Love proving I can walk in heels without committing to them for a full day (I switched to boots later and no fucks were given, unlike with a real outfit that requires them. Looking at you, culottes).
Someone threw a beanbag at me while this photo was being taken. I caught it because I’m a motherfucking boss.
This QR code worked, P.S.
This photo doesn’t have anything to do with stripper shoes but is notable because it’s the first time I copied internet makeup and had it come out!
I was specifically trying to get the gears to look like gears and not black flowers. I didn’t have the dope glitter this makeup artist used so I did my own thing with eyes and face. Pretty pleased! (But seriously get the full tutorial from this chica here, she’s good!)
How was everybody’s halloween? I saw some promos for some pretty awesome pole shows going around but I’ve been swamped with homework 😐
Just saw this and realized it was totally shot at Body and Pole. (I have burned my ass on that furnace below the window so many times, hot pants and uncovered furnaces do not mix).
Also unrelated, but maybe kind of related: I just found out that not one, but THREE other girls in one of my classes (communications masters program) of 9 people do pole. That’s 30% of my classmates, y’all.
Uneducated whores, all of us!!
Final unrelated note in a collection of mishmash: I’m totally incorporating my lucite platforms into a halloween costume this year. I’m going as an Ashley Madison bot. Let your imagination fill in the rest.
So anyway, I was messing around on my pole this weekend (hence this gif), and decided to try a handstand.
And I was like… wow, okay, that went better than expected! It was definitely hard (you can see me shaking!) but I didn’t feel as scared or as disoriented as I usually do in an upside down, free-standing movement. Progress!
Note: this may seem obvious but it was helpful to me: I just started (literally, one class under my belt) this floorwork/capoeira-inspired class, and the teacher tells us to PUSH against the ground through hand-based movements. Really helpful for handstands on or off the pole! (LOL as if I have ever done a handstand off the pole, but I’m using my imagination).
I also got yet another failed try at taking my leg warmers off without stopping a dance. Listen, I don’t care, I WILL NEVER STOP TRYING TO MAKE THIS WORK. I’m convinced it can be done, somehow, someday.
Oh and here’s a still of my shirt flying up in a handstand with a filter, because why the f*** wouldn’t I put a filter on this? Filters on everything.
Here’s a photo of how red my thighs were afterward–without a filter because my thighs are majestic on their own and don’t need one. (Sorry that this is also a closeup of my crotch, the proximity of thighs to crotch could not be helped. I made it small so as to be less offensive).
For real though, my thighs really hurt.
How’s everybody? Anyone want to do a music swap? Here’s what I’ve been listening to. Share something!
1. Otis Redding, Stand by Me
This version has the perfect amount of lilt for pole. #Classic
2. D’Angelo, Feel Like Making Love
D’Angelo on one of my playlists? Not a surprise. I don’t mind being predictable when it comes to consistently perfect pole music tho…
3. Jah Khalib, Out of My Head
I don’t know what language this is in. Russian? Give it a chance because the hook is hot fire.
4. ScHoolBoy Q, Collard Greens
This beat is really different from everything else on my playlists.
The commercial breaks are annoying, and you’ll have to police your own form, but I for one am definitely bookmarking this class for days when nothing’s popping at my usual studio. A lot of these moves are very similar to my barre class at B&P (which is only once a week D: ) so I’m am with it. This is that dance conditioning ish! Meaning, this is the stuff that looks easy but is actually hard because it recruits all the weird little muscles you need for extended moves and balance. Gotta love it. And I promise you’ll start seeing an improvement in your lines with this kind of training, I know I have. #believer.
Also, I think I might actually be type A and film this on my phone off of my laptop so I can cut commercials ;D
Anyway, SPEAKING OF LINES, holy shit have you guys seen this???
I’ve basically been watching it on a loop. And listening to that sooooong tho. It’s like, perfectly crafted for pole and begging for choreo.
Somebody geek out with me on this because I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan’t, so good.
I just left Angela an extremely long comment (sorry Angela!) and realized I have a LOT to say about leg raises.
As you all know from my bitching and moaning on here, I’m still recovering from a mystery back issue. It got so bad that I ACTUALLY TRIED YOGA. I still don’t know exactly what went wrong because my insurance at the time was really shitty, and when I called them to find a doctor who would accept my extremely obscure plan. They told me I had to go to the emergency room.
So I self diagnosed. (And called in sick a lot when I couldn’t stand).
I know it’s bad, but, I did my own research, and my symptoms were most in line with a herniated disk. The pain here is unique in that it’s much, much worse to be sitting that to be doing just about anything else (except maybe like, weighted dead lifts).
Gentle movement, walking, and standing all felt okay, but trying to sit at my desk for a normal work day was complete torture. On my 1.5 hour commute home I’d have to stand or risk not being able to get up from my seat when my stop came on the subway because my legs had gone numb.
This has something to do with the position your lower discs are in when you sit–they’re much more compressed than when standing. And let me tell you… I could feel it. It was like on Seinfeld when George was sitting on his huge wallet–it just felt precarious and unbalanced and generally fucked up everywhere, no matter how I shifted around in my chair. And I think, as a protective response, the muscles all around my spine tightened and spasmed and did all other kinds of general fuckery to make my life even more particularly miserable.
The red part is medical code for “this area hurts like a bitch.”
Now, I have taken a good, hard look at my life. I was in constant pain for about 6 months. My back was always seized up, I had (mistakenly!) thought I lost all my hard won flexibility because I couldn’t so much as touch my toes anymore. Inverts in pole were completely out of the question (just trying to crunch my legs up was an immediately spasm in my back), and even gentle workout classes became embarrassing and impossible as soon as something as runk twists, toe touches, or planks were involved.
I thought it would last forever, and I thought dancing was done for me.
And I wanted to know why.
Funny enough, it wasn’t until I made an almost complete recovery (gentle stretching and cardio + listening to your body FTW!) before I made the connection between a certain movement and my pain.
Leg raises.
I have an idea. Let’s not and say we did.
Fucking leg raises.
It came it be in a flash: a month or so before my pain had first started (at first in waves of back cramps that would come and go, and then in a tsunami of pain that quite literally took me off my feet), I’d started a new class at my gym.
It was called “Ab Lab.”
Great cross training for pole, right? It’s at 12pm in the gym attached to my office, and it’s only a half hour long. A quick ass kicking AND time to eat a sandwich? Sign me up.
The workout–while intense–is very old fashioned. It’s also very fast paced. And the instructor–a totally lovely guy–takes no prisoners. He will call you out. That’s my kryptonite because I have an ego when it comes to working out. So I ignored how certain things felt in order to simply complete them. Like how series after series of extended leg raises, criss-crosses, scissors, and roll ups were making my back ache and burn, not my abs.
Dat curve.
Now, I’m not dumb. I have been working out and dancing for a long time. I know that to protect my back in ab exercises, I have to pull my abs in and keep my lower back glued to the floor.
Unfortunately, that’s impossible when you’re working on a double time count and flinging a medicine ball around. In fact, it didn’t even work for me at half speed. (A pilates teacher last night walked up to me and grabbed my back and was like, “wow, look at that lumbar curve.” Apparently that can cause back pain during the ab stuff because anatomy?? So I was like HOLY FUCKING SHIT, MAYBE IT’S MY BODY AND NOT MY TECHNIQUE. Because it can’t possibly be for lack of trying. I really, really try to keep my back on the floor.)
Anyway, I don’t take the ab class anymore. And I don’t give a flying fuck what kind of side eye I get during other fitness classes I take when I sit out on the leg raises.
I do not do leg raises anymore.
I just fucking do not.
Some things I can do (like lower leg scissors) if I keep my hands under my back, which helps me get into the C position where my abs do the work. But other times, if we’re doing those full body V things, I just don’t. And I apologize to the teacher or point to my back and shrug, but I DO NOT DO THEM and I don’t not let myself be bullied into doing them.
Just to reiterate:
No.
Do you have a an exercise that’s your mortal enemy?
Are leg raises amazing and I’m some kind of mutant that can’t do them?
Read this, almost threw my computer with YASness. Like, I was so worked up in agreement that it turned into rage and then back to total agreement again. I’ll copy and past a lil teaser here but please check out the whole (fantastic, with videos) blog here: http://www.badkitty.com/news/when-pole-was-easy/
“Pole has gotten older and some would even say better. I remember thinking that Sara Cretul doing her twisted grip was the most amazing thing ever! Now we have, fonjis, flips, and flaming double-back spiral thingies. We have become a legitimate sport. Tara who? Fluffy skirts were replaced by slightly sexy but sensible outfits. Shoes were no longer the norm unless during Sexy Pole vs Athletic Pole vs Pole Art. Like a junkie I continued to chase the pole dragon and from time to time when I mastered a trick or danced in the dark by myself, I would feel a bit of the original rush. But the reality was it became harder and harder to replicate that high. Something was missing. Pole became a serious sport and I was still looking for simple. Pole was hard.”
^omg so much yes, right?
When I first got interested in pole, it was because of people like Leigh Ann. You guys already know how I feel about her. She danced, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. And actually, I remember thinking that the upside down stuff was kind of boring–I like watching her DANCE.
Now Leigh Ann is famous for her insanely acrobatic “Diamonds” video… a lot changes in seven years. But her old videos are just as popular, which I think says something about how we all feel about the new, gymnastic trend in pole dancing.
I won’t call it “easy,” but I miss a time when pole wasn’t so damn hard, and when everybody wasn’t routinely getting injured trying to wrench themselves into poses Ukrainian former-rhythmic-gymnasts-turned-polers did at the last whatever competition.
I associate pole with pain so much now that it’s something I have to build myself up to do, whereas it used to be something I used to really look forward to. I remember that one Leen Isabel cartoon that I can’t find really speaking to me in the winter months… it was a panel of a blustry, dark winter day outside, and then a sparkly, pink, happy studio inside (and maybe a unicorn?). That comic totally represented my feelings of walking into a pole studio after a long, boring, glitter-free day. Pole was magic. Pole was challenging, but in a fun way. Pole didn’t hurt that much, except in small, manageable doses that reminded your of your progress. (Somebody please link me to that comic if you can find it!!)
Am I just being being bitter, or are other people a tad nostalgic too?
Let’s face it, I’m not 110 pounds and have no background in gymnastics or ballet so I also feel like most of the “hard” pole stuff is just not gonna happen for me. So like, I’m just not all that interested in it for logistical reasons (on top of just being lazy and wanting to have fun.
What do you guys think?
How did you first feel about pole when you started out?
I’m hoping to get some pics up soon (especially since I got an awesome new bluetooth clicker thing that enables my iPhone to snap photos from across the room, holla!), but basically, I’ve started taking flexibility classes at B&P that have been GAME CHANGING.
I know, I know, I was all “lol I can stretch at home, why would I pay for this” too, but trust me: the prompts that you will receive from a good teacher in these classes are everything. Here’s a few key, simple things I’ve learned so far that have my flexibility game on serious fleek.
(Accompanied by pictures I stole from the internet for explanation purposes)
Photo: popsugar.com
1. In back bends: think of opening your chest, NOT about crunching your back
Not only did this make back bendy stuff feel so much safer and more comfortable, focusing on opening my chest and getting it up and over my back activated all the muscles in my upper back–which are what make that nice, rounded, SAFE (have I said safe enough yet?) shape in a backbend instead of that “hinged at the lower back” look.
2. In hamstring stretches: pop your booty out and arch your back
It’s easy to just cycle between lunges and hamstring stretches, but if you’re struggling with splits, hitting those hip flexors from new angles may be just the thing to get you into deeper territory.
A few things to try:
-Back bends in a deep lunge stretch (just make sure you’re squared off to get the most out of it). And try arm circles: sweep into them with one arm at a time, up and over, front to back, side to side.
-Pushing the inside of the front knee away in a deep lunge stretch (so that your knee opens and the weight shifts to the outer edge of your front foot). Turn away from the front leg for a little added opposition.
-In a bent over hamstring stretch (one leg straight in front, the other kneeling): turn the front leg out from the hip (so that the pinky toe is closest to the ground), and turn your body to face it, planting hands on the outside of your extended leg as you lower your torso to meet it. (You can allow your kneeling leg to pivet into a “knees together” position). You should feel a deep stretch in the inner thigh.
Do you guys have any flexy tricks up your sleeves? I’ve honestly made so much progress in my back in a few months that I think I’m going to attempt a crescent again! (For the first time since failing at it and swearing off it forever 2 years ago).
And huge shoutout to Emily Sanderson at B&P who teaches flex and is fabulous. Just saying.
Oh and then my music cut out at one point but I kept going, and when I watched the video later it was kinda funny. (Cee Lo’s Fool for You, and I’m linking to the version with Melonie Fiona because it’s da bomb dot com).
1. When you get a note you don’t understand (what does “quiet collarbones” mean I should do?)
2. When you go over the hard part of a dance over and over and then mess up the easy part in a performance.
3. When your teacher says, “one more time!” for the 900th time and you’re starting not to believe her.
4. When your feet are dirty and you have to put your nice flats on.
5. When “warm ups” are code for “flexibility contest” (it’s a silent contest, but a contest nonetheless).
6. When a sequence is so fast that if you think, you just missed it.
7. When you get multiple notes at the same time and you can’t seem to do one without messing up the other (your shoulders lift when you try to straighten your knees, your feet flex when you try to keep your face soft, AHHHH MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING).
8. When a movement just doesn’t look the same on your body as it does on your teacher’s.
9. When you randomly can’t do the thing you totally did yesterday.
10. When your body just flat out won’t do something and you have little hope that it ever will. (Re: dinosaur arms.).
11. When the floor is too sticky, the pole is too cold, and nothing is working.
12. When you learn a dance in class and try to practice it home but blank out on 3/4s of it.
13. When you’re waiting in line to do something in front of the class that you’re definitely going to suck at.
14. When the teacher calls out a correction for “some people” and you look down and you’re the one who lost your turn out.
15 .When you remember to pack everything except your sports bra.
16. When you only nail it if no one’s looking and you forgot to hit “record.”
The Spin Diaries: Your Guide to Everything Pole and Aerial 