[Piaketz]

I agree with MissMeliss on the laser hair removal. Best money I've ever spent on myself! I used to go get waxed, and it was expensive, then I used to wax myself with the GiGi Honey kit. I actually got good at it (thank goodess I was born flexible haha!) however it was messy and took up a lot of my time. I decided to save up for laser, and wow is it worth the investment. It hurts much less than waxing, kind of like a rubber band snapping at you. Skin is a bit raw for a day but nothing a little hydrocortisone cream won't relieve. It's pricey, but where I live, there are always Groupon or LivingSocial deals that pop up, and the place I go to offers a huge discount during Black Friday. So I stock up then… It comes out cheaper than regular waxing maintenance that way. Just a few more treatments to go, and I will be reaching my ideal hairlessness nirvana! Hehe…

[Piaketz]

I think that for disciplines like ballet, weight lifting, gymnastics, yoga, figure skating, etc., there are a lot of rules that need to be followed and proper form is paramount. But for newer art forms like pole or aerial, there are really no rules. A lot of it is up to the individual's interpretation. So I think it would be ok to just listen and respect the way one's body goes and just stay safe in whatever way, but most of all, enjoy the journey. I'm really lucky that I've always had teachers who were very understanding and truly wanted to help me and taught me to love dance. I think if they were too strict with me regarding my elbows, I would have gotten frustrated and quit a long time ago and I would not love what I do as much as I love it now 🙂

[Piaketz]

My elbows have never really been an issue for spins. I just follow my teachers' instructions the best I can. In fact, I'm not even too sure if I lock or not. I'll try to observe next time I do some spins. 🙂

Mostly I feel the difference with inversions where you're required to push your body away from the pole, and I feel like the difference is more aesthetic. For example, in the advanced plank, I had to figure out a different distance of placing my supporting arm on the pole because the curve of my arm makes me look less horizontal. Same thing with the butterfly. There was no way I could do it nicely with locked elbows so I bend a little to make my upper half go higher so I could look flat. Iguana grip I still lock, because I feel my biceps working more when I do that, although now I am learning to slightly bend to look straigher. For the caterpillar climb, I most definitely need to lock. For the Aysha, I always prefer elbow grip. My split grip kind of sucks because I can't so much if I lock my lower arm, so I'm working on bending them and I feel it a lot in my shoulders. I keep the upper arm straight though. And while most of the girls in class have already almost gotten the handspring mount, I still struggle a lot because my supporting arm is always crooked. I'm thinking I need to keep my supporting arm slightly bent despite not feeling as stable due to the physics of the move, but I think in time I'll get there 🙂 Aerial is more forgiving… so far I have had no issues with my elbows in silks, trap or lyra.

Yes, please help your student with strengthening… I'm sure I would have injured myself by now if my teachers had not conditioned me well 🙂 I remember when I started pole (I had no dance or sport background before) I'd feel pain in my muscles just above and below my elbows that my classmates didn't have. But after some time, as I got stronger in general, I stopped even noticing any pain. Aside from front and side planks (and I still lock in my planks), chaturangas have also helped me a lot. In aerial, we also use resistance bands to fine tune the small muscles surrounding our joints, and I think that has helped me a lot too. Veena's videos on shoulder internal/external rotation and forearm extensor/flexor are excellent. My wrists and shoulders have to over compensate for my elbows whenever I am learning new things, so strengthening the muscles here would be helpful for your student to adapt. 🙂

[Piaketz]

My elbows have never really been an issue for spins. I just follow my teachers' instructions the best I can. In fact, I'm not even too sure if I lock or not. I'll try to observe next time I do some spins. 🙂

Mostly I feel the difference with inversions where you're required to push your body away from the pole, and I feel like the difference is more aesthetic. For example, in the advanced plank, I had to figure out a different distance of placing my supporting arm on the pole because the curve of my arm makes me look less horizontal. Same thing with the butterfly. There was no way I could do it nicely with locked elbows so I bend a little to make my upper half go higher so I could look flat. Iguana grip I still lock, because I feel my biceps working more when I do that, although now I am learning to slightly bend to look straigher. For the caterpillar climb, I most definitely need to lock. For the Aysha, I always prefer elbow grip. My split grip kind of sucks because I can't so much if I lock my lower arm, so I'm working on bending them and I feel it a lot in my shoulders. I keep the upper arm straight though. And while most of the girls in class have already almost gotten the handspring mount, I still struggle a lot because my supporting arm is always crooked. I'm thinking I need to keep my supporting arm slightly bent despite not feeling as stable due to the physics of the move, but I think in time I'll get there 🙂 Aerial is more forgiving… so far I have had no issues with my elbows in silks, trap or lyra.

Yes, please help your student with strengthening… I'm sure I would have injured myself by now if my teachers had not conditioned me well 🙂 I remember when I started pole (I had no dance or sport background before) I'd feel pain in my muscles just above and below my elbows that my classmates didn't have. But after some time, as I got stronger in general, I stopped even noticing any pain. Aside from front and side planks (and I still lock in my planks), chaturangas have also helped me a lot. In aerial, we also use resistance bands to fine tune the small muscles surrounding our joints, and I think that has helped me a lot too. Veena's videos on shoulder internal/external rotation and forearm extensor/flexor are excellent. My wrists and shoulders have to over compensate for my elbows whenever I am learning new things, so strengthening the muscles here would be helpful for your student to adapt. 🙂

[Piaketz]

Hmm… I thought I'd give a student's perspective.  Aside from doing pole, I am also a student in aerial silks, lyra and static trapeze and I have hyperextended elbows too. I've never done ballet so I cannot speak for that, but for pole and aerial, I don't see my hyperextended elbows as a "problem" or a "habit" that necessarily needs correction. I'm always open to my teachers' suggestions on form, but we all agree that I should lock my elbows if it makes me feel safer.

When I was learning how to hand stand on the pole, I was able to do it easily and securely with locked (but crooked) elbows. I kept being instructed to straighten them into "proper form", and I fell on my head each time. I was frustrated that I could no longer keep up with my class. I was quite annoyed for being repeatedly called out on my elbows. I felt it was unfair for my teacher to force me to lose that "brace".  We couldn't figure out why, so she finally pulled me aside and watched me do it successfully my way, then observed how I fell each time I did it her way. We both had a lightbulb moment — it's not that I was weaker than everyone else in class (I can hold my chatarungas just as long), but it's that my body dynamics are just different. I figured out how to muscle my way into bending my elbows look straight after I learned to balance in a handstand with crooked elbows, but I still choose to do it with hyperextended because that's what feels right to me. We went through this again when I was learning the butterfly and the bow and arrow which both need locked arms. But these times my teacher worked with me to find the best way that fit my body instead of having me muscle my way into the appearance of straight arms.

My aerial teachers work together with me on my elbows too. There are certain moves in lyra where I intuitively grip the ring palm up or palm down differently from the way we're taught, and that's cool as long as I have tried both ways and I am confident that I am more stable doing my way. In fact, none of my aerial teachers ever saw my elbows as a problem… One of them even celebrates them and finds funky poses for me on the silks where I can utilize my elbows to freak people out 😛 I felt good the first time she did that because it was the first time I saw them as an asset instead of a disadvantage, which was the way I was made to feel about them before 🙂

So far, I have thankfully never injured myself because of my elbows. I've only injured myself when I have been asked to rigidly stick to the norm despite raising my concerns. Intuition tells you when something feels wrong, and in the end, it's only the student herself who can know that. My advice is for you listen to your student and encourage her to communicate how her body feels every time she does something differently because of her elbow dynamics. Ask her to try both the usual way and her way, see where she feels better, then work with her to find the safest way regardless of her elbow position. I promise if you do this, she'll grow as a dancer and love you for your guidance 🙂

[Piaketz]

It depends on how "crumbly" the spackle is. My previous apartment was a new building, and the spackle was still pretty solid and not brittle. The spackle they used was kind of rubbery (I don't know how else to describe it). My Xpole left no mark at all on it. I was amazed. However, I moved to an older building last year that was last renovated in the 90's, and the ceiling spackle is kind of brittle. Bits of it flaked off when I installed my pole. My Xpole now has made a faint ring on the ceiling where it either squished the spackle or made part of it flake off.

[Piaketz]

My dermatologist prescibed Glycopyrrolate for me. It helped me a lot with the sweat. I take it only when I need it, a few hours to the night before I know I'm going to need it. It's not perfect, sometimes I still need Dry Hands on top of it but it definitely made a difference for me.