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.