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Congrats! It's no small feat!

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What worked for me was doing lots of controlled "kick ups." From either a headstand or handstand position, pick up your feet from the ground as far as you feel comfortable, and hold them there as long as you can. Continue to do little kick ups like this for as long as you need to. It will help to build the core strength and wrist/forearm strength you will need. Another option is working on crow stands. They are more difficult, but for me they felt less scary from an inversion standpoint. You can start crow stands by putting a yoga block under your feet and gently tipping forward.

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It's perfectly normal. You will get bruises in the beginning (even the pros get bruises when learning new moves!) As time goes on, it takes more and more effort to bruise in a certain area. So in the beginning you might get a nasty bruise from climbing or from a pole sit, but eventually you will build more muscle in the area and you'll be relying less on your skin to hold you there. Then eventually you'll build up tolerance, and you won't get bruises from it anymore! And then you'll learn new moves and you'll start getting bruises in new places! And so on and so forth.

Bruises are a way of life with pole, but after a while you just learn to laugh about them. Other polers will certainly understand, and truthfully the bruises usually look worse than they feel. I tend to bruise really easily, so it's a little awkward in the summer time when I wear shorts and skirts. I sometimes worry that strangers think I'm ill or that I'm a victim of violence! Nope, just a poler…

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Hi Pankake! Nice to meet you, and glad to hear I'm not alone. You make a lot of really good points.

I think focusing on a theme for each workout (instead of a specific activity or a muscle group) is a great idea. I don't usually like the typical gym routine of breaking down workouts into body parts, like "legs day" and "abs day." It seems to go against the idea of training the body as a whole. But having a dedicated strength or flexibility day sounds much more appealing.

I also think you make a great point about trying to do shorter, tougher workouts. I also sweat a lot, and I spend a lot of time cleaning my pole and taking breaks to stop the sweating. If I only practice pole tricks for 30 minutes, that's still probably about as much actual pole time as I would get from a more leisurely hourlong pole session.

I really want to start doing yoga classes twice a week. I love the positivity of yoga and the fact that no one judges me there (well, maybe they do, but they stay quiet!) It's easy to develop body image issues when pole dancing, and yoga helps keep me grounded.  Maybe I can plan to do cardio in the morning on the days I take yoga classes at night. Then I can do strength training and pole practice on the other days.

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Thanks chemgoddess. I will definitely check this out. I know pole/yoga fusion isn't a new idea. In fact the first pole studio I attended taught classes in this manner and I really enjoyed it.

I guess what I'm saying is, I like the idea of having a traditional yoga practice in addition to pole. I love the mind body aspects of yoga as well as the yoga community. But I'm not sure I have time to be a full fledged member of both communities. I'm wondering if anyone else has.

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All of these recipes sound great! I have a couple of crockpot soup recipes that I'm planning to try this fall, I can't wait to try them out. Nothing like making the house smell good. I also love making homemade Italian food (meatballs, lasagna, etc) during the fall for the same reason.

Here's a cookie recipe. It's not really mine since it's from Food Network, but I've made it and it's awesome. The cardamom really adds a nice note.

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

 

Ingredients

1 cup http://www.foodterms.com/encyclopedia/butter/index.html

3/4 cup http://www.foodterms.com/encyclopedia/sugar/index.html

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon pure http://www.foodterms.com/encyclopedia/extracts/index.html

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cardamon

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup dried cranberries (or other dried fruit)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients. Add to butter mixture and stir until well blended. Add dried cranberries. Drop by teaspoonful onto parchment covered baking sheet. Bake about 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly golden. Cool on wire racks.

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@Lillybilly your post could have been written for me. I was getting very frustrated about my progress in the butterfly. Then I took a video of my attempts, and realized the problem is in my caterpillar. Without a strong caterpillar, I will never be able to do the butterfly, extended butterfly, ayesha, etc. Just because I can do a caterpillar for a few seconds doesn't mean it's strong. I will do what you recommended and spend time just holding the caterpillar position on both sides to strengthen my back. I also can't do a lifted elbow/headstand so I will work on those.

It's so easy to fall into a trap that I just need more practice in a move, when the problem is really insufficient strength.

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I think I can see the confusion. Don't we all know a person who fishes for compliments? A person who says, oh I am so ugly! I feel so fat today! Just so that everyone will rush in to say no, you're beautiful and you're not fat! Those types of people can be very frustrating to be around.

Please don't misunderstand me. I know that people posting SV are NOT fishing for compliments, and that people on here are incredibly supportive. That is why I love the pole community. I have never taken a dance class in my life and I think I would be terrified to even try, for fear of being laughed at or criticized. The pole community is wonderful because it seems, for the most part, to be free of that sort of thing. People genuinely want others to succeed and are happy to support each other.

If English is not your first language, though, it might be hard to tell the difference between a genuine compliment and one that is not genuine – or the difference between a person who wants constructive feedback and someone who just needs a little love and support. Especially since it is in text, not in person.

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@dustbunny You are so right. I used to get terrible pole burn marks on my wrists and forearms. I figured that I just had to build up tolerance. My wrists are weak to start and I wasn't engaging them. It wasn't until I joined SV and started watching her video lessons that I learned about the importance of neutral wrists. It was a lot harder at first and I had to go back to square one until I built up some wrist strength. But my spins and holds are much better now, and no more burning!

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Another vote for the Divacup. I love mine. It's a lot more comfortable than tampons, less expensive, and actually helped reduce my cramps.

I will warn you though… (TMI) I once had the cup "leak" while I was in pole class. Apparently doing a challenging invert can make things move around a bit, and it must not have been positioned properly. When I came back down from the pole and went right side up… I knew I had to run to the bathroom.

The lesson is… wear black shorts during class that week, just in case!

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The important thing is that you recognize this is happening to yourself. Too often with depression, it's easy to sink into a hole where you feel helpless, and that makes it so hard to get through it. The best thing I can recommend is to keep talking about it. Either keep a journal, or talk to someone else besides your husband. If you focus on the facts of your depression (how you feel each day, and what you achieved that day, no matter how small) then it can help you recognize patterns in your behavior. Doing this helped me get "out of my head" and into seeing depression as a temporary condition, not a sign of lifelong failure.

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When I got into pole fitness, my man started getting into bodyweight fitness and flexibility. It's very gymnastics inspired. He's been learning arm balances and working on pull ups and squats, and soon plans to install a set of gymnastics rings in our garage! I don't think he's interested in being a pole dancer himself, but he does use my pole for some exercises. It's been a fun journey together. We actually look at Veena's videos together, particularly for flexibility and strength, and share tips and ideas.

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This is going to sound counterintuitive, but make sure to use lotion on your skin regularly. Of course, you don't want to apply lotion right before a pole session or else you will make it worse. But your skin needs to be properly moisturized in order to be sticky for the pole.

I had a lot of problems sticking to my chrome X-pole (which is similar to stainless) and I was ready to give up. I took some time off from poling, and I put on a lot of lotion in the meantime. Now I stick really well!

The trick is to use the really cheap water-based lotion (the kind that comes in the economy sized bottle and doesn't cost much.) Read the label and make sure the first ingredient is water (aqua.) The fancier lotions are often petroleum based or contain cocoa butter, which is really slick. Water based lotions don't feel quite as hydrating on the skin, but they're better for pole.

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I've been poling for a year now, and I still haven't told my mom. It sounds silly, but there's just never been a good time to tell her. The reason I hesitate is because my mom and I don't always have the best relationship. We love each other, but we've never really become "friends" as adults. We live about 2 hours apart, and when we talk on the phone, we always keep the conversations pretty simple. If she asked me what I do for exercise, I would tell her, but she never has! It's always felt a bit awkward to just say out of the blue "so… I pole dance!" My parents haven't been over to visit since I got a pole at home a few months ago, so whenever that happens, that will be when I tell her.

I haven't told my mother in law either, but that's more because she is pretty conservative and thinks stripping is immoral. I think there is still a perception that having a pole in your house means that's it's a sex toy, not that it's a piece of fitness equipment that you and your man both use! She hasn't been to our place either, but if/when she does, I'll gladly show her what I can do. She's an Oprah fan, so maybe she'd be more receptive to it than I think!

I'm actually going to the USPDF comp this weekend. Maybe this is a good opportunity to share my hobby with them? I can mention what my weekend plans are, show her some videos of the pros, and mention that I've been doing it too?

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I have a 50mm Xpole because the studio I learned on had 50s, so that's what I ordered. Sometimes I wish I had gotten a 45mm, especially on my bad days because my hands are small and sweaty. But my instructor had the feeling that if you are used to working on a 50, then you can always work on a 45 or a 40 with no problems. Going the other way would be much harder. So the idea is to make yourself work harder for bigger gains.

We recently had a Karol Helms workshop at my old studio and when Karol put her hand on a studio pole for the first time, she gasped and said "these are 50s?!" Since a lot of studios use 45s or 40s these days, it had been a very long time since she had used a 50. She was still amazing, but it made me realize how much difference 5mm makes.

I tried a 45mm once at another studio and it did make a difference for my hand grip, but I also found it was a lot more painful to do leg holds (smaller surface area = more pressure = more pain). Maybe when I get to the point of doing handsprings and ayeshas I will get myself a 45 or a 40. But for basic pole stuff, 50 is fine.