Conditioning:
1) Straight leg lift x 4 (right side 4x, left side 4x) x 2
2) scissor climb x 8 x 2 (i was pathetic at this. i think i was the worst performer in class 🙁 )
New moves:
1) Star (outside angel into star. i was really stressed and hyperventilating with this, just like i was with falling angels. my first attempt was really lame: legs barely opened, and released very quickly. second time round, i just went for it and just prayed like crazy that my partner was spotting me properly. that was much better. miraculously, i stayed on the pole – whoo hoo!!! i did it several times, over and over again to make sure my muscles remember the move)
2) Thigh hold (i wanted to try star into thigh hold. but thought i better not move too quickly, and not tire myself out too quickly either. again, although it seemed like i wouldn’t stick to the pole, i did. did this several times, but not too many as i didn’t want to tire myself out)
3) Mermaid 1st stage (i tried doing the mermaid legs, but EG was like: DON’T move your legs! it’s true i didn’t feel as secure, but probably because i was getting a bit tired / stressed and/or because no one was really spotting me. i felt a bit loser-ish that i was “regressing” in that i was doing less than i was doing with Nat. ah well, but better safe than sorry)
4) Inverted swan 1st stage (we just did the first stage which is kind of easy. hang back and sliding down almost into bow & arrow position, then bringing the body to the front and using a “forearm grip”[?]. i was tempted to try the second stage, but i didn’t feel i had the energy)
5) Climb, bullet, sideways-V (sideways-V is easy. the tricky part was to do bullet from climb. i was struggling to get into it without kicking into the pole. but it was much better when i just went for it.)
was a reasonably good day. i was ahead of almost all of my L5 newbie peers, except for two girls:
– Clara, who used to be much stronger than me anyway, back in L1
– Rhiannon, who has done many of these moves before at the gym she goes to. she’s been my pole buddy at class so far, but EG has promoted her to join the regular L5s because she says she’s ready to train with combinations already, whereas Clara was demoted from regular L5 to newbie L5 (although she says this was her first L5 anyway
i was really quite sad to see Rhiannon leave, because i think it has been very helpful for me to be sharing a pole with someone more experienced who could show me the moves when i wasn’t sure which hands were going where or how to get into a move. that has helped in pushing me further than i otherwise would have dared to.
while the other girls were stuck struggling to do moves or trying them from the ground, i dared to give it a go because i’ve clearly seen it done successfully by Rhiannon, which sparks my competitive spirit as well.
Ending:
1) Free-style: i was really happy with this.
i didn’t do heaps of tricks here because i was quite tired and didn’t want to be reckless. but in addition to my usual bag of tricks: matrix/corkscrew climb/hang back/ V sit/ statue, i also threw in a spinning eagle into outside angel (yay me! although i was getting a bit dizzy and worried about sliding).
and i did a lot of transition type dancing, e.g. one of Nat’s moves of swapping arms and doing bicycle legs down the pole; some good old spins e.g. flying body spiral and swan into back hook spin, bullet spin into sideways V.
impressively enough, i managed to dance for a good, solid 4 minutes! although i paused a bit in between when i was struggling to remember what moves i could do.
i think i really should write down all the moves that i can do / have learnt so that i have a list of them that i can refer to and use in my freestyle!
2) Cool down/stretch: box and front/back splits