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When is it time to leave the studio?
I’ve been going to a pole studio for a little over a year now. I love the studio and the people in it. Not only is it a very nice place with excellent teaching, but the atmosphere is so chill and everyone is really kind and supportive. It is a very safe place to learn, and the instructors go out of their way to make sure you’re following proper form and feeling good.
Now for the dark side… I’m having issues coping in a group environment. Most of my classmates started around the same time that I did and have the same athletic background and training regimen that I do, however, they’re all seeing so much more progress than I am. Of course, I’m happy for them, and I know I shouldn’t compare myself to anyone else, but I just can’t help it and it has become very unhealthy for me. I’ve been leaving classes feeling defeated and like total garbage. No one at the studio has been making me feel this way, except me. I’m trying to keep up a brave face and just brush it off but it’s eating me up inside.
I’m debating a couple of options and was hoping to get opinions from some of you guys. Maybe some of you have even been in my (8 inch) heels before. 🙂
1) Do I ask to regress a level? Part of me feels like I progressed too quickly, but I’m worried doing so will seem obnoxious. It’s not that I’m not getting some of the moves, I’m just not as strong, flexy, coordinated, consistent, and pretty as the other girls when I execute them. Maybe it’s time to take a step back and revisit the basics?
2) Should I take a brief break from the studio (suspend my membership) and work on what I want to do at home? I do have Studio Veena, and I have the passion and motivation to practice on my own and two (admittedly short) poles at home I can work with. I’m feeling kind of “tricked out” and like I just want to dance. Class is mostly tricks.
3) Do I buck up and realize that the problem is NOT the group environment but me and face whatever weird terrors have been dredged up from the very depths of my warped psyche?
I guess what I’m really asking is, what’s the difference between repression and salvaging your sanity/being healthy? What’s the difference between good and bad (emotional/psychological) discomfort? When do you fight, and when do you take flight?
This is so hard for me because the studio itself is not unhealthy. It’s the way I’m reacting to it that is, but I don’t know how to fix that, or even if I can. I feel so lost posting this. I’ve been pretty down about all of this for the last several months. Thanks to anyone who made it through this pity-fest. 🙂
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20 Replies
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It’s funny, I feel like you wrote my letter! I felt that way about a year ago. The studio I go to is like yours, good atmosphere, great teachers, supportive and I’ve made some really good friends in class. But they were all more flexible and more advanced than me in spite of the fact that we’ve all been taking classes together since the beginning. I had been taking classes for 8 years and was a Level 4, able to do advanced tricks requiring a lot of strength but always feeling like I looked sloppy, couldn’t execute combos without stopping between tricks, dance moves feeling awkward. So my solution was to drop out for a year. I love pole, it’s the only exercise I’ve ever actually enjoyed and the whole time I was out I missed it. I finally signed up to return at a lower level. My advice to you would be to just drop back to a lower level now and don’t stop completely. It’s so frustrating to know that you used to be able to do something and you know how in your head but your body has lost the strength that you had. I know I can build back up to it but if I had never completely stopped…… I’m really even enjoying the Level 1 classes now. Every time I go I learn something new about a trick I thought I had, a new way to do it or a correction in my technique that makes it prettier. I go to Level 2 and Level 3 classes sometimes too. The Level 2 classes match my strength level pretty well and I can do most things but once again, I find there are things I’ve forgotten. On the ones that I know well I can concentrate on how to make them prettier. In the Level 3 classes, I struggle with not being able to invert yet when I could do it easily before. To do a shoulder mount invert will take me a long, long time to build back up to. If I had it to do over again, I would talk to the studio owner and confess that I still felt awkward and inferior (I did) and I would start over in Level 1 & 2 and progress without losing my strength, concentrating on perfecting the basics as I went along. This time I’m not so anxious to be promoted to the next level. Hope my experience helps you to decide what you might want to do!
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Hey Strangefox, I’m actually really glad you asked this stuff. It’s one of those things I think a lot of people like to brush away, like “Just don’t compare yourself to others,” which to me, is similar to “Just smile and think positive!” when you have depression. It doesn’t work. It’s just some placation that’s meant to minimize your experience so that others don’t need to deal with it.
That said, WE DO need to deal with it… and I go through this very often. So, I’ll take you through a bit of my own process.
First… I’ve taken a lot of classes. I’ve trained really hard some times, and very not hard other times. I work on the things I’m told to, I’ve done all the cross training I can think of. Seriously. I’ve been through level 3 at my studio (somewhere around inversions, inside/outside leg hangs, and the like) about three or four times now. My invert is always, always the worst one in class. I have to set myself up, psyche myself up, and hope I managed to hook that foot every single time I try it. Everyone else? Graceful, long legs, beautiful deadlift inversions, no problem there. They’re all nailing moves and moving on, while I stay here, stuck and… sometimes, yeah, defeated, deflated. No one else is pointing fingers or asking “Hmm, why is this so hard for YOU?” but, I still feel like I’m just not part of the group.
Further from that, I’m always different from everyone else by way of stature. I’m either shorter than the tall, long-legged beauties that somehow make everything look like they’re being done by a ballerina, or I’m taller than the little people who are slamming out moves like it’s not a challenge. I’m always stockier than everyone else. I often wonder if it’s just how I’m built, if it’s ME that isn’t able to do these things, no matter how hard I try.
But, those thoughts don’t help me.
So, what’s the difference between good and bad discomfort? What’s the difference between repression and salvation? Honestly… it’s you.
Good discomfort is when you keep your head up, and keep fighting, even when it sucks, because you believe in yourself, still. Repression is when you take those doubts and fail to look at them, to hear them, and you let them eat away at your doubt because they aren’t being fed what they really want. Salvation is when you give yourself the time, the peace, and the love to look at what is happening and understand that you are just YOU, and that it’s the way you are best. Bad discomfort is when you feel buried under it all, and you’re not seeing the incredibly vast person you really are.
The trick here is that everyone has a limit. It’s not a hard limit, it’s not a forever limit. We’re not driving cars that just run out of gas and have to be abandoned in the middle of the desert. We’re not limited things that simply give up and move on *forever* because stuff got rough.In essence, what it sounds like to me is that you’re not giving yourself the credit you truly deserve for all of the work, time, and effort you have put in to your dancing. It sounds like you have self-doubt, and that it’s coming from somewhere that isn’t about all the other people around you. It’s about your own judgement, it’s about your beliefs. Those things, you can change!
If you judge yourself not working hard enough, then a proper evaluation is needed. What is “enough”? What do you define this as? Are you looking only at results, and not at the actual effort applied? How can you measure this thing in a better way?
If you believe you should be progressing faster, then why? What is “progress”? Why do you need it? Can you, instead, be content here, where you are, instead of placing yet more pressure on yourself?Proper examination is ultimately necessary, and difficult. Many people don’t want to. They shy away, and I understand. It sucks, it’s hard, and sometimes, it just feels like too much.
Sometimes, we’re just too tired to go on. That’s okay, too. That’s when you know you need a break, when you feel burnt out, like this thing cannot give you joy anymore. Take a break, do some other physical activity. Lift some heavy stuff, go for a bunch of runs, set yourself a good three month “Not thinking about pole dance” time. We all need breaks from stuff, be it our spouses, or the hobbies we know we love. I’ve had breaks from writing, despite it being my life and my breath. Breaks are good.
And, if you need a break but don’t want to stop pole dance, then do your own thing. Maybe at the studio, maybe not. Work on the moves you’ve learned that you love, or work on some exotic floor f*cking, or even just get really weird with it. Give yourself a little more space to explore and have FUN, to PLAY, because those are truly the reasons we have these hobbies. If stuff gets too serious, I know for me… I check out. Bye bye hobby, you got too serious for me! This is why I’m not a baker 😉
It’s definitely up to you what you do… and I don’t think you should beat yourself up for it. Pole will always be here for you, and no decision you make has to be permanent. Even for a day.
Good luck 🙂
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I always tell dancers to think back to why they started, and why they loved pole at first. Sometimes reflecting on those reasons can give you the answer you’re looking for. xoxox
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Leave the studio.
I’ve already told my story a million times so here’s just a quick summary. I was feeling exactly like you: slower learner than other colleges that started at the same time or even later, plus older and not very flexible. I was strong and had good stamina though. Good studio, good teachers, but too much focus on tricks and static pole. Not my thing. I wanted to dance in heels.
I was actually forced to leave the studio because I relocated to a different city. I searched but did not find a studio that I really liked in my new city. So I started to train at home. And then the magic happened. I started to progress much faster than before, develop my style, focus on combos and dance, etc. I also worked the flexibility on my own, I never felt warm enough on that studio’s flexibility classes to reach full range of motion.
Also notice that being able to do a trick once or twice does not mean that you have nailed it… to me, that happens when you can do that trick 5 out of 5 tries, with perfect form and technique, and put it in a combo. And it must feel safe and “comfortableâ€. In my old studio, you were pushed to the next move or level almost as soon as you were able to “do†a move. I was strong and could do many moves, nevertheless, I did not feel mentally ready to keep progressing. I needed to mature the moves, make then my own.
After being totally off a pole studio for almost one year, I’m going again but just to get ideas; my main training happens at home and motivation comes from many places: Instagram, pole webs like Veena’s and the studio. And many times I attend lower level classes, and that’s OK.
So again, my advice is to leave the studio. Maybe you can drop in a couple of times a month if that helps and motivates you. Or leave it fully for a month or two, see how it goes and then reconsider.
If you leave the studio, you may need to increase your social media presence to feel more supported.
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Hey LatinPoler, I really liked your response- that’s a good point, and I know I’ve been struggling with the “tricks” focus on training, rather than combos and dance. My studio DOES have some dance aspects, in other classes, and I’ve been considering going to those…
But, for the case of me and the OP, there is some fear taking the bulk of pole dance into the home. What would you say is the biggest thing that kept you coming back, time after time, having no actual class to be held accountable? How did you motivate yourself to get up and do it? Is there some way you built it into your day? -
I have never struggled with motivation to workout at home. On the contrary, what motivates me to workout at home is to be able to do what I like, when I like. When I used to go to classes often, many times I cancelled last minute because I was thinking (for example): ugh, I don’t feel up to working on handstands today, my wrist is sore, but there’s a chance the class revolves around that. Or: I feel tired but I still want to pole, I’d rather do easy low flow than aerial tricks. So if you want to put it this way, going to the studio felt like a chore but doing it at home is pleasure 😉 What I want, when I want! Plus I save valuable and scarce time in prep and commute.
I also have to say that I have background in fitness and I have run into some teachers that had no idea about proper warm ups, etc… Teachers that just stretch to warm up. Sorry but that’s not a warmup… especially for older ladies! I’d rather do it my way at home, warm up what I think I need to warm up the most, etc.
Lastly, I’ve always been a “solo” athlete… before pole, I used to run a lot, on my own again. Maybe it’s my personality, but I do things for myself, not to satisfy a trainer. Of course you need additional support, from social media or non-pole colleges. Or just the personal satisfaction of getting a new trick. -
Ahhh! You guys! Thanks so much for replying. Your words and support mean so much to me. I really do love this site. 🙂
Nancy – I’m sorry you’ve felt this way, too. The studio I go to has very few levels and there is such a huge jump between some of them. When I started in my current level it was OK. The progression felt natural, and I was learning new things and getting stronger. The other girls were progressing much quicker though, and of course, the majority rules so each session of my current class level became more and more challenging. I have friends in class and we always have fun together, but I just don’t feel like I belong at that level so when I do go back I’ll probably return to a previous level. 🙂
Runemist – I really needed to hear that right now. Thank you so much for responding. I completely agree with you on how being told not to compare yourself to others is easier said than done. You totally hit the nail on the head for me when you talked about your own experience. I guess I just feel like there isn’t a place at the studio for me anymore. It’s such an alienating feeling and the fact that I’m responsible for making myself feel this way almost makes it worse. I’m short, and I’ve got back. I’ve often wondered if I’m just not built for this. I require inhuman amounts of strength and flexibility to even get into the moves my classmates are doing with relative ease. You’ve asked some really good questions and I’m going to mull those over and explore them to see if I can find some answers.
Veena – I first got into pole because I wanted an outlet for my creativity and energy. I wanted to gain strength and be proud of what my body could do. I’ve always been a “no I can’t do that” person and in recent years I was really starting to hate my body. I wanted to love my body again. I wanted to dance and create beautiful shapes. I’m happiest when I’m freestyling, and unfortunately at the level I’m at we often don’t have time for freestyle. I’m having trouble freestyling at home due to some space and height restrictions but perhaps that’s just an opportunity to get creative. 🙂
LatinPoler – I can so relate to your journey and struggles. I’m similarly bothered by the push to learn more and more tricks without perfecting the ones I have already. I think that’s part of why I’m so discouraged. I can get into moves but they look awful and I’m unable to throw them into freestyles because I can’t get into and out of them gracefully. What good are these tricks? I’m also a distance runner and I find it takes A LOT to get me warm. My body also cools down quickly. I understand with time constraints in class we can’t have a 30 minute warm up like I do at home. My instructor does make an effort to include spin pole and combos in every class, and she’s always open to us working on different moves if we’re not a fan of what is being taught. The problem is, tricks are the most popular so it’s what we spend most of our time on. And I always feel pressured (by me) to do the things the other students are doing.
Maybe I haven’t been doing enough of “my thing” and that’s why I’m getting so unhappy and feeling so out of place and discouraged. I’m far more impressed with exotic dancers and burlesque artists than I am with acrobats and pole stars, so I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with tricks. I do think I’m going to suspend my membership for a while and try to home pole a bit. I think I need to make this journey about me again.
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Hey, I just wanted to follow up and say… your post really made me think about my own experiences. The replies here made me wonder if perhaps I should also take a step back and re-evaluate. I’ve also been taking a Level 1 class with a friend of mine, and seeing her joy and excitement getting these early tricks has been so… different from my own experiences with tricks I’ve been working on, that it’s made me wonder… am I really happy with what I’m working on? Why am I taking pole classes? Am I happy?
So… I’m going to also be changing my focus. My studio puts on Exotic pole classes each week, though they don’t have the same progressions as the regular pole classes, you do learn a choreographed dance, complete with spins and floor work and tricks that I generally already know. They are often what really make me feel good, so I’m going to try to take more of those, and perhaps work on them at home. I also just… want to dance more at home.
So, thank you for also encouraging me to turn this on myself, too 🙂 -
I totally relate to this entire thread, and the strength that I see from everyone is why I love this community. Early in my pole journey people would encourage me to do other activities, and I just wasn’t interested. Now I love to get to other types of classes for cross training. It makes me come back to pole loving it more than I did before only with more things in my toolkit. I used to look at it as time I could have been poling, but now when I am in those classes I tend to think of how what I am working on is going to make this or that pole move look so much better.
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Hi, if the studio is the only one available in your area, then stay. If not, find one that works better with student’s various levels. At the studio I go to, despite the fact that we are all in class together, moves are adjusted according to ability. For example, if a student can’t do an advanced version of a back hook spin, they will continue to work on the beginner version, while other students who can do the advanced version will do the advanced version. That being said, the student who can only do the beginner version is NEVER made to feel bad. That’s what I LOVE about the studio where I attend. There are no DIVAS. We all encourage each other. ~~~ Also, continue to take lessons at StudioVeena.com. I love the lessons that are offered here as an addition to my in studio pole classes.
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I’ll need to wait until after the session to suspend, especially since I committed to performing for a student show in October. Once this session is over I will probably take a small break for the holidays so I don’t burn myself out. I do still need to find my groove and I really want to focus on flow and movement (looking at the 30 day flow program!).
I’m both glad and sad that this post has resonated with others. This is, I suppose, a more common phenomenon than I thought it was. The pole community is one of the most supportive communities I’ve ever been a part of, but we’re all so hard on ourselves. I’m curious as to why it’s so prevalent here. I haven’t noticed it happening quite like this in other athletic communities, although I’m not very sporty so I could be wrong.
Runemist – I’m so glad this was helpful for you in your pole journey!
I still had class scheduled for this past week, so I went, and I had a really interesting experience. Usually there are enough poles for everyone, but this week we had to share and it was actually a secret god-send. It was really eye-opening to see that others were going through the same thing that I was. When you’re focusing on your own thing, you don’t necessarily see that. You just hear cheers, and then you see one of your classmates in a crazy trick. When you’re sharing a pole, you’re watching your classmate more closely – it’s more personal. You’re seeing them go through the same process you do – mentally, and physically. I was lucky that I was able to share with a girl I really admire, too.
Furthermore, I noticed that some students were progressing faster because they were willing to use grips and techniques that I’m hesitant to try. There’s nothing wrong with this…I just know I don’t have the body awareness to do those things safely. Realizing that it’s an issue of I WON’T and not I CAN’T made me feel much more in control and confident.
MdawWat – I have started cross-training more with yoga, chair, and strength training. It does really help. I am a distance runner but have had to lay off of running due to an over-use/muscle imbalance issue that I’m just getting over/resolving. Loss of one of my sports has resulted in a significant weight gain, some shame, and an unhealthy focus on the only athletic activities I can do. Not to mention running has always been very meditative for me and having to cut back on it has meant I’ve had to find other ways to help clear my mind.
Colleen – the difficult thing is that my studio is extremely supportive. No one is judging me. The issue is completely with me. I’m feeling burned out and left behind by the trick training because I want to advance and I’m not seeing any progress. The instructor is more than happy to let me work on an easier variation of what the class is doing, but I feel bad about myself when I compare my accomplishments to my peers. I know I shouldn’t make that comparison, but it’s easier said than done. Some can handle group classes. I’m not sure if I can. I may be more competitive than I thought. 🙂
I agree the lessons here are fantastic. I find Veena touches on a lot of really important things that often get brushed over. For example, injury avoidance – stretching out your forearms and why certain moves/grips might not be right for every body. Veena has totally opened my eyes and turned me off of twisted grip. I will NOT do it. I notice a lot that it’s being used to get into cartwheel mount/handspring before a student has developed the shoulder strength to get into it using regular grip. No thank you. I’ll stick to my shoulder exercises. It will take longer, but it will be worth it.
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Thank you for your kind words StrangeFox!
Addressing the being hard on yourself….I think pole is still so new that both teachers and students don’t yet understand what moves are truly beginner or appropriate for the general population. As in people who do pole for fun. Training moves that are more for dedicated, focused dancers will be a bit different. My goal is to help both types of dancers!
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Maybe it is the pole community at large, but Veena and StrangeFox you both say things that make me wonder if there is a common denominator subset of the pole community captured here. I love Veena’s emphasis on safety and a number of the things that I can do on pole are only because of having the detailed breakdowns Veena provides.
In the studio environment, they teach a basic move, and often the approach is that if you can do it, then on to the next thing. You keep getting moved up until you are in a group of athletes that is not common despite how you began and how you got there. I sympathize with the pressure to always be teaching something exciting and new.
Lately though I have noticed a trend on this site. We have learned moves but are wondering how to take them to the next level. How do I demonstrate total control of this move, make it look effortless and flawless? In studios you get this a lot as beginners because there is enough people to make it work, but as the crowd dwindles when you stick around in pole if you are not doing the harder version of the trick then you are often just left behind. Instead of the harder version though what about the better version? If we learn that maybe one day we will be ready for harder skills which is why so many of us identify with where StreangeFox began this thread I think.
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Veena – I completely agree. Pole is still a pretty young sport, and I feel like the pole community is pretty tight knit and still a bit “niche.” This means that pole stars feel “closer” (for lack of a better word) to the general pole population than say an NFL quarterback to the football community. I think that also makes it difficult to judge which moves are appropriate for the dancer who trains a couple of times a week, versus the dancer who trains 24/7 and is looking to go pro.
For other sports, there seems to be more awareness that going as hard as the pros means you’ll probably wear your body out while you’re still young. Most of us aren’t willing to make that sacrifice because we’ve seen the football star who suffered a career ending blow to the knee, or the hockey star who has suffered one too many concussions and is now paying for it dearly. Pole athletes make incredible sacrifices for their sport, and yet we don’t see pole stars the same way we see other athletes.
MdawWat – I’ve been thinking a lot about what you wrote here. I was so excited the first time I got into iguana. Then I watched the video later and realized how silly I looked leaping around with my bum in the air until I finally could get my foot hooked. Since January I’ve been trying to refine my iguana mount. I still don’t have this move down but it is always improving. If I can’t execute a move beautifully, then I can’t use it in a dance, and if I can’t use it in a dance then what is the point? What you wrote has inspired me to revisit a lot of moves I’ve just gotten and ignored (hello, scorpio and shoulder mount). I think if I have a more solid scorpio I’ll feel more comfortable working on allegra, and a better shoulder mount means a more comfortable (read: less scary) brass monkey.
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I’m going to chime in here as a pole dance instructor. Far too often I see students rushing through levels without having solid fundamentals. Then they become the chronic repeaters (not that there is anything wrong with repeating!) but actually being stuck in a level because they don’t have the pre-requisite moves. At my studio we have 10 levels, and when I took over Level 8 I had students who could not execute a basic shoulder mount or even a layback, but were expecting to learn handsprings, janerios, pegasus etc.
I’m not saying this is your situation but just a perspective for anyone who feels down about feeling like crap. I used to walk out of classes many, many times feeling low that I couldn’t **do anything**, but when I analysed it, I could find my way to a solution. So you really need to ask yourself: what is it that’s missing for you? Conditioning? Work on that. Flexibility? Work on that. Just one particular move that you like the look of but can’t do? Work on that. Pick just a few things at a time and slowly and surely you WILL see progress if you FOCUS your energy on those things.
As I always say to my students:
– Pole isn’t just about getting your instagram worthy tricks that people push you into just you can say “ta-da!”. You have to WORK for the move so you can do it safely by yourself every single time.
– there’s 15 students and one of me. I can’t rescue everyone in my class who can’t do laybacks if that’s the level they are in. If you can’t do the pre-requisite moves, you SHOULDN’T be moving up levels, period.
– if you’re feeling ‘bummed out’ that you can’t ‘do something’ , then do something about it that empowers you. Take a break or take a private, whatever it is that you need to stay motivated, then do it.Sorry for my boss-like response to the original question. I love my students dearly but it drives me crazy to have them moving up without respect for the program, let alone their safety. Best of luck with your progress xxx
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