body and pole – Page 2 – The Spin Diaries: Your Guide to Everything Pole and Aerial

New poleography vid and kinda/sorta the mid-year review blog hop!

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Cathy Vandewater

I think I wrote before about how I was struggling with what felt like a contemporary style in my poleography pole classes (Body and Pole choreography class, holla!), and I finally feel like I’m starting to get with the program!

I was struggling with taking myself/my movements seriously when they weren’t sexy, and oddly enough, I think ballet has built up my confidence with this. (Yes, I started taking ballet once a week because, while I sadly let my Groupon for a Real Dance Studio expire, my gym has a class taught by an excellent, real ballerina… that is totally included in my membership. She’s 100% legit–constantly correcting our form (nicely) and telling us how movements should feel–and I LOVE HER.)

So now that my head is chock full of “PULL UP” and “LINES” and “GET ON YOUR LEG” it’s easier to turn off the part of my brain that helpfully narrates my dancing with “OH SHIT OH SHIT I LOOK STUPID.”

Progress!

So anyway this isn’t anything particularly graceful, but I was feelin’ it and I think it shows.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the past year (probably because of that mid-year review blog hop going around), and how this was the year that I just kind of threw it on automatic. These days, I don’t think about it too hard–I just get my ass to the gym. I just stretch after every workout. I just go to the studio for pole twice a week and ballet once a week. I just. fucking. do it. And I stop immediately checking for results every time I do, because it’s a lifestyle, and I’m down with that. As they say in the ballet world, love the pain.

And you know what? I’m starting to see huge, permanent changes in my dancing. My lines are better. My flexibility shows. My hands and feet aren’t “dead,” even when I forget about them. These are huge wins for me!! It’s those things that make the difference between “looking terrible while learning choreo and then kind of making it passable” and “looking OK while learning it, then making it beautiful and emotive when it’s mastered.”

This is going to sound weird, but my body-mind connection is getting stronger too. Now, when I think about a movement I want to make, what I see in the mirror or video usually resembles what I WANT to see. I cannot stress enough how much this was not the case before. I would practice at home for hours thinking a routine looked great and then not even recognized the choreography once I saw myself doing it on tape.

These are small things that feel important to me because they’re real changes. I’ve learned tricks and then lost them a few weeks later, but these skills feel “for good.”

I hope.

Haha!

What changes have YOU made this year? What were your biggest accomplishments? Let’s pretend it’s still July and blog-hop this bitch!

XOXO

If you don’t have AC, this is the opening of your official pole season!

Posted on June 9, 2014June 9, 2014 by Cathy Vandewater

Hot weekend, wasn’t it?

Nothing is a better incentive for me to get into the studio, personally, than the prospect of sitting in my hot apartment all Saturday.

Morning is fine, and evening will probably be spent gallivanting about in sundress, but that stretch from 12pm to 3pm is brutal, oppressive, and more often than not, totally squandered.

Which makes it PERFECT pole time.

I hit the studio for the first time in a very long time this weekend. Not that I haven’t been on the pole–I have! For several hours every week, actually, but teaching the same 5 or 6 moves to bachelorettes every class.

That means blistered hands and pole burn out, but very little headway on new skills or strength. I like to tell myself that all pole time is good pole time, but, that’s not exactly true… judging from my greatly diminished ability to invert and climb. Whoops.

Case in point: I took a Level 1 class at body and pole (with the fabulous Shaina) and it KICKED MY ASS. A Level 1. And like, kicked my ass to an embarrassing extent.

Here’s a couple of practice vids I shot after the hour and and a half sweat fest (disclaimer: summer is only a good time for pole if the AC is full functioning), which include a spin combo (dip into a pirouette with a bit of a fan-kick leg into a one-handed backhook) and a carousel-kick climb/fan-kick/thigh grip combo that DESTROYED me.

Sorry for all the hyphens, but wow, I was loving the complexity. Shaina does such a great job of giving everyone options to embellish according to skill level, and it makes for a lot of fun experimenting, and never-ending opportunities to push yourself.

How’s the summer poling coming for everyone else? Are we all seriously dipping into the dry hands? (I just bought 2 new bottles).

XOXO

Cathy

Okay, I’m getting a little tired

Posted on May 31, 2014May 31, 2014 by Cathy Vandewater

Hey gaaaaaaaais, what’s up?

I told y’all that I was teaching again, but Jesus, even I didn’t know I was going to be TEACHING. Like, anywhere between an hour and 5 every single night this week.

When I first started out, I came on the scene like THIS:

Now though, I have blisters on my palms, bruises on my knees, and large sections of the balls of my feet peeling off and I feel kinda like Lili Von Shtupp from Blazing Saddles:

And speaking of showers, between morning, lunch time gym sessions, and post-class detox, I’m up to 3 a day. Eep. Pole is truly a lifestyle.

Anyway, since I’m too tired to think critically about anything I’m doing right now, so here’s an awesome trailer for a documentary someone’s making about a ballerina who crosses over to pole. It looks really, really interesting (of course I’m biased).

This just reinforces my belief that a background in ballet or concurrent training is a perfect companion to pole. I mean… D’ose lines. I’ll never forget the first time I stepped into Shaina Cruea’s class at B&P and immediately just KNEW that she did ballet, just from the warm up. Her extension and toe point game is off the charts, and it makes her movement absolutely ethereal. (But in case you were wondering, she’s one of the kindest, most encouraging, lovely teachers I’ve had–not anywhere near as intimidating as her dancing 😉 )

How’s everybody? Are we all just playing hooky from the studio to go on picnics, etc? I am loving the extended Spring we’re getting in NYC, so much better than the Frigid=>Balls Hot jump we usually make from April to May.