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Year two and very slow but making some progress
I am now in my second year of pole . I do it about 4 times a week but there are some gaps if work gets busy
Currently I can do sits , side sits , one climb ( not the next one though as I haven’t enough strength to hold my entire body up and take my legs off ) pole hold with legs off is ok though , wrist sits , planks , fireman’s spin .attitude spin , back hook and chair spins . Fan legs are slowly improving . I can’t do any sort of shoulder stands , hand stands or easy ups and sweet Jesus I am light years away from inverting !!!
Not sure why I am sooooo slow as I do yoga as well 3 days a week
I know everyone is different but slow isn’t what anyone wants to be lol -
4 Replies
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I saw your Reddit post as well, but I’ll just answer here. 🙂
As long as you have a feeling that you “should” be at a certain point, and this goes for everything, even life. You’ll have to deal with feelings of not being enough, or behind.
Take a few minutes and write down what your motivation is for learning to pole dance? Is it for fun, to stay fit, to compete to prove something to others or yourself, or reach a certain level? If you feel it’s to reach a certain level then ask yourself why you want this? Understanding why we want something can help unlock things in our mind. In my opinion the most fun way to approach pole is for fun and exercise. It’s what I try to facilitate in my lessons, but I understand most people want and expect to see progress or “finish” everything here.
Learning to let go of expectations that you’ve set up in your mind can be one of the hardest things for us to do. I’ve struggled with this forever, and still do. If you can remind yourself to let go of expectation, and stay in the moment, life and pole dance can be a source of fulfillment instead of frustration.
In my personally life I can relate to feeling frustrated with slow progress because I’ve always been naturally musical. I’ve been able to play most instruments without much knowledge of them, it came easy for me. However, I started learning the guitar in Feb of 2022 and it’s been sooooo hard for me. I had started playing guitar in high school and gave up, switching to bass guitar, within a few weeks because it didn’t come easy to me like all of the other instruments. I’m still no where near what my expectations were, but I play almost every night, I just enjoy it. I’ve had to stop using the part of the guitar app that tracks progress because it was making me feel frustrated. My point is, just because we have skills in one area that would seem to translate to another, doesn’t mean it will.
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Thanks for your lovely thoughtful response . My motivation for learning pole is to turn personal tragedy into something beautiful. In 2020 , my beautiful husband of over 30 years lost his sanity and tried to kill me . He was arrested and then the full depth of his illness became visible . He developed psychosis , paranoid delusions and lost all executive function . He
left me alone with a 3 year old son that he had been the main carer of . In hindsight I realized that the child he had insisted we have was his way of surviving when his brain was failing . It was the middle of Covid and as an ICU doc I was in the middle of a massive surge of patients . Work kind of became my focus and then my sister ( an avid pole dancer of 60 years of age ) introduced me to pole . It was the first light I saw in months
Two years later and I have survived but I live with incredible grief . Pole dancing is my analogy to prove to myself that I can overcome the impossible and rise again . Pole dancing is a symbol of not just survival but thriving and living again
You are so correct about talent not always coming through in the way we want it to
I am an artist in my spare time and after my husband was arrested I drew the picture below
It’s called Phoenix and Ashes
It’s about rising from the ashes and being reborn
That ia pole to me .
You are an amazing teacher and even through I get frustrated with myself , I will never quit pole as I love it !
It reminds me of the line in Hallelujah ‘ she tied you to your her kitchen chair , She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the HallelujahSometimes incredible pain brings forth something beautiful
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Ah yes, I remember your story. I agree that often, pain brings about an expression of beauty. We can’t have one without the other.
That’s an incredible picture, you have so much talent.
PS one of my favorite songs to play on guitar is Hallelujah.
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You are the best teacher out there . Keep up that guitar – one day it will become part of you just your dancing
All new skills are like that but with time , patience and practice they become part of the artist
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