I was complaining to P, my L5 classmate, that I’d completely lost my climb eagle (a.k.a aerial invert), and now I’m only doing ‘climb/hook on with my toe/haul my ass up awkwardly into caterpillar/invert’.

P suggested I build up towards that by training with straight-legged eagle from the floor. And I said: ‘no problem, I can do that, easy’ (and proceeded to demonstrate nonchalantly), ‘but I just can’t do climb eagle’.

And P responded: ‘that can’t be true. If you can do straight-legged eagle, you should definitely be able to do climb-eagle’.

I was sceptical, but decided to give it a go. So I climbed onto the pole, tucked the pole into my arm-pit, hands placed quite low (near the shoulders), released my legs to bring my body to the front of the pole, then – visualising doing a regular straight-legged invert from the floor – I lifted both legs smoothly in a straight-legged straddle up into a V. – I was there, I had done it!!

I did that several times throughout the night (albeit always near the floor, so that it’s easier to trick myself into believing I’m still on the floor), always visualising myself doing a simple straight-legged inverted-V from the floor. And it worked every time! Although I have to admit that my form became progressively worse as the night wore on, perhaps due to fatigue, or perhaps because I was concentrating less on visualising a straight-legged invert.

But clearly, in this case, it was all in the mind. I had a mental block about the climb eagle, and had a continuous of negative mental stream of how my core is weak, I’ve lost strength, I’ve lost my skills / technique etc. which was impacting my actual performance. But once someone informed me that it is possible, and in fact, it MUST be possible given another pre-condition, then the negative cloud lifted and I could do it easily.

I wonder how many of my other pole tricks’ progress, or other aspects my life in general are being held back by my own negative mental imagery and self-criticism. Food for thought…

Takabisha - the world's steepest roller coaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takabisha)

The pole journey sometimes feels like a roller coaster ride*: the thrill of the first spin, the highs of realising that you and your body are capable of more than you’ve ever dreamt of (and yes, that there’s a secret, athlete-dancer-superhero within you), the frustration when you have to miss pole, the lows of struggling with moves or ‘losing’ moves that you were previously capable of (yo, you there – shoulder mount and aerial-invert, I’m talking you two! Do you hear me?), the joy and triumph at nailing moves on your wish-list, and the emotions swing up and down depending on the time of the year, the time of month, how much training you get in, whether you’re having a good pole day or not.

Not too long ago, I was feeling super frustrated that I seemed to be regressing instead of progressing, and then I went through a period of feeling incompetent because I was learning everything on my other side, before an instructor’s comment made me feel better about myself.

Recently, I’ve dropped a level on my spin school to focus on learning / polishing the simpler moves, and also signed up for practice classes at my other school to work on my target moves. Even though, I’ve often felt uninspired at each individual pole session (slippery poles, aching forearms, sluggishness) and felt like I was running to stand still and getting nowhere…. And yet slowly but surely, just by putting in the hours, I’ve found – almost to my surprise, I must confess! – that I’m getting stronger: my cat ripple has become more confident, I’m generally managing to get into my pencil (from hangback and from the ground). This isn’t something I would have realised, I don’t think, except for the fact that, inspired by thepoleplace, I had put together a target list, worked on those specific things, and then realised that I could check some of them off. Yay me!

So now, I’m on the upswing again, and overall I’m feeling more confident, and more hopeful about pushing through my pole plateau, and hopefully passing L5 in May! Fingers crossed.

* Not that I enjoy roller coaster rides. I’m wimpy like that. But I have an imagination.

Hits and misses

Polishing / building confidence:

(1) Falling angels (both sides)
[WIP] – i’ve done this several times, but probably still want to keep working on this until i can do fast, confident switches and use it in freestyle!

(2) Outside angel, inverted pike, inside angel (both sides)
[WIP] – i’ve done this several times, but probably still want to keep wroking on this, particularly on weaker side

(3) Outside angel, inverted pike, horizontal split
[N/A] – didn’t work on this at all

(4) Cat ripple
[CHECK!] – am surprisingly strong and confident in this move now, even with alternate hand placement (i.e. left hand closer to floor and pushing away instead of my usual right hand)… which seemed almost stronger. i’m pushing away quite far from the pole, and managing to sit back upwards and on my bum quite a bit…very very happy with progress in this move.

Improving consistency:

(5) Pencil mount
[CHECK!] – probably need to feel more balanced when mounting (legs need to rise up in tandem instead of unevenly)

(6) Superman
[WIP] – performance is still very spotty

(7) Shoulder mount
[WIP] – tried several times. success rate, even ungracefully, is only ~50%

(8) Knee hold (from side-climb)
[WIP] – dismal failure so far. need to keep working on this

Learning:

(9) Pencil from hangback
[CHECK!] – next step (maybe in the more distant future, once i can do this in my sleep) is to switch hand placements when doing this! 😉

(10) Aisha
[N/A] – haven’t been able to work on this since N has been out of commission for several months

(11) Extended butterfly – from bullet, from butterfly
[WIP] – currently doing prep work for bullet into extended butterfly. managed to go from bullet, starfish to positioning myself in an inversion with knees gripping pole – which is already a fairly big step for me, so i’m quite happy with the progress