[Cinara]

It feels so weird and impossible and insecure when you first learn a shoulder mount with cup grip! One day it just suddenly stopped feeling weird. I found the Veena grip felt a lot more natural at first, but cup is my favourite.

I wrapped my thumb around the pole in a princess grip shoulder mount once. As my feet reached the pole, my thumb got crushed against the pole and it hurt soooo much and left a nasty bruise. That might not happen in cup grip, but I suspect something painful would happen.

 

[Cinara]

I find the best way to avoid rib pain is to make sure the pole is running perfectly along my waist where it's nice and squishy. I like to get into it from a flatline scorpio so I can shift around and get the pole exactly into the groove between my ribs and pelvis before gripping the pole and dropping back.

You can hold onto the pole either with your thumb up, or down depending on which feels more comfortable (or what your instructor says).

Grabbing my foot required a lot more back flexibility than I expected! After months of practice I can still only do it in heels and I have to flail around a bit to grab my foot/stiletto heel. A "straight" allegra, where you have both legs straight and don't grab your foot is much easier. 

[Cinara]

There are four pole studios in my area. I've been to three and none use or even own crash mats. As far as I know the fourth studio doesn't either. Even at home I've never used a crash mat.

I have also done gymnastics and trampolining and there were plenty of crash mats and soft landing places there. They didn't stop me getting a broken arm, cracked sternum, soft tissue neck injuries that still bother me, spinal stress fractures, a broken toe, a chronically messed-up ankle, or my friend from getting a nasty concussion. 

I think the difference with pole is that you are never really letting go – even in drops you're still sort-of in contact, so you always have that safety outlet. In my other sports you can be completely airbourne so there's no always such a fast escape (well, there is – landing on your back – but that requires a mat).

One of the disadvantages of mats is that I think they could cause people to take more risks because they have that extra safety there. (At least, I would). Also, I prefer pole dance that integrates dancing with tricks – I get bored very quickly if I'm only learning tricks. A mat kind of stops you practicing your basic dance and floorwork – even just the little incidental things like standing up gracefully. That has made a huge difference to my dance skills.

Of course, that's my personal preference. If it was my insurance premiums I might feel differently, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone else using a mat. But for myself? I'd never ever use one. I know myself well enough that if I'm scared to do a move without one, it means I'm not ready to do it, or I haven't figured out how it could go wrong and how to land safely. And yes, accidents can still happen, but they can happen with a mat too.

I would hate being forced to use a crash mat – almost as much as I'd hate being forced to be spotted.

[Cinara]

Split grip isn't dangerous per se – it's more about having your weight supported by muscles that aren't really equipped for it. Any time you are on the pole and have a lot of body weight being supported from underneath by one arm, you are at serious risk for muscle strains – been there, done that myself! 

If at any point you are gripping the pole with your bottom hand thumb-down (whether in a carousel, boomerang, cradle, aysha, butterfly, whatever) the main job for the bottom hand is balance and steering – most of your weight should always be taken by the top hand.

This can get tricky with elbow grip aysha because you need to take all your weight while gripping with an elbow. I find that the further I get my hips from the pole, the less pressure I put on my bottom hand, and the safer it is. This could be a problem for straddling down from an aysha – because I don't know off-hand if it's possible to take most of the weight with your elbow grip for the whole descent.

I think you'd either have to focus on keeping the feeling of "leaning out" and pulling away from the pole the whole time or build up a lot of strength in your forearms (as in, more than is natural and it would take some time and work).

Also, I suspect you'd need to be able to hold an "embrace" pose, or better yet a one-handed "embrace" to know that your elbow grip is secure enough to take most of your weight and protect your bottom hand.

I find my upright split grip is most secure when I have my top forearm parallel to the pole: maybe you could try changing your grip to a forearm grip (descend into flag), or split grip with forearm against pole as you descend?

Elbow grip aysha, straddle down sounds like an awesome move. I'll have to see if I can do it. In the meantime take care of yourself and give your poor forearms a rest (easier said than done in my experience!)

[Cinara]

I agree with everyone! I had the same problem learning superman, and it was letting my legs slide down the pole a bit that helped. I find that superman technique varies a little based on whether you have larger or smaller thighs. Mine are on the generous side and I found that if I tried to grip the pole high up on my thighs my legs would get stuck and I'd feel like I was about to faceplant. Once I started gripping the pole at midthigh instead I instantly got it easier. (When I first tried on a 50mm I had to grip just above my knees but I'm over that now).

Sliding your legs down the pole to get into a superman (and then sliding further to get into figurehead/dove/bees knees/) is painful and unfamiliar. I got used to it by inverting, going into a handstand and then sliding my legs down the pole until my body was parallel to the floor then going into a low superman. (Veena demonstrates in her superman lesson). It got me used to the pain and the amount of grip I needed.

In my limited experience I've found that the crossing/uncrossing legs thing tends to be associated with thigh size too in the early learning stages. People with smaller thighs might need to cross to get grip, people with larger thighs might struggle to cross. Having said that, almost anyone can do either with practice (plus any other legs you like – I've been playing with stag legs lately). So work out what works best for you, and once you have it down you can try other techniques.

Good luck! Superman is always a tricky one to learn so I feel your pain 🙂

[Cinara]

I'm another with hyperextended elbows. My right hyperextends a little bit and never causes me any problems. My left hyperextends much much more and it frequently annoys me.

It can be quite unstable to support me from below – if I hyperextend it it becomes painful but if I keep it neutral or slightly bent it becomes wobbly and unstable. So things like ayshas with my left hand down are much more difficult and scary than right hand down. And upright split grips with my left hand down would either hurt my elbow if it was hyperextended or my forearm if neutralfor over a year. So moves that require your student to support her weight from below may take more time to build up strength and become confident.

I have no problems hanging off my left arm. An arm with an unstable elbow is kind of like a rope. You can't stand a rope on it's end and balance a rock on it. But if you tie the rock to the rope and hang it from the ceiling the rope can take a lot of weight. (In this example the rock is my body and the rope is my arm).

As for aesthetics, when my arms are floating free I prefer to keep them neutral, not hyperextended. (I rarely suceed, but try anyway).I know ballet prefers neutral too. When I did gymnastics/diving/trampolining hyperextension was fine. I think it's all about what aesthetic you like and whether or not you care. Felix hyperextends her knees like crazy and it's just part of her style.

I don't have any strengthening exercises for your student, sorry, because I'm doing a one-person experiment where I try to build strength without any isolated exercises (working well for me so far, but not sure it would work for everyone). What I would say to your student is that people with hyperextended joints can sometimes be more prone to injuries, so listen to your body, watch out for pain, try to rest and change technique before it gets too bad, and just be patient with building strength. And always make sure to engage muscles!

[Cinara]

Whew! Been moving this weekend and finally have internet access!

@ PaulettePoles: I actually don't have any video of my split grip aysha for some reason but I can see if I can get a chance to film this week. Sadly, my x-pole has done the same thing as everyone elses and the x-joint has twisted, despite careful alternating tightening, so I'll have to see if I can get to a relatively empty practice time somewhere. Unless, everyone else has already helped you enough!

@ Veena: Good point about keeping the scapula engaged! Being an ex-gymnast it didn't even occur to me that how to hang safely isn't something everyone just knows! That plus being an implicit learner is why I probably wouldn't make a good instructor – at least for beginners. Definitely the scapula needs to remain engaged which brings me to…

@ LymeLite: That's exactly how I should have said it! You don't literally hang, but the idea is to have the pole in line with your arm – at least in a side-to-side plane like it would be if hanging. We do get taught to take most of the weight on the top hand, which is a lot safer and less painful for me. But I will admit it took me a good year to get strong enough grip and it's still shaky on 50mm poles.

@ Amy: Yes! Looking at my elbow does help keep it straight. Now, I'm not a Dr or physio, just a human bio nerd, but my understanding is that hyperextended joints tend to have poor proprioception, because one of the cues the brain uses to determine if your arm is straight is signals from stretch receptors in the muscles. In most people a straight arm means a stretched (in the general, not flexibility) sense, so the stretch receptors fire and you know the arm is straight. In a hyperextended arm, the ligaments are looser (or maybe the joint is different for some people? not sure on that one), and so when the arm is straight the muscle is not at full length because the ligaments and I guess tendons still have some give, so you don't get the signal that the arm is straight until it's at hyperextension. So visualising is a way of compensating for reduced proprioception. Just geeking out here, the more knowledgeable can feel free to correct.

These days I'm pretty good at not hyperextending too much when my elbow takes weight (after 25 or so years, this is starting to get painful), but I have to film and refilm my moves constantly to get my arm not to hyperextend in moves like geminis and scorpios.

[Cinara]

Amy, we were on 38mm brass poles, which probably explains why top hand grip wasn't a huge issue! I'm still struggling to get a consistent split grip aysha on 50mm, so that's probably a good thing to think about.

I found that placing weight on my bottom arm was just too much stress on my forearm and I got some nasty strained muscles. Also, since I have to learn left hand down and my left elbow straightens 20 degrees past straight, I don't think it will ever support my weight from below.

When first learning an aysha with this technique it is very close to the pole. We seem to mostly get the distance from the pole by going into a deeper straddle and making our backs closer to parallel with the floor. So it's a matter of tilting away rather than holding ourselves away. Now I've got a bit more confident I think a more accurate description would be that the top hand takes all the weight and the bottom hand is just there to push you away from the pole.  

I've never been able to figure out having a bent upper arm in an aysha – well except for an elbow grip. I tend to twist sideways. I keep my arm bent for cup grip, but that doesn't feel stable until I'm almost in an iron x! Maybe I have weird shoulders?

[Cinara]

I've been on 10ft-ish 38mm poles, and they do have a bit of "give" in them. You only notice it if you "throw" yourself into a spin, or try to invert using momentum instead of strength. So that's kind of useful for building correct technique. The first time people try them after the thicker poles the give feels and sounds alarming, but once you realise it's normal it becomes a good tool for checking technique. They're fine for my holly drops (if harder to grip!) but I wonder about some of the extreme Chinese pole stuff (not that that gets taught at Bobbi's). Maybe the give would be useful – like a vertical trampoline.

Another thing to keep in mind about Bobbi's 38mm poles is that the poles are almost always on spinning mode even in beginners (the flex in the poles actually slows down their spinning rate, which is handy). So with the extra challenge of gripping a spinning pole, narrow is much easier.

Personally, I think 45mm is a good compromise in general, but I have to say I look forward to practicing on the 38s more than other poles because I know I can do the best I can and not fear losing my grip. They're safe and comforting. And because I have sweaty hands and relatively weaker hand grip, it becomes frustrating to know the only thing stopping me is some arbitrary pole thickness. But I guess people with thin or weak thighs feel the same way about the narrow poles!

Having said that, I've always found that the type of metal makes much more difference than the thickness. 

 

[Cinara]

Oh I love when Karol does that! If only I had her bendy back…

[Cinara]

Hey there! I couldn't get the link to work, but I'm fairly sure I know the move. It's so cool! I'm too tired to actually try it now (my attemps are sketchy at the best of times) but I tried with my feet on the ground and it seemed like it was too much pressure on my top wrist when I tried to turn my back to the pole 🙁 I would be very happy to be corrected though!

If it helps, I've found it much easier to get into it from a CAR and a Bow and Arrow. As for the twisted grip to split grip version, I find it helps me to think of it like going into a brass monkey. I usually even hook my knee onto the pole for balance while I transition. (Balance seems to be a big deal!)

I hope that helps, and I really hope I'm wrong about the split grip because I always like more options.

[Cinara]

My hip took a long time to get better so the physio referred me to a sports doctor because of suspected torn cartilege. Luckily one MRI later it was determined that my cartilege is fine (no surgery whoo!) but I had inflamed psoas tendons. Luckily by this time my hip was almost better so I didn't worry about further physio. The Dr advised me that training on my injured hip would delay healing and cause it to hurt more, but wouldn't do more serious damage. So given my "walk it off"/ "you're always saying you hurt something…" youth I just kept training.

My hip was pain free for awhile although the clicking never went away. I was training harder than ever (4-5 hours of pole a week plus 45 minute walk and 30 minutes of flexibiity every day) with no problems, and even managed to get my right leg split.

Since things were so good I decided to try again with a splits and flexibility class, which is what originally caused the problem. I promised myself I wouldn't push myself as hard, and with my depression improving I knew I probably wouldn't be calling myself a bitch and punishing myself with the stretching quite so much

Unfortunately my hip started hurting again after a few weeks of splits and flex. I'm not sure what the exact trigger is: whether it's the partner resistance stretching, the dynamic stetching, too much work on box splits or just getting too competitive and pushing myself too hard. The main thing is I know I can improve my flexibility without formal flex classes so hopefully avoiding them will keep my hip happy. I'll just have to accept that building flex will take me a lot of time, and my extreme childhood flexibility is gone.

I'm probably going to try going back to the physio again. I'm not sure how much it's been helping, but I know that they're evidence-based and will not cause harm. As an anecdotal caution, both my husband and I have been to (separate) chiropractors who have failed to diagnose (or even send off to x-ray) our respective spinal fractures and then just went ahead with spinal adjustment! So personally, I would recommend going with conventional evidence-based treatment first, to rule out medical diagnoses, and if for some reason doctors and physios aren't enough on their own, try alternative medicine (chiro, accupuncture, etc) second.

[Cinara]

I've finally got the allegra! I just needed to practice a few more scorpios with good technique to build up pain tolerance for my leg and side. Also I had to grab my other foot before I even thought about lowering my body (due to my mediocre hip flexor and back flexibility). I have to do the same thing for a closed rainbow, which is where I got the idea.

I haven't had the problem of my hand slipping, though I find I'm holding on with my fingertips, so not the best grip. I just reread Amy's suggestion of using a cup grip and I might try that.  Otherwise, the main thing that helped my allegra was spending a lot of time on perfecting my scorpio, flatline scorpio and jade. It really helped me get good side grip, hip turnout, and the balance to rearrange my hand and thigh grip easily. Once I worked them for about six weeks I could suddenly do an allegra (though it's still clumsy getting into position).

[Cinara]

Hey there! I go to three studios, plus StudioVeena so you're not alone. They all know about each other and seem fine with it.

I'm not really comfortable with the concept of loyalty when it comes to studios. This is based partly on my experiences in high level sport. I have serious concerns with the traditional "guru" system of training, where you have a close relationship with one trainer/group who acts as an authority figure and is just as invested in your sucess as you are. The way I see it, I'm an adult, and only I should be responsible for my sucesses and for how my pole journey takes shape. The studios I go to are tools to help me in my journey and keep me connected with others and I reciprocate by paying for classes. But at the end of the day I like that they're only interested in my money and my positive attitude, not when, where or how I train, what moves I learn, or whether I compete. (Not saying other studios are like this, just that in my head I associate this attitude with loyalty to a studio).

I figure as long as I pay what I owe, respect each studio's intellectual property (routines, etc), and don't badmouth one studio to another, I'm okay. I try to be friendly with everyone and stay neutral to any points of contention. I think if you're honest, ethical and friendly it shouldn't be a problem. Any studio that has a problem with me training elsewhere probably doesn't have the right sort of perspective for me anyway. I guess I'm just lucky three studios in my city are compatible 🙂

[Cinara]

Oh, in case it wasn't clear, I wouldn't ever suggest deliberately falling to practice falling! Just practicing safe exits – for instance I was never taught the basic exit out of a gemini – just to go into crucifix! And things like learning aysha make sure that at all times you're in a position to clamp your legs back onto the pole, and know to do that. (Personally I was happy to just flip right over into a crouch if I lost my balance, but it would be crazy irresponsible to suggest that as the ideal exit to other people!) And practicing inching down the polw one limb at a time is good practice for if you ever get tangled