
LillyBilly
Forum Replies Created
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@Cinara – I'm glad you posted this question 🙂 I hope you will take good care of yourself, and don't be too hard on yourself – you deserve it. You sound like an incredibly strong and capable person, but there is also another kind of strength that comes from allowing yourself to be weak sometimes. It's ok to need a rest sometimes, to take your time, to be in pain and to need support. You deserve it as much as anybody else around you, and the people who love you (your husband, for example) want to be there for you. Let them.
I will add two things about doctors telling you you don't have any problems –
1. Doctors don't know everything. In the past, doctors thought that menstrual pain (is this how you say it?) wasn't real. But I think that most of us know that oh yes, it is real.
Our knowledge keep evolving.2. The fact that doctors don't know how to deal with something, doesn't make it less of a problem, especially if it troubles you on a daily basis. I have a "syndrom" that doctors can't detect or solve, and I had to learn how to take care of myself better so that I can function normally. I also thought that my pain was imaginary for years, but after I learned how to help myself with it and started talking about my sickness and pain, I found out that a lot of people who had similar problems started coming to me for advice, support and help. By allowing myself to be "weak", I allowed them to admit their pain and became strong for others.
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@RoseMay – Could be that we all get battered so well in basic army training, that by the time we are civilians again we are a lot more aware of our limitations and a lot less excited about overusing our bodies. Many of my said male friends have to work around old stress injuries from their army days. :\
I will say that bruises (blue marks), tight muscles, surface injuries and things like that are not what I consider injury. These are pretty much the normal wear and tear you get when working with your body. I am talking about serious things – broken bones and teeth, dislocated joints, torn tendons/muscles – things that require medical intervention.
What kind of injuries is your article covering?
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Elektra, I wasn't replying to your post to begin with, I wrote my first message before I saw yours (it takes me a lot of time to write a post) and I am not taking anything up with you.
I saw your reply to me as an attempt to reidicule the message I was trying to deliver that too many injuries are not ok by picking on my "uncommon statistics". Whatever. I don't know anyone who has sustained more than one injury or two in the past 5 years, and I know many people who practice "extreme sports".
I don't think that all accidents are stupidity, don't put words in my mouth – I think some are. Sometimes the student is stupid, sometimes the teacher is. And as I said – yes, sometimes accidents happen, but only sometimes not all of the time. If you smashed your car 5 times, there's got to be something wrong with your driving, right?
If you think the word stupid is nasty, I'm sory this is not what I meant – english is not my native language, I don't know any other word to describe it. How would you call ignoring warning signs, taking on tricks you are not ready for without preparation and ignoring what your teachers say about safety and control?
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@Elektra – How many accidents are normal? 1? 2? 3? 15? 100? If you have too many accidents, you may not be careful enough. If I've been training on the pole for 3 months and then trying to do a handspring and hurt my wrist (which I've seen happen), you can call it an accident. I call it stupidity. If I train in martial arts with a partner I can't trust and he breaks my nose (which I've seen happen) you can call it accident, I call it stupidity. If you train so much your muscles can't hold you and then do an invert and fall on your head (which I've seen happen), you can call it an accident, I call it stupidity.
Yes – sometimes you slip and there is nothing to do about it, but it shouldn't happen too many times. Now, I don't know what Cinara's situation is, but telling her that "all pain is normal" and that injuries are okay after she posts a post like that seem irresponsible to me. I was try trying to make the point that if she gets injured a lot, she better start questioning her methods, and arguing about the statistical significance of 0 vs. 3 injuries over years of training seems to me like it's irrelevant right now.
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I don't want to answer your poll because I think the answer to most of the questions is "it depends".
Is it normal for adults to feel joint and muscle pain?
Definitely not all of the time, only if excercise is involved.
Joint pains are always a bad sign, in my opinoin. For me – joint pain is a sign that I did something wrong – that my alignment is off, that I put too much stress on my joints, that my equipment is not good etc. When I get joint pains I stop and evaluate my workout.
Muscle pains are not born equal – some muscle pains result from the lactic acid that is created in your muscles during workout, and are perfectly normal. But there are kinds of pain that signal damage and distress (i.e – oversthreching, inflammation), and these should not be taken lightly!Outside of funerals, adult women should cry in front of others
Adult people "shouldn't" cry. They can cry, if they feel the need, but there is no should there.
What I think you should be asking yourself is, if you cry a lot, what is causing that. The cry itself is not bad, but if you find yourself needing it often – it is a sign of problem.
I used to cry a lot when I was in a very bad relationship (some would say abusive). No one thought less of me because of that, but once I left that partner, well – I don't need to cry anymore.Are you currently experiencing pain (of any variety or severity)
Not really. I ate something bad at lunch and I feel sick. Yesterday my hand hurt because I put too much stress on it during practice, and it is not strong enough. Today I gave it a rest and now it doesn't hurt. Next time I practive I will be more gentle with it, since I have hands problems and I need to work slowly on strengthening them.I am a bit worried that you will use your survey results in a way that will harm you. There is no one type of pain, and you should be aware of your body well enough to know the difference between them. An internet survey can't help you with that. And while I do think some pain is normal and necessary, note that in all my years working out (and I've been working out more than 13 years now, doing martial arts weights and pole) – I've never been injured.
So if you are injured a lot, you may want to listen to your body more. -
I am very short, I have huge hands, I live in a hot and humid area, and I sweat like a race horse (seriously, the pole has sweat drops on it after I work out).
I tried only stainless steel coating and crome (didn't want TG because I think its ugly and there is no way I'm installing something like that in the middle of my living room). Chrome is by far my favorite, I feel like I practically stick to the pole without putting any effort into it. Stainless steel felt like it had no grip at all – no matter how much I cleaned it, it felf wet because of the humid air.
I started working out with 50mm pole like you, and then moved to another studio that had 45mm poles, but bought a 50mm one for myself because I prefer the veraiety and challenge. I don't feel that the 50mm pole is much harder to work with (probably becaue of the hands, though), but the 45 ones are more secure. I do think that the fact that I work out with a bigger pole at home helps me advance faster in class.
Since I'm short, moves that require "wrapping" your body around the pole (i,e – ballerina) are harder for me on 50mm.
Be sure to get the model that has spin mode, they rock 🙂
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Just one thing – make sure it is not a deep scratch with sharp edges. I hurt my leg on a chrome pole with broken coating (chrome has sharp edges when it breaks!), and it left a scar.
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With superman, I think you can get out of it in any way you get it. I.e – you can enter superman from "side V" (look at Veena's lessons for names), and you can go back there by reversing the move. You go into position from pike hip hold by holding the pole above you and pushing yourself into position, and you can go back there as well.
Thinking about it like that really simplified the superman for me. By the way – if you look closely at the superman drop, for example, you will see that it is just superman returned to pike hip hold and then switched into scorpio really fast. If you think about it like that, it is (a) not as scary to do, and (b) allows you to "drop" into whatever position you can go to from the pike, which is more versatile than being locked into the scorpio variation.
Two superman variations that require back flexibility –
1. hold both hands on the pole above your head and bend your legs up as much as possible (my teacher can almost reach the pole with them as well). You will look pretty and spin faster.
2. Bring your upper arm (the one that is holding the pole) down and move in to the same side of the pole as your other arm, so that the pole is on the front of the shoulder. Extend your arms. You are so pretty!!
There are probably cool things you can do from there since your hands are free (holding your leg?), but I'm not flexible enough for this move so I never tried…I can try to make a video of these ideas, if you want…
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@scarletthoney Thanks! What you say about learning in combos makes perfect sense. I will try practicing like that at home.
In our school, all the teachers had professional ballroom dance training, so they aim for a slightly different style. It's not bad, but the process doesn't seem to be as effective as it is in Bobbi's. I think it may be the element of repitition as well as the combos – we always learn new tricks and stuff, but in the intermediate/advanced lessons, we don't repeat them enough or make sure to put them into a routine, so we hardly ever get a chance to dance with them to a whole song.
@tiggertail I call it the Australian school of pole dancing. I.e – you have the trickster school of pole dancing, that is divided between the strength-based tricksters (zoraya, chinese polers etc), felxibility-based tricksters (Rebeca starr, Jenyne), and there is the austalian school of pole dancing that is more focused at actually dancing and is more sexy and fun 🙂
To myself I call them the Australian gang 😉
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I didn't know Bobbi has an instructional DVD, thanks!
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I used to have lots of splits problems as well, and they turned out to be alignment/strength issues.
As far as I know, when you do this strech, your legs should be turned out as much as possible (from the hip, like you learn in ballet). For me, the moment I turn out my legs correctly, I feel the strech in the muscles and not in my joints.
So you should actually have good enough muscles to hold your leg in the correct position when you do the strech – it's actually hard work and not just lying there and letting your legs fall. This is why when we work on flexibility, we spend a lot of time strengthening the relevant muscles as well.
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Have no idea, just here to say I evny your ceiling. 🙂
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Good question 🙂
I've been physically active most of my life. I didn't dance though – only studied martial arts and lifted weights. The thing is I've always wanted to dance, but I didn't believe I can. A couple of years ago, I decided to start bellydancing – but there was something missing there for me. I felt like I needed my dance to be "dirtier" *ahm*.
So I started looking at strip dances in youtube, and then I found a video demonstrating some pole tricks in youtube. My mind was instantly blown. Pole dance had everything – it was challenging, it was gymnastics, it was sexy, it was dance, it was exotic – I just had to learn it!
It took me a couple of years to find someone who would teach me (it didn't even occure to me that you can learn it at home, alone), but now I'm here – dancing as much as my sore body allows me, and can't get enough 🙂