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Oh yes megsmith, that would explain why I hurt myself – whenever we do what my stretch teacher calls the eating feet stretch (which is like the first part of that behind the head stretch, but pulling the foot towards the face rather than behind the head), I feel physically incapable of getting my leg even close to my face, let alone behind my head:/

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Someone was just posting about this on one of the fb pole pages too and I’m interested in some advice, not because I especially want to be able to do it on the pole but because I’m curious about the stretching involved. I have a middle split and a pancake in straddle so I thought I’d give the spatchcock a crack from the ground, just to see. However, when I was getting into it, I didn’t feel it where I expected to (ie. similar muscles to the straddle) but instead ended up tweaking the top of my hammie on my lower leg and I remembered (too late) someone saying to me once that they’d popped their hammie doing the full move. So, is it about straddle at all or more hammie? I’ve been having problems lately with a tight feeling in my upper hammie anyway (I have to work hard to maintain hammie and butt looseness because I’m a runner, particularly on hills) so suspect that may have been a major contributor to the tweak but yeah, anatomy of spatchcock info anyone?

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Holy mackerel, that transition was cray cray!!

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TBH, in my experience, a physio would probably just tell you you have weak glutes if you’re having knee pain – it seems to be quite a standard answer! Maybe I’m being a bit cynical though…

I’ve been running for a while and I know that I will go through times where a particular thing hurts and it mostly seems to mean I have an imbalance and something in my legs needs strengthening. However, it’s probably a good idea to know what kinds of things maybe coming into play there I guess. Doing some general leg strengthening things might be worth it if you have the time and aren’t doing them already though. There’s a lot that can interplay in terms of muscles and maybe something’s compensating for a weakness elsewhere. Trying out some running drills probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either, to try and improve your technique in case it needs a bit of tweaking. There must be some tutorials online for those but hit me up if you want some descriptions of some to get you started.

It’s a shame that you don’t have a few spare $$ laying around because I know at least where I live (which is a small country!), there are running seminars which you can go along to and the coaches will examine your gait and give you advice and drills to do.

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I think the posts in here seem to be talking about two different meathooks – I think of the one with one hand holding on and legs kinda diagonally piked downwards (like the trapeze vieo linked to here) as the meathook and the one where you grip under the arm and turn your legs kinda sideways, like Val does in the Studio 409 video, as the Natasha Wang meathook (‘cos I think I saw her do this first and the person who showed me had been taught it by her). I can’t give tips on the former ‘cos I don’t really do it but with the later, I tuck my arm right across my back to grab my side on the opposite side while I’m in a jade then bring my outstretched leg around to the side with my other leg – once that hip clears around the pole, you should have a really good grip, making it pretty simple to take the hand off (or maybe that’s just me, with my prehensile stomach jub;p)

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I’ve found that dehydration can make your skin more sore and bruise-susceptible, but also, personally speaking, I find my skin is more sensitive at particular times in my cycle as well.

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I find age for me has been a factor – the importance of food versus exercise was much less when I was in my twenties but the balance has changed as I got closer to 30 and went past it (am 34 now), so how I eat has a bigger impact on my weight/size than it did previously. And I’m a runner as well as a poler and I have seen plenty of runners who are larger than me run better and faster!

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Different pple have different preferences on the grip-there’s no one right way. Personally I prefer forearm because I get better leverage and I think it looks a bit nicer (it’s too easy to have flaccid hand with elbow). I also think forearm’s a bit easier but I know there are people who find elbow easier. I would recommend playing round with both to see which works better for you but also make sure you have a spotter because arsing off the pole is a possibility when you first try this climb and aren’t used to the feeling of loosening your legs ( although that may be less of an issue for you if you already Ayesha)

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Hey guys, just letting you know that he got through on the votes, no doubt in part thanks to your support so thank you very much:) I should be able to get a clip of his routine when he competes in the final next week and will try and get a link up here so you can appreciate what your support means to one of our rare (ish) boy polers:)

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Thanks folks! He's currently in the lead in his category and quite chuffed by your comments and votes:) He's so hoping to get through so he can show he has more to give!! Voting ends tomorrow night at 10pm, New Zealand time:)

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Oops sorry, link is actually http://bit.ly/13SQSQh

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I really need to find someone who can help me with stretching! I'm reasonably flexy but I feel like I need that added push (sometimes literally!) to get me down further (carefully) when my strength is not enough to get into things by myself

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I've always found ayeshas from inverts harder than the ones from handsprings! I think it's something about the moving the body away from the pole and engaging vs engaging from the get-go (as happens in a handspring). In my case, it also doesn't help that I handspring on my "wrong" side and invert on my "right" side so the positions are opposite. Anyway, the only way I've been doing a TG from an invert lately is to first do a shoulder mount from a respect grip and then once my legs are up, it's just a case of moving body and one hand round the pole and caterpillaring up a bit,  'cos the top hand's already in position – I don't know if trying that might help a bit? Just as a different way to try it to try and get the neural pathways firing:)

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I think it's probably a dance background thing – I've learnt various forms of dance over the years and have quite a mathematical brain so putting together a routine is quite a methodical thing about figuring out what I want to do an when and figuring out how long I want to hold something so that everything fits in just right to the music. That doesn't mean there's no passion in it – it's about having it go perfectly with how I want it to to the music. I have a friend though who has no dance background other than pole and she works in the opposite way and I find it pretty hard to learn routines from her because I like to know where things will be and at what time, especially if it's a routine being done by a group. But you know what – both of us can put together great routines and there's no right or wrong way to do it! It may be a bit frustrating for people to try and learn it your way when they're used to another way but if you changed it, there would be yet other people again who might not like the other way! Basically, you're in charge and they have to suck it up and do what you've put together! Maybe if you had some time where people can put together their own choreo, they could have a crack at it their way but otherwise, it's your hard work that's gone into it and you're the boss!

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I'm not an expert but in my experience with teachers of various disciplines, it seems to me that being square is a very important thing when it comes to splits. I recently did a contortion class with a career carnie (ie. works in the circus as a job doing hand balancing and contortion and I think maybe some aerials) and she said she wouldn't let her students work on oversplits unless they could show her they had a square split. I also do a stretch class with an ex-professional ballerina and whenever we would work on splits, it was about improving technique with the goal of being as square as possible. 

 

I have seen a video recently with someone advocating that un-square splits were perfect for working the oversplit but I don't really know what they were basing that on other than the fact it's technically easier. In the long run though, I don't know if it then does bad stuff to your hips, but personally, seeing as I'm getting a bit older and my hips are getting a bit clunkier in general, I like to follow the advice of those people I know are qualified to advise me….