass. as hard as I could. I was convinced that I did a terrible job, but at least I was accepted for the festival, and at least I got through the routine with no quick on-the-spot changes.
A couple months later, I performed in Philly, same routine. Almost immediately into the routine, the pole became liquid, shockingly slippery. I was freaking out -on stage- with people looking at me, with people taking photos, with cameras taking video. I couldn't believe that it was happening again, "This is just like St Louis, crap, another terrible performance…noooo!" I got off the stage so dissapointed that I messed up again.
Then I got the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKercz61IQ8&
Seriously, you can not tell that I was freaking out during this, you can not tell I was sure I was going to fall off every other second, you can not tell that my mind is racing constantly thinking of on-the-spot adjustments I could do to make it through, but I kept the routine as is. Somehow I had trained myself to smile throughout all this mess going on in my head. I dont know how that happened.
Just saying that when you think its a HORRIBLE performance, when you think you did so bad you just want to hang up the heels and throw your pole away – it just might not look as bad as you think. 🙂
I don't perform in full on pole shows, often I am the only poler in a show. So its more difficult for me, temperatures in venue are not regulated for poling (often too hot, so I'm sweaty and the pole is slippery). I wipe my own pole down before I go on, since I dont trust non-polers to do a good job at that. I've also learned that I can be cold backstage, but I get out there with the bright lights up close to the stage and I turn into a sweaty mess. Also, small venues and me climbing the pole means I'm even hotter closer to the lights and heat up high.
Basically, the more you perform, the more situations arise that you have no control over. All I can do make sure I know my routine backwards and forwards, grip up, swear by my dry hands and alcohol spray, and pray to the pole goddesses.
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I can honestly say out of all the times that I have performed a pole routine..only ONE TIME did I actually execute it the way I choreographed it. There is almost always some kind of variable that effects my routines ie: slippery pole, too cold, too humid, etc. But as everyone says, the show must go on. I usually end up freestyling half of my routines. I'm used to it by now. But the trick is to not lead on that something is wrong. Keep performing, keep smiling and no one will know. 🙂 I'm sure you did amazing my dear! keeping pushing on!
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Glitter….did you see my facebook post in regards to my showcase performance? You were amazing…and you WILL get back up on that stage next year, and blow us all away!
We alllll love you! xoxo
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All you ladies who perform and/or compete are awesome!! Be proud of putting yourself out there becuase that’s the part most pple are horrified of. Natasha slipped and FELL off the pole on LIVE TV, ahhh! Happens to the best, literally.
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Thanks so much ladies!!!! You are all making me feel a lot better 😀 I will try to post my rehearsal video here, the live video is on don curry's youtube channel. On the plus side, I was photographed and videod by him for free and the newspaper photographer got some kickass shots of me also, that I can use for websites etc, so that was worth it by itself.
I forgot about Natasha's fall! Also I can't imagine how Jenyne felt after nailing her entire worlds routine until the very very end and she took that awful long fall…….I think she may have even beat Felix with that routine. I always felt really lucky I had never had any falls or major mishaps on stage so I think it was gonna happen eventually. Hopefully I got it overwith for a while!
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