[PolarGirl]

Well…yes and no! the front lower leg does pull back into the pole and exert force (like squeezing front to back with the lower legs rather than side to side), but it’s not the front *heel* that is making contact. If you watch many advanced dancers, they often climb with the contact point much higher on the front leg and in fact the heel may even be a significant distance from the pole. It depend on how much they externally rotate in the hip of that leg. So use the meat of your calf and don’t think about what your front heel is doing (except pointing those toes). Hope that helps!

[PolarGirl]

Ah, yes, Phoenix Hunter is absolutely right about transitions. Flip your grip! Happy poling 🙂

[PolarGirl]

Phoenix Hunter, you are correct. It is not recommended to internally rotate the shoulder when weight bearing because risk of shoulder injury is greatly increased. This is why twisted grip handspring is so controversial. It would be better to externally rotate the shoulder in superman. And it does make the shape look better, in my opinion.

[PolarGirl]

I would see a physical therapist. Often, if it hurts to cough or sneeze, it is because a rib is dislocated. For some people, this happens very easily and can happen in your sleep. It could also be an intercostal muscle (the muscles between your ribs). These are major muscles of breathing; they are responsible for moving your ribs closer together when you exhale and further apart as you inhale, and thus the ribs move with breathing – so it could either be a muscle strain or a dislocation. If you strained a rhomboid (this muscle group is located directly between your shoulder blades), you would be very unlikely to feel sharp pain with coughing, sneezing, deep breathing, or anything else that involved forced exhalation.

I pulled an intercostal muscle in the front of my ribs when first learning to pole climb. That will heal with rest. You would want to rest for a few weeks and gradually work into your strength training program. If it’s a dislocation, it could self correct and pop back in, but is not super likely. A physical therapist or chiropractor could diagnose and correct this. A PT, however, could also answer a lot of your questions about training and give you pointers on invert preparedness.

None of us can diagnose you from s distance but I hope this info helps somewhat. Happy poling 🙂

[PolarGirl]

I kinda feel the same way about not fitting in at my local studio. But I finally got tired enough of poling at home and realized that I personally need to be in community with real live people enough to just go back there. And I’m glad I did. I immediately felt more comfortable this time around even though I noticed some weird vibes and glances from some of the other girls. I honestly think a lot of the discomfort has to do with confidence and I think their looks are more curiosity than malice, but it can be hard to read people, especially when you’re not feeling 100% secure with yourself. I had a couple of really good lengthy talks with the studio owner / instructor about my need for the community and desire to be a better dancer, and that made me feel like I could make a place in that community. It just takes time I think for other students to see that you are there consistently and not one of those here-today-gone-tomorrow people. The most advanced dancers have seen so many people come and go…

I think having meet up groups like that is an awesome idea. I agree that SV and also the Insta community help keep me motivated and are so helpful and encouraging – but I do feel lonesome in my pole journey without real live pole buddies. I just realized I would never have them if I didn’t put myself out there and make an opportunity for it to happen. It sounds like you recently came to the same realization. You go-getter!

I wish we weren’t on opposite coasts. I would love to pole (or handstand, or make t-shirts…) with you!!!! 💜

[PolarGirl]

They are both recognized moves. Veena (and most people I know at least) call them Gemini switches and Scorpio switches. When you break them down, it is just Gemini to inverted thigh hold, continue moving body to opposite side of the pole (so your outside leg hook becomes an inside leg hook without doing any leg switching) and then doing your leg switch into another outside leg hang. There you have it – Gemini to Gemini. For Scorpio switches it is just the opposite. I am still learning these, and for me it was very helpful to begin by breaking the combo down into constituent movements that are already in my vocabulary like this. Then as I get more comfortable with the transitions, I speed it up. You have to be comfortable with leg switches on both sides and in both directions (Gemini to Scorpio and Scorpio to Gemini) in order to do these moves. Hope this helps. Veena has great breakdowns on both of these combos in her advanced lessons section.

[PolarGirl]

I took a 7 wk break awhile back due to injury. It was a wrist tendinitis injury and just wrapping my hand around the pole without even gripping caused an intense pain response. After several weeks I actually started to wonder if I would ever pole again, even after all I had accomplished. Maybe this was a sign pole just wasn’t for me? Maybe I should focus more on yoga instead? All kinds of thoughts like this ran through my head. But I did gradually get back on the pole and my passion for it came back stronger than ever. It’s perfectly okay to take breaks and honor our bodies, focus on strength, or flexibility, or more gentler practices (like yoga for example). Sometimes a break is just what we need either physically or mentally or emotionally or all of these things. You’re allowed to honor your feelings. It doesn’t make you any less of a poler to take a break. I know wayyyyyy more advanced polers than myself who have been known to take a couple weeks off here and there.

[PolarGirl]

I know you are tall like me, and I don’t know your hand size, but you likely have larger than average hands if you’re tall. My first pole was a 50mm TG and now I pole on a 45 brass. I actually considered getting a 40 because I was convinced that if I had a smaller diameter pole I could grip better. (I had terrible grip problems with my first pole.) Well it turns out the finish was the issue and not the size. The brass is wonderful – I rarely use any grip aid – but I discovered that the 45 size hurt my forearms a lot because of how small I had to close my grip around it. Right away I noticed a big difference in how my wrists would feel after poling. I actually got tendinitis shortly after starting on the smaller diameter pole and had to take 7 weeks off (entirely off, like NO pole period – it was awful). I could touch my thumb to middle finger on the 50, so on the 45 they overlap slightly. This is actually more stressful on the muscles of your forearm and hand. I was really really glad I hadn’t gotten the 40. I know Veena is tallish too and she likes the 40, so maybe just try it. But I did want to throw in my two cents. Hope it helps! Do you currently pole on a 45?
Also, lastly, I had a private lesson with an instructor who uses chrome once. It was my only time using chrome but I found it way easier to use that the TG, and I’m super sweaty. I had to wipe it down a lot (which was not unusual at that time) but I did not use grip aid (which was unusual). I actually considered ordering chrome because of that experience but ended up going with brass, and I do love it. But I am the opposite with hot/cold on it: give me a cold pole any day. If I’m super warm or the room is, everything hurts super bad; I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not even that it’s too grippy on the body. I don’t know why hot weather makes it so much more painful. Either I feel nothing doing a superman or its so excruciating I have to literally jump down off the pole because I can’t hold it for even a second. At the same time I can’t get any hand grip at all when it’s/I’m hot because of course my hands are sweaty.

[PolarGirl]

^^^She’s totally right about the pole wear lines, and the fact that many dancers make their own extravagant outfits themselves out of these basic pieces — or they hire out a designer to make them a custom piece.

[PolarGirl]

I’m one of those people who might prefer 50s. My thumb and middle finger can touch around them. I have a 45 at home and can’t grip quite as well because there is too much overlap and strains my hands more. But I can do either. When I was beginning and didn’t have the grip strength I imagined that if only I had a 45mm pole I could do so much more (my studio has only 50mm poles) but it wasn’t true. I’ve been poling about a year and find I can switch back and forth pretty easily. I definitely recommend learning on static by the way and slowly introducing the spinning pole here and there but not excluding it entirely in the early stages. Just my opinion, although I think that’s a more common approach.

[PolarGirl]

I pole dance barefoot but I have worn “stripper heels” a lot in the past for dancing. They are not comfortable until you get used to them, and then I think they are more comfortable to dance in than being barefoot, because they actually protect your poor toes from getting banged up while you are dancing, especially for the floor work, which I find difficult barefoot. I am 5’10” and I find that 7″ are way more comfortable to dance in than 6″ for some reason. Hope this helps!

[PolarGirl]

@pamholderman I know everyone’s journey is so different, but I did feel a lot of frustration when I started as well. It’s hard to be consistent through that frustration but keep it at ladies! I actually did reach a point where I felt like everything started coming together and suddenly I was conquering moves left and right and combos were working and I was feeling really comfortable and confident on the pole. There were still a lot of near misses and full on fails. That’s a part of the process. You have to try and fail and try again and film yourself and watch other people’s videos of you can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong. It takes a good amount of time and effort and borderline obsession, I think. And yes, tons of strength and flexibility training. I’ve been taking some time off for that past few weeks, and when I go back to pole in a couple of weeks, it’s going to have gotten way harder because I wasn’t consistent – but with hard work it will come back again and forward progress will continue to happen. Sometimes slow and sometimes fast 🙂

[PolarGirl]

The two groups of muscles that need to lengthen to do middle splits are the hamstrings (back of leg, particularly the 2 medial hamstrings) and the adductors (5 muscles along the inner thigh). The adductors and medial hamstrings also internally rotate the femur in the hip joint, so externally rotating those muscles as in the butterfly stretch will help lengthen those muscles and will thus assist somewhat in increasing the middle splits mobility.

If you have your middle splits but the butterfly is difficult, your external rotators of the hip (glut max, deep six external rotators, lateral hamstring, etc) may be weak relative to their antagonist muscles (the 2 major muscle groups mentioned above). For dancers, external rotation of the hip (“turnout”) is emphasized heavily, and you can find lots of ballet workout videos online to help with this. Search keywords “turnout” and “ballet”. Cleo the Hurricane also has an extension and turnout video (which I have yet to try).

I have this exact same problem – my external rotation is extremely limited but I have my middles…on a good day 🙂

[PolarGirl]

My understanding is that the insurance cost to teach minors pole dance is prohibitively expensive (which is interesting because children’s gymnastics insurance is far cheaper than adult’s).

[PolarGirl]

But yes, this video is a different spin; it does move in the opposite direction. Pretty!