Tag Archives: Advanced pole

In Pursuit Of Handsprings, And Other Advanced Moves

  By bexackland@ntlworld.com • November 20, 2020

Every one in the pole world who knows me well knows how much I struggled with handsprings. I just could not do them.

 I believed it was due to a lack of strength (as strength is not my… Err… Strength) and that my upper body just wasn’t cut out for it. But in truth I think it was largely down to fear – that upside down flipping over thing – and of course, lack of technique.

At every masterclass I went to – and I go to a lot – when we got to the handspring bit, half of me was thinking – oh no. Here’s the bit I can’t do. The other half was thinking – maybe today is the day. Maybe this is the time when someone will spot where I’m going wrong and steer me onto the right track and I’ll nail it. And every time, when I asked “can you have a look at my technique and see if I’m doing something wrong?” They’d say “no, you’re absolutely fine. Just keep practicing” Grrrr. How frustrating.

But they were right. It was just practice. I was hoping for some magic wand moment, where they’d say ah! You’re doing it completely wrong! And the problem would be solved. But pole isn’t always like that. I’m not naturally strong. I have to work at it. And sometimes, hard work beats natural talent, when natural talent doesn’t work.

First handspring. Not shown: victory dance afterwards

It took me 17 months to handspring, from the first time I tried it to managing it, just once. Just four weeks short of a year and a half. However, I have spoken to pole icons, world champions, who admitted that despite their amazing strength and talents and all round awesomeness, it also took them a year and a half to handspring too. If it’s good enough for a world champion, then it’s good enough for me.

What seems to have happened in recent years is that advanced moves – like handsprings – have been “demoted” down the difficulty scale. Girls want to handspring in six weeks. Instructors want to jam those girls up in legs-off positions and photograph them to make themselves look good. It seems to have turned into a race for the super advanced moves, rather than building up to them.

If I had one piece of advice for students of pole, it would be this: SLOW DOWN.

Slow down your moves – less kicking and jumping and more lifting. It will make you stronger and fitter, and improve your technique- which means that when you come to attempt the more advanced moves, you will be ready, and prepared, and able.

Slow down your performing – don’t rush, we want to see what you are doing and appreciate it and feel it. Hold your moves, even if you are not on stage. It will look better, more polished, more beautiful. And if you can hold a gemini or a scorpio with no effort or struggle, then moving from there up to the next move will not be such a stretch. It will feel challenging, sure, but it will feel possible, and most importantly, safe. 

Slow down your pole training – spend time nailing each move, perfecting it and holding it, not rushing on to the next one. I know it’s tempting to want to invert on week one and handspring on week two but THERE IS NO RUSH – You are in competition with no one. You have the rest of your life to spend on this journey. Savour it, enjoy it, and you will be a far better poler for it.

The world of pole has come so far. The moves are crazy now, as these athletes take it to the next level, with gravity defying feats, mind blowing strength and flexibility that would put an elastic band to shame. Those moves are amazing and inspiring. But those moves are not the norm – a handspring is still, in fact, an advanced move. Just because more people can do it now who have been training and learning for a long time, it doesn’t make it any less of an achievement.

For me, I realised that being self-taught and trying to handspring without a spotter probably wasn’t the best way to learn, and I invested in some lessons with a fellow instructor I trusted. Boom – I got that handspring in about 15 minutes with her. A combination of technique, support, time, continuous training and getting over the fear. I was so happy, but not as happy as when I taught a student to handspring for the first time myself. It’s a big landmark, as it is nailing any nemesis move, as is inverting for the first time, as is just getting your feet off the ground, as is just walking into class for the first time. 

It’s all a personal journey. It’s about hard work, support and fun, There are no shortcuts. There is no competition

BEXIITA

Are We Not Drawn Onward, We Few, Drawn Onward To New Era?

  By bexackland@ntlworld.com • November 20, 2020

We pole dancers, are we not drawn onward to a new era of pole moves?

OK, don’t panic. This isn’t really a poetic and pretentious blog topic about the dawning of the age of a million new pole moves. As an English scholar, former journalist and word geek, I kinda have a thing for words. This doesn’t mean I am silently judging your grammar. But it does mean I have things like a “favourite palindrome”. In fact, I have a top three. But my favourite is:

A palindrome, for those not as desperately nerdy and tragic as me, is a phrase that reads the same backwards as it does forwards. You’re checking it now aren’t you? Go on, check it. It really does. Unless I have made a typo which occasionally happens, even with grammar nazis.

But what does all this have to do with pole?

Whilst reading lists of palindromes on holiday (yes that happened), it got me thinking, about things that work backwards as well as forwards. And this applies hugely to pole.

I am a strong believer in training down as well as up. There are so many different forces at work during pole training, from strength and lifting to gravity. We all know how to work up to an invert, lifting, pushing the hips up, using the arms and the core, the change in weight distribution. But what happens when we get there? Do we – or our students – slide down the pole (controlled and steady of course), or do we unhook the legs and go back down the way we came?

I think there is great value in the slide-down-the-pole technique – it is a safe way down (tuck chin to chest, thereby arriving at the floor on your shoulders and not your head); it improves and practices grip, and teaches how to release it a little, but not too much; and it is a reassuring way down for the nervous student, easy for an instructor to spot and a good go-to comfort move for students progressing on to more inverted moves.

However, as students get stronger, I like to introduce “training down”. I don’t mean let go with the legs and *splat*. I mean engaging the core and upper body, and trying to reverse the invert, coming down slowly and controlled. Take, for example, the chopper/overhead straddle/flying V/whatever you call it. Anyway this move:

Now, this move looks great when a poler lifts into it, with straight legs from ground to air. But we also know that’s hard, and it’s much more likely that – certainly whilst learning this move – there will be an element of kicking and/or bent legs going on (I’m not going to get into whether we should or shouldn’t kick into inverts – maybe another day. But suffice to say whether we should or shouldn’t, people WILL kick into this move).

My favourite way to train for the straight leg deadlift into this move is to train DOWN. Take this position as the start, and slowly, slowly, lower down, using the abs, the arms, the shoulders, the back, hell using ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to lower, lower, lower. You may only lower a few inches before *splat*, because gravity will be pushing you down. (Don’t be hard on gravity – that’s gravity’s job. We just have to fight gravity. In a nice, pacifist way of course. Let’s not forget we need gravity for many pole moves) But the more you train this move down, the further you will get.

Now let’s apply the same principle to other moves. Before learning to handspring or ayesha, lower into those moves from an invert. That way you practice the move without relying on momentum. When you are familiar with those positions, then work on training up into them – and don’t just work on lifting up into headstands or handstands – bring them down slowly.  Don’t just kick up into handsprings, come back down in a controlled manner too. LOWER you shoulder mount until eventually you can lift it. Lower your ayesha to the ground until your can deadlift it. If you want to take it further, lower it and HOLD it there, in a shoulder mount planche, or an iron x. Go back up if you like, and lower all over again , you badass b*tch. Get into the habit of lowering EVERYTHING, every invert, every move, instead of taking the *splat* onto the crash mat option.

Remember pole is 90% training and 10% show. The final move will be a great achievement, but that isn’t what’s making you fit. The training towards it is what’s building your strength, your ability and your fitness level. Build training down into your 90% and your 10% will be easier, faster and more awesome. Make gravity your friend, make her your b*tch if you like, but make her work for you. Gravity is a law, and like all laws it can be broken. Some things work just as well backwards as they do forwards. Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era? Yes, of course we are.

BEXIITA

It’s OK to be average

  By bexackland@ntlworld.com • November 20, 2020

I speak to a lot of people in the pole world – from beginner students to elite champions –  and I’ve noticed something that may surprise you. There is an almost universal worry about not being “good enough”, or meeting expectations.

Even people who are totally amazing and incredible and inspirational, behind closed doors (or in the confidence of private messaging) express fears that they are not keeping up, not where they want to be, worried that they will be left behind, or “found out” as not as good as they are thought to be.

The seemingly constant and endless stream of achievements of others creates a tidal wave washing away self confidence and belief, and leaving polers on the shore drenched in self doubt. Why do we even care what other people think? What does it matter? (I did actually address this in my last blog if you care to ponder this question, just make sure you come back here afterwards to read this bit, part two. Go on, it’s OK I’ll wait right here…. OK read it? Good. Let’s continue).

I’m here to tell you,  it’s OK not to be perfect.

Remember when you first started pole. It was hard, wasn’t it? And even if you picked it up straight away, it still wasn’t easy. Nobody walks in on day one and leaves with a mastery of the finer points of balance, core strength and skin conditioning. This stuff takes time. A long time. It’s completely normal to take weeks, months, even a year to get upside down safely and competently. Even world champions and pole icons have confessed that it took them 18 months to handspring. We all know this, yet there still seems to be a need to keep up and nail stuff straight away.

Let’s also bear in mind that when you start out, you are working on the basics, and you are likely to pick things up quite quickly, but as you progress, and the moves become harder, they will be more difficult and take more time to master. I have demonstrated this here with the help of this handy graph:

As you can see, progress at the start is fast, but as time goes on, the learning curve starts to level out. It figures that as you progress, your rate of new achievements will slow down. You will go from nailing a new move each week, to getting one every few weeks, or few months, and eventually after a long time, every now and again. This isn’t a bad thing – just because you can’t share an Instagram worthy photo each week doesn’t mean you aren’t progressing. You are instead perfecting what you already know, getting smoother, stronger, more flexible, more confident with the moves you once struggled with. Here’s another handy graph (I got carried away with the app) to reflect the fact that most of the time, I’m working on the bread-and-butter stuff, going over what I already know but can’t do effortlessly yet. That green star, that’s me every now and again when I get a new move. WOOHOO!

As a pole instructor for the best part of a decade, and having taught hundreds and hundreds of women (and indeed men), let me tell you this: most people are not doing the seriously hardcore stuff, and most of them probably won’t – and that’s absolutely fine. It’s better than fine, it’s AMAZING. Where did this belief come from that unless you are aerial handspringing with dead straight legs, then it doesn’t count? Balls to that.

Look at what you are doing! You are upside down and you are holding your own body weight! You are amazing! Please don’t feel that because you are “only intermediate” that your moves aren’t impressive. There’s a reason why every pole school’s intermediate classes are busier than their super advanced classes – because to get to a super advanced level takes years of practice and determination. You may consider yourself “average”, but “average” is already amazing.

It’s great to be exceptional – and there are plenty of exceptional pole dancers out there to inspire you, whatever your style. But the idea of exceptional has become twisted into something we feel we should ALL be. Exceptional has become the expectation, as if we owe it to ourselves, indeed to the world, to shine brighter than everyone else, to be our own beautiful and unique snowflake. In a world of reality TV where even the biggest talent vacuums can become stars, (or at least mildly well-known), “average” has become some sort of insult. Motivation and determination is great,  but the truth is, without the “average” pole moves, and indeed the so-called “average” polers, we wouldn’t have a pole community at all.

From the new student who feels like the last one in class to get upside down, the student who takes a little longer than the rest to pick up new moves, the determined student working on the splits that hardly ever seem to get any lower, the breastfeeding mum trying to get back to where she once was, to the pole champ who worries that their best performance is behind them, take it from all the polers  who’d love to be able to do what you do – You’re doing great.

BEXIITA ACKLAND