Runemist34
Forum Replies Created
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I agree with zoilife6233- I think that you should keep your callouses.
However, having them “rip off” sounds like a big problem! I’ve never heard of this happening, and I imagine it’s very painful.
Proper moisturization and care of them is key but… what kind of floor are you dancing on? Is there a way you might protect your feet a little better, so that your skin isn’t gripping so hard on the ground? Perhaps some of those little dancer footy pads? They worked well for me when I was dancing on linoleum, which was much too grippy for my feet! -
Loved it 🙂
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Hey there!
Another way to look at it, and something that really changed the way I think of “Freestyle” is with Jazz music.
I am not a jazz player- I am barely a player of music at all! But, I took a class (Anthropology in Music, it was as fascinating as the professor was hilarious) which had a LOT of music students in it. Like, a LOT. They would sit around and talk music before, during, and after class. They would make highly musical arguments as we worked through various scenarios or problems.
One of the things they said was this: It takes years of training to be able to freestyle in Jazz. They learn scales and stuff, sure, but they ALSO learn musical sequences. They learn about how certain sequences sound sad, or happy, or whatever. And then they use those groups of notes as either a jumping-off point, or as the whole freestyle.
How this relates to pole dancing is this: Change “Musical sequences” to “Combo’s.”
So, take some moves you really love to do, or are really good at, or convey a certain meaning (either for you or for everyone) and combo them together with other moves that you love, or are really good at. And then practice, practice, practice! You need to drill it into your mind and body, so that when you go “Hmm, what can I do here?” You can think of some combos to do!It’s easier to think of groups of moves, for me, than to think of individual moves, because singular moves only gives you ONE thing to do- and then you need to figure out what you’re going to do next, in a new position! This causes me some anxiety, and I blank out. However, with combos of moves, I can relax, because they’ll take a while! I can also change some things, if I want to. Do I not want to do one move in my combo for this part of the song? Well, pretty easy to know what I can change it up with, because I know where I’m beginning, and where I need to end, in order to continue the sequence of moves I’m doing.
Other things you can do are things like taking ONE move, and then seeing how many ways you can play with it. Try a body wave during a plank pose. Try moving your arms around in CKR. Try changing your leg position during a fireman spin. Anything you can think of! Pick three or four at most, and see what you can do with them. It’ll help you feel more like you’re able to pull a trick out, and spend some time with it!
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Happy Birthday Veena!
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Yes, I think this happens to everyone! Your muscles are still repairing, so you might find that they’re a little weaker for now… and you’ll be back to it in a day or two! I’ve heard this happen with many different moves, and it’s totally natural 🙂
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Oh wow, cheerleader is a difficult and dangerous job, so kudos to you! I would love to get into some kind of proper gymnastics as well… but can’t afford it right now. No schools for me to turn to anymore 😉 haha
Just remember to have at least two proper, full days off of doing exercise. Your body needs time to repair and grow stronger!
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Hi Kellyhaley126277!
This is probably one of the best places for a beginner to start- the code GET3FREE will allow you to look at all the lessons here, for free, for 3 days. That way, you can get a good idea as to how they’re set up, and whether they’re worth it to you to buy (which, in my opinion, they totally are!).
Veena has been working on this site for years- seriously, I’ve been here for over 5 years, and watched it grow! I think her method is one of the safest in the world, and has excellent progressions and advice to help you get into pole dancing without injury. She’s even on here all the time, in case you have questions or concerns! We all love to help out when we can, too 😉For a dance pole, it can be tricky to find ones that are safe. The three main brands that we swear by as safe and stable, as well as apartment and home friendly are X-Pole, Lil Mynx, and Platinum Stages. Living in a dorm, I would suspect that X-pole would be your best bet- no drilling, takes up a tiny amount of space, and breaks down easily (and goes back together easily, too!). Lots of women swear by their X-poles here!
They can be expensive, but buying one used is also an option. Just be careful of what you’re buying! There are X-pole knockoffs that are definitely not safe, but hard to distinguish from the real thing (there are certain telltale signs, though!). You also want a pole that hasn’t been overly scratched or abused.
Be wary of poles that are not those brands. Many manufacturers have tried to get on the “pole bandwagon” and dupe women into buying their products without checking for safety. Things like the Peek-a-boo pole, and the Carmen Electra pole, are both extremely unsafe and should definitely be avoided! You don’t want your pole to fail on you while you’re upside down, or engaging in any other activities- injuries suck, they hurt, and they take you away from training for months… if not years!!You can definitely learn to pole dance with only the lessons featured here, no studio or help needed! You could also look into some other resources, if you feel you’d like something else. The Art of Pole by Jamilla DeVille are also great DVD’s to buy for careful, clear instruction and slow, safe progression. Not many other services can boast the safety and results of these two things!
We are all happy to welcome a new person to the site! If you’re willing, we would love to see videos of your progress. You can also use the blog on here to track how you’re doing, and to let us know what’s happening! More pole dancers, and more women (and men!) to support and see grow are always wonderful. We are a very open and accepting community- judgement, and comparison, have never been present here! Feel free to ask any questions you might have during your journey, too!
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I don’t have any kind of arachnophobia, so my approach may be a little less… um, extreme, than a bug bomb and whatnot.
For me, I really like spiders for what they do. My bane is mosquitoes, and as I live in a very humid area, there are LOTS of very big mosquitoes. Spiders eat them, catch them, keep them out of my house… so, I’m never unhappy to have a few around.As long as they don’t touch me!
Since it’s pretty much almost fall now (at least, it is here!) you should be safe to go in and start cleaning up. If there are lots of them, and if they’ve been there a while, you’ll probably have quite a few cobwebs and normal webs to clean up. This will deter them from building again, especially if you’re diligent and keep up with cleaning them away if they reappear.
Giving everything a good wash will also help out, as spiders are looking for somewhere quiet and peaceful to stay, and cleaning is often not what they like! Floors, walls, ceiling- if you can reach it, I’d say, clean it! Just a mild blend of water and pine sol, or something like that.
Painting is a good option as well, as during the process of paining, you’ll most likely close up a lot of the nooks and crannies that they’re coming inside from. Also, it’ll brighten up the area!Just living in the room more, with lights and movement and all the things you like to do, will decrease their interest in being there. A few may stay, but it’s quite unlikely that they’ll be in your way (and, if they are, you can clean up their homes again).
I hope you find a way that works for you 🙂
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Any sort of leg movements or lifts. I’m sure Veena’s lower body training video would be made that much harder with ankle weights on!
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Glad to hear you got a second opinion. Hopefully it won’t be too hard to heal up and try again! Sometimes it’s difficult to know for sure through text.
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A “file extension” refers to the type of file your video is saved as. This can include MP4, AVI, MOV…
So, it sounds like you’ve got a video that the website video player doesn’t understand, or can’t speak the same code “language”. Try saving it as something different, if you can!
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From the piercings I’ve seen, it is generally done like that- not directly straight through the nipple, but around behind it, mostly through the areola. Considering the fact that most people don’t have enough actual nipple to safely hold a piercing in place, I’m surprised that this would be expected.
Also, it is true that you only just got a piercing HOURS ago, instead of days or months- this piercing has not settled or healed/ If you ever look at an ear piercing, you’ll find that it’s swollen, and often, may look like it’s in the wrong place because of this. Ear piercings, however, stop being swollen and often heal (as long as they are well-taken-care of, and are not cartilage piercings) very quickly. About a month.
I’ve heard of nipple piercings taking months, up to and including 9 or 12 months to heal, depending on the person, the piercing, and how your body takes it.
I’ve also heard of them being rejected after 10 years of being in place.
The body is an interesting thing.Unless your piercing is jarred or not cared for properly, it is unlikely to have scar tissue, and you can safely heal it till the piercing is able to be changed, and if you don’t like it by then, if you leave it alone, it’ll likely just close up on it’s own.
It’s also possible that the jewelry they used is longer than what one would normally use for a healed piercing. This is also normal, as it allows the piercing a chance to swell, and also to be cleaned easier, with minimal pulling or movement.
Good luck in healing it!
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It sounds like, in the beginning, you tried a lot of things that you considered were awesome (and, who are we kidding? Leg hangs, climbs, spins… it’s all awesome!) and you likely succeeded at a lot of them! The beginning stage, for you, was full of triumphs and gains, and it’s hard to beat a feeling like that!
Now, you are trying to be strict, to control your ascent up the pole and through the difficulty of pole, because you recognize the dangers. And, while difficult, I have to say- congrats for realizing, taking the time, and putting in the effort!
The contrast between the two stages, though, can really make it feel like you’ve lost your passion, and that it’s just not exciting anymore! And honestly I can’t blame you- I still seek that thrill of getting a hard move, even though “hard move” has been a basic invert for me for… years. A long time! I think everyone seeks that triumph, and it’s natural.
But, you also need to recognize that, eventually, you’ll run out of moves to try. You’ll find moves that are super hard, and may take months and MONTHS to triumph at, and even then, they won’t be controlled or easy. Eventually, you’ll reach a point where those triumphs are slow to come, hard to get, and very rare to catch. If that has been your only driving factor in pole dancing, what shall you do then?You can triumph in DIFFERENT ways, and still feel that thrill! Creating your own challenges within the level you are at is a big one. Have you tried to combo moves together that seem super unrelated? Have you tried to slow a move down so slow that it seems to take forever? How about dancing to an entire song without stopping? Or maybe choreography? There are many different styles of pole dancing, too, and you could try them on for size, even if they aren’t what you would naturally gravitate toward!
And, all of these things will help you increase your strength, your flexibility, your musicality. All of these things can become the binding threads, the under-layer that helps you achieve those new moves, that thrill of getting something new!
And, don’t forget: Reward yourself! The jumping-for-joy, the rush, that elated feeling when you’re thinking “I have to record this and show everyone!!” It’s all allowed and totally encouraged for any of those challenges! Anything can be your triumph!
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Frankly, this is an absolutely loaded question. There are HUGE amounts of conjecture and unscientifically based ideas out there, all of them circling the fitness community like vultures, and many of them hovering around the general populace (especially women) as well.
So, you COULD eat more protein, but it might also be bad for your kidneys for some reason.
You COULD eat more carbs, but obviously carbs are evil and we should all hate them.
You COULD introduce more fat into your diet, but that might make you fat because obviously that’s how human physiology works.Yes, I’m being sarcastic, but honestly… have you not heard those sorts of things before? I certainly have, and I often avoid stuff like that like the plague!
I’m very scientifically minded when it comes to things like nutrition, and I will be swayed very easily, as long as serious and peer-reviewed scientific study has been shown to fly in the face of current understanding. I believe in science, and I know that most of the things out there, the recommendations by very many people, are not based in science.
I also have not seen any serious, peer-reviewed studies proving that BMI is what we should be using as any sort of measurement of health, especially when it comes to people who are engaging in frequent athletic activity. It’s the same as using just your weight as a measurement of health: We are all aware (hopefully) that you can appear very physically small, but the scale would indicate that you weigh a lot, because you are well-muscled. Appearing small is not necessarily a bad thing, and appearing large is not necessarily a bad thing, either.
The things medical science does show is this: Protein is used for muscle repair, primarily, and is a poor source of energy, so having some in your diet will help you repair muscles and make gains, but it should definitely not be the only thing you eat.
Carbohydrates (carbs, for short) are your MAIN source of energy, easily broken down by the body, but does not generally go toward muscle building, unless you count the energy it takes to do the work to make your muscles stronger.
Fats are important as they are also an excellent source of energy, but they are slow to break down, so you cannot subsist on them alone.We also know that people generally respond differently to similar types of exercise, depending on genetics. Some people will “bulk up,” and others will not. This is generally not affected by higher reps or higher weight, or lower of either of those.
Increasing flexibility takes time, and you must work at it frequently to see honest improvement. Personally, I see improvement in my hamstrings if I lightly stretch them each day, but often lose quite a lot of flexibility if I miss one or two of those days.
Being careful not to overstretch (which is, stretching to the point of feeling actual pain) is also key, as overstretching can cause injury, and injury can lead to shortening of the muscles.Personally, I have really enjoyed Girls Gone Strong (https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/) for much of my information, and in particular for nutrition, this post: https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/back-to-the-basics-nutrition-101/
My best direct advice would be to experiment and learn what works for you. If you feel great eating the way you do now, then keep it up! If you do not, or notice that you don’t feel as good after eating certain foods, take note, and experiment with changing it up and seeing if you can make improvements.
No one’s physiology is the same. There are NO hard and fast rules to diet, exercise, and achieving the results you want.
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Hey there!
Congrats on your decision to buy a pole! It’s pretty awesome having one at home.
In my experience, I’ve never found that fully wrapping my hands completely around the pole to be useful or helpful- I would say that it could, potentially, be harmful due to encouraging to “newbie grip” (that is, overgripping and grabbing on too hard!), and also in some hand and arm positions, you definitely do not want those fingers all the way around!
Also, bowing poles sounds like an issue from cheaper made poles, rather than poles that are of appropriate quality! In the USA, Canada, and most of the UK, we trust three pole manufacturers: Lil Mynx, Xpole, and Platinum Stages.
My first Lil Mynx pole was larger (I think 50mm?) and I would say the problem I had with grip was not due to the size, but with the finish. Stainless steel was just a bit too slippery for me!
I had that pole for a full five years, and did lots, and lots of spins on it. Not a once did it ever bend or bow!
My current pole is also a Lil Mynx, but it’s smaller, and has a powder coat finish (it’s the Studio Veena pole, which is unfortunately no longer available). Again, no bowing, and no indication that it would do so. However, I can grip it better, due to the finish! I never do fully grip the pole, as far as I know… no fingers wrapping all the way around.I’ve also heard that certain sizes are easier to grip in certain moves, but other sizes are better in other moves. So, a larger pole may be beneficial for some things, but in others, you’d find a smaller pole easier. So, I don’t think there is one “perfect pole” for everyone- it’s all about personal preference!
Be safe, and I hope your soon-to-be pole is everything you want!