Tag Archives: pole community

8 Things To Think About Before Competing In Pole

  By bexackland@ntlworld.com • November 20, 2020

Written by Bexiita Ackland

Competing in pole has become big business. What was once something only for the elite and/or crazy has become commonplace, with more and more reputable local and regional competitions, and with a wider range of competitions incorporating different styles of pole. From pole athletics to stripper style and everything in between, there is now a well organised and prestigious competition for you. Sometimes it feels like every person in every class you take has competed, is competing, or is planning to compete. And that’s totally brilliant – competing can take you to places you never imagined, pushing you physically and mentally. But is competing for you? Once you make the frankly pant wettingly scary decision to get up on stage, a whole world opens up to you which is hard to comprehend until you are actually part of it. Here are eight things to consider before making that decision and taking to the stage: 1. Can you afford it? The costs of competing can potentially be huge. Costumes are anywhere from around the £40 mark if you are canny/lucky on eBay, and up to £100-£200 for a bespoke outfit (that’s around $150-$300 for my American friends). Add on to that the costs of private or extra lessons or workshops you may want to book to polish up your tricks, the costs of hiring a space or studio to practice your routine or film your video heat, plus the costs of travelling to such sessions and things start to add up. That’s before we even get to the hair, make up, nails and so on – I’ve seen pre-comp beautifying to rival most weddings. However, like weddings, competing can be done on a budget – if you are handy with a needle you can create a wonderful costume yourself which will stand out as not being yet another creation by the designer du jour, and of course you can do your own hair and make up (or go with a caveman/Wild Woman of Borneo theme that requires no beautifying at all). You may have free access to your own space or own pole to practice, so practice may not cost your too much money at all. However there’s no way to get away from…. 2. Do you have the time? Do not underestimate how much of your time competing will take up. Do you have friends, family or any sort of a social life? Do you hear that whooshing sound? That’s the sound of your social life disappearing. You may be a natural and come up with a whole routine in an hour or two, but most people spend a lot of time sitting on the floor with a notepad, planning combos, scribbling things out, writing new combos, screwing up bits of paper, considering burning the entire notebook and studio to the ground, starting again from scratch and then ending up with something completely different weeks later. All of this faffing about will take up huge amounts of your spare time. You may also take up other sports on your non-pole days to help with strength or cardio when you realise how much stamina a whole routine requires (this is when pole dancers fall in love with swimming, running and crossfit). You may take up a stretch or yoga class to help with flexibility, because let’s face it flexibility always adds a wow factor to routines. And after all the time physically taken up, it will also take up all your time in your head. Don’t even bother trying to have a conversation with a pole dancer a week before they compete, unless you want to talk about glitter, tendons, the unquantifiable amount an unfamiliar pole might spin and whether to step first with the left or right leg. Seriously, the week before I compete, I bore even myself. Of course, you may thrive on the focus and thoroughly enjoy the discipline of planning your life and managing your time effectively. The process of creating a routine is undoubtedly hugely rewarding and enjoyable, and a much better use of time than watching crap TV. On the other hand, if you have no friends or social life whatsoever, you are a perfect candidate for competing. 3. What about significant others? OK so most people do have friends and a social life, and possibly a significant other and even children. These people are going to bear the brunt when you are tired, injured, stressed, nervous and trying not to eat chocolate. Is that going to make your life difficult? For the last four weeks or so before your competition, will your family be understanding that you will be training a lot and not at home? I’m not saying that you should put your dreams on hold, but it’s probably a good idea to brief/warn everyone concerned beforehand. Do you have a good support network around you? Will someone be there for you when you are crying over crystals? It can happen. Do you have someone to go to for advice about music cutting or costume designing, or someone to warn you against capes, skirts or props? (Seriously, think twice about wearing a skirt). And do you have someone to remind you that it’s only a competition for goodness sake, chill out and eat the chocolate?

4. Are you emotionally ready? Are you prepared for what you will go through and the questions you will ask yourself? When you are tired and drained, sore and aching, with creativity flowing from every pore leaving you emotionally open, it’s not unusual to ask some pretty soul-searching questions Am I good enough? Should I be doing more? Why didn’t I start training splits years ago? Why is everyone is better than me? Remember that bit about sitting on the floor with a notepad putting your routine together, only to realise you have far exceeded your capabilites? That’s when all the ghosts of pole appear to let you know just how rubbish you are The main thing to remember here is that this is NORMAL. Here’s a secret: everyone feels like that sometimes. Everyone wonders if they are good enough. Everyone questions themselves and worries they will mess up and embarrass themselves. Take a deep breath, speak to your pole instructor or fellow students or someone in the industry you admire or respect or just think will be nice to you. And for goodness sake, don’t start obsessing about what your fellow competitors are doing and comparing yourself to them. You are you, and they are them. Believe me, deep down, they are thinking the same thoughts. 5. Are you physically ready? Depending on the level you are competing at, competing can put a strain on the body. Are you healthy and reasonably fit? Do you have any underlying medical conditions that mean when you are tired and stressed, your health is put in danger? I do not for a moment mean you cannot compete if this applies to you. Rather, I mean you need to be aware of this, listen to your body and manage your training appropriately. You might also use the process as an opportunity to improve your general health and nutrition – healthy eating will undoubtedly help your with your training, and having your performance as a goal can be a great incentive to improve your overall fitness. Make sure, however, this is a by product of your training, and not the sole incentive. It is not a good idea to compete “because that way I will have to lose 2 stone by July”. Also remember that cake, chocolate, chicken wings, doughnuts and eating out with friends is lovely and enjoyable, and also that you do not get scored onstage for your thighs. 6. Are you doing it for the right reasons?

Also known as why are you doing it? There are many brilliant, positive reasons to compete. To push yourself with your training. To set yourself a challenge. To take yourself further along your pole journey. To inspire your students or family. Because it looks like fun.  There are also reasons to compete which are based in negativity – To prove a point. To “show someone”. For the glory. Because you’ll definitely win. Competing is always a risk, but if your reasons to do so are based in positivity, then whatever the outcome it will still be a positive experience. If however you are going through the whole thing – the work, the stress, the training, the expense – for a negative reason… I don’t have to spell it out do I. 7. Will you enjoy it? Your performance itself will last a matter of minutes, but can be hugely intense. Your training can last months. Will you enjoy both? Personally I like performing, but the training – n ot so much. Others are the other way around, and love working towards a goal but are terrified on stage. Training when you’re not in the mood or it’s snowing outside or you’re as stiff as a board can make you just want to lie on the sofa watching X Factor, or it can take you to a wonderful place of zen and sense of achievement. If you have not enjoyed the process, or appearing on stage, it will show in your performance. Similarly, if you have loved every minute, that will ooze out of your performance and pour all over the judges and crowd like that stuff in the 50s B-movie The Blob, but make them enthralled and fill them with joy rather than terror and fear. 8. How important is it to you to place? If you give your all to your training, focus your time, pour your heart and soul into your routine, give it everything you’ve got on stage and then place much lower than you were hoping or expecting, how are you going to feel about that? How will you feel if you come last?

It’s normal to experience post-comp blues, even if you are happy with the result. Competing can become such a massive thing and not having it any more can leave a void. But will you still be feeling those blues next week, next month, next year? Will it put you off competing altogether? Remember, competing and judging is subjective. Who can know what makes up the “best” routine? On another day, you may have placed higher or lower. Of course, you want to do your best, and it’s natural and human to want to do well. But if you are placing your self worth on doing well, you are putting yourself in a dangerous position, both mentally and emotionally. If you can genuinely say that as long as you did your best and where you place is just a bonus, then you are in the right frame of mind. Go ahead, and make it your time to shine. Your stage is waiting.

Ten things to do from the very beginning of your pole journey

  By bexackland@ntlworld.com • November 20, 2020

Ah, your first time on a pole. Can you remember yours? Chances are, you were smitten from the very start. And whether you are still an absolute beginner, or you are now years down the line, you will have invariably learned a great deal, not only on the pole, but about the process of learning itself, and how to be a better poler. Here are ten things I wish I’d known from the very start of my pole journey. 1. Train both sides Without doubt, this is the single biggest thing every poler wishes they had done from the start, so let’s start with this one. Train. Both. Sides. Even if you don’t read the rest of this piece, take this piece of advice with you, tuck it in your hotpants and keep it there. Take it to every lesson, as reliably as you take your grip aids and water. Think about it. Everything feels weird at first. So it may as well fell weird on both sides. Even left handed people will be stronger on the right If that’s how they learn, and vice versa. It’s not so much to do with your dominant side as it is to do with muscle memory and what you are used to. So you may as well get used to your “bad” side from the start. When you become more advanced and want to start linking moves together, finding that you are ending up on your bad side for a brass monkey or Ayesha or whatever can put an end to the combo of your dreams. If only you could do it both sides! And of course, training both sides means you won’t end up lopsided, with one bicep like Popeye and one like Olive Oyl. But quite apart from that, having even strength will prevent injury and help with balance and even weight distribution.   I do teach everything both sides now. Everyone moans and hates me for it, but in a few years when they want to iron X on the left I can at least say I tried to take them to the dork side. Both sides people! Got it? Good. Let’s move on. 2. Stretch In many ways when you are a beginner you are the perfect candidate for stretching. More often than not, a beginners basic level of flexibility will not be massively high, and increasing flexibility will possibly be one of the things that is attractive about pole. It’s a bit like a yoga class but with more fun stuff and less philosophy, right?? And all the other beginners will have a similar level of flexibility and not be all scarily intimidating. OK, there’s usually some bendy circus type freak – but apart from them, most beginners are not doing the splits, bending in half backwards or even able to touch the floor, so making stretches a part of your regular warm up and and cool down is going to make a difference. The problem is when those stretches don’t change and develop as your flexibility increases, taking your flexibility to the next level. When you are super comfortable with your jade, Allegra, cocoon or whatever, you are going to want it to look flatter, more splitty, more bendy. Wouldn’t it be great if you had already been working on that flexibility for months, rather than waiting until you achieved the move? But flexibility isn’t just to make moves look amazing. It helps to make holds strong, and prevent injury. As you build muscle and get stronger, those muscles become bigger and bulkier, and flexibility is often compromised as a result. This can cause issues with range of movement, making certain moves potentially painful or at risk of causing harm. Typically pole dancers build muscle around the shoulders and upper body, which is great and we all love memes of Barbie dolls with massive biceps, but without consistent stretching those muscles will reduce shoulder rotation and flexibility. Congratulations, you are strong and bendy enough in your back to do a seahorse, a dove, an eagle, a Phoenix! Oh though. You need someone to push that shoulder round. Stretch after EVERY pole lesson, especially those shoulders.

3. See pole dancing performed at a show or competition First and foremost, shows and competitions are BRILLIANT. You get to hang out with cool people who don’t mind that you bang on about pole endlessly, and there’s always loads of good stuff to buy. But for a bit of inspiration, you cannot beat watching others perform for a crowd. It’s totally different from what you see in a pole studio, showing the difference between exercise and fitness, and an actual performance. It doesn’t even have to be a massive national competition. Go to a small local competition, or a showcase, or even a strip club. See how your sport looks when it is polished and practiced and covered in sparkles. You will come away with ideas for things you haven’t tried before. You may even be inspired to give it  go yourself. 4. Spinny pole Spinny pole seems to be something that is considered to be for advanced students only (and Australians). Outside of the occasional lesson or one-off work shop, It’s rare to find beginners regularly practicing the art of the spinning pole. What tends to happen is someone buys their own pole, puts it on spin mode, jumps on and spins at 800 rpm, tries to invert, feels sick, has to go and lie in a darkened room with a cup of tea until the world stops moving, then declares “I hate spinny pole” and never does it again. But what shame! spinny pole is a wondrous thing of joy and beauty! If only polers were introduced to the delights of controlled spinning early on and practiced it regularly. Just look at the Australians. They train on spin from the start and make it look easy and amazing. Who doesn’t want to look like Maddie Sparkle on a pole? Nuff said. Get dizzy bitches.

5. Find your own style When you start pole and eagerly, excitedly, breathlessly check out alll the polers on social media, you’d be forgiven for feeling a bit disheartened at the sight of thousands of girls doing amazing things with the caveat “sorry for my rubbish phoenix/crap splits/poor iron x”, especially when you’ve only just learned your first spin. Being good at pole takes time, patience and perseverance. Some students have a background in dance, gymnastics or even contortion, and they will pick things up fast and make them look awesome, but most are average women or indeed men who are not taking the pole world by storm just yet but they are making amazing progress and getting stronger and fitter week by week. Everyone’s journey is different. Find your own style. Don’t try to be like someone else, not your teacher, not your classmates, not your pole idol. It’s fine to be inspired and influenced but there is only one you. Don’t push yourself too hard. Be kind to yourself. Appreciate different strengths and weaknesses and that you don’t have to excel at everything. Spins, floor work, inverting, climbing, spinny poles, combos, flexibility… there are so many disciplines. Be encouraging and supportive and you will be encouraged and supported. And if not, you are in the wrong training space 6. Find a good teacher Or rather, find the right teacher for you. You don’t have to stay at one studio out of loyalty. Maybe you want to work on slinky floor work but your school is more about conditioning or vice versa. If you feel that you could benefit from another teaching style, it’s OK to train somewhere else. There’s no reason you can’t go to two different schools and get the best of both worlds. Even if you train alone, you can still benefit hugely from masterclasses, workshops, pole jams, private lessons or the odd group class elsewhere. 7. Take photos. Taking photos is a great learning tool. It’s the easiest way to track progress, to see how your gemini now varies from your very first one, how much your flexibility has improved, or how much that old hair colour absolutely did not suit you. Photos are also a great communication tool – when you are upside down clinging on for dear life, your instructor’s cry of “leg down! leg down!” is likely to make less sense than those websites helping you with HTML. But with a photo in front of you, your teacher can point to the leg in question, and explain where she would like to see it instead. Ahhhh it makes sense now! Photos are also great when you want to revisit a move but can’t remember the name. “Can we do that one where you’re upside down and your leg is on the pole and the pole is here… or is it there… and the arm is up here somewhere and oh I can’t even remember it now…” A photo here saves everyone’s time and sanity. Plus, it’s always amusing to look at what people are doing in the background. Just don’t get distracted by text messages, Snapchat and Facebook.

8. Freestyle, and dance it out. There’s more to pole than just tricks and competitions. Freestyling is a thing, but it’s unlikely this will be taught at the average pole school, as it’s such a personal thing, and it feels weird to pay for classes but essentially be told to make it up as you go along. You can dance without learning what to do first , you can just let yourself move and flow and roll on the floor and spin and see what happens. Many, many advanced student never learned the art of freestyle, and can drop a fonji without breaking a sweat but freak out at the thought of a two minute freestyle, Add a movement flow practice at the end of every session and learn how your body moves. Do it in the dark if you feel self conscious, or even blindfolded. It will make a world of difference. 9. Don’t get into bad habits Don’t flex your feet. Don’t run and jump into inverts. If you do get to a level where you want to perform, compete, or even teach, it’s going to be really hard to break those habits. No one is saying you have to be perfect, and every invert must be deadlifted with perfect straight legs from day one (a pretty unreasonable expectation for most), but as soon as you are strong enough, get into the habit of doing moves to the best of your ability. It’s harder to do it that way because you are using more effort and muscle technique. So guess what – doing it that way all the time will give you a killer workout, washboard abs, thighs like Wonder Woman and buttocks you could crack walnuts with. Who doesn’t want that? 10 feel free to ignore all of this completely Let’s face it most people go pole for a fun fitness class. For most, getting to a competition level or even an advanced level of pole is not really a priority. If you just want to turn up once a week and have a great time having fun with a bunch of like minded individuals and at the same time get a bit fitter and stronger, that’s absolutely brilliant. Do not feel you need to embody those bullying “you just have to keep pushing yourself” memes. You only have to push yourself as far as you want and do what you want. So feel free to ignore all of this advice completely, and make pole your own personal Journey. But seriously. Train both sides.   BEXIITA ACKLAND

In It For The Likes – A Pole Evolution

  By bexackland@ntlworld.com • November 20, 2020

Social media is awesome isn’t it? All those pictures to inspire you, all the lovely people you have “met” online, all the advice and support from the pole community right there at you fingertips. It’s brilliant, right?

Until it isn’t.

Until the day you feel like crap, and it reminds you that everyone else is amazing and brilliant and perfect and doing so much better than you are.

This is absolutely nonsense, you know that. You know that for every perfect pole pic you see, there are 10, 20, 30 that didn’t make the cut. You know that no one posts a status about how crap they are feeling this week, and that training left them feeling defeated and deflated and that they may as well give up. Deep down we know it’s all an illusion, that nobody is perfect.

We know all this. We know it. But we all collude in it, we all post pictures ourselves that we know were just a good angle or we harassed our poor mate to take yet another video of that combo to try to get it better this time. Behind every upload is a deleted items folder the size of Everest.

Let’s face it, social media isn’t going anywhere. So let’s look at what we can we do to make it a positive experience.

But first, an evolutionary biology lesson. Bear with me while I don my white coat and sexy specs. Listen carefully, here comes the science bit.

Not actually me. Sorry.

When humankind first roamed the earth, we only ever came into contact with a very small amount of other humans. We couldn’t just get in cars or planes and traverse this great land of ours. It was basically walking, or getting as far as you could on a horse, donkey or other poor put-upon creature that could carry people and stuff.

We lived in small communities, either nomadic tribes or settled villages, of no more than a few hundred people over the course of a lifetime, tops. Imagine living in a small community now, like many of us actually do, but with no phones, no internet, no cars, no buses, no way to leave ever.

Those people you lived with, they were your whole life, and your survival depended on getting on with them. If you were accepted as part of the tribe, you got the protection and safety of the tribe. You got food and shelter when neither were easy to come by. If you were not accepted, you could find yourself at the bottom of the pecking order, with the scraps and rejection of your elders, or even kicked out of the tribe altogether. Getting people to like you was literally the difference between life and death.

When we look at it like this, we can understand that we are DESIGNED to care what others think of us, we have evolved to try to win the approval of others, a craving for admiration and approval is built into our DNA. So next time you get a warm feeling if you get a lot of Instagram likes, or get a buzz from being Bad Kitty Pic Of The Day, or screenshot the notification that your pole idol (your tribal leader) liked your photo (and I know we alllll do that, even pole idols themselves), that is NOT vanity, that is NOT embarrassing, that my pole friends is evolution at work. You have been accepted by your tribe and your safety in the tribe has been guaranteed for another day.

Because there has to be a picture of Wonder Woman in every blog

The problem is this: our lifestyles have now evolved to a point where we do not need the approval of the tribe any more, but our DNA has not caught up. We are connected to the entire world now, meaning our tribe is no longer 40 or 50 people whom we depend upon for survival, but instead an infinite number strangers who make no difference to our lives whatsoever. It really doesn’t matter if they like us or not.

Yet science and evolution and biology and stuff is an almighty thing, and often means we irrationally do care, and give these people the power to make us feel rubbish.

This isn’t the case for everyone, and some people genuinely don’t care (those people often like to tell everyone about how much they don’t care, very loudly, just so we all know, so they must care to a degree or they wouldn’t bother telling us I suppose)

Maybe those people are some sort of hyper evolved X Men types, but for most people, getting a bit of approval from their community feels good. It must do, otherwise why has social media made such a huge impact on our lives, and become an absolutely integral and immovable part of our landscape?

Maybe we just feel it more because the pole community is very much that – a community, and that taps directly into that part out genetic make up that seeks approval and seeks comparison.

300 likes for my hamster. Did you even see my Marion Amber????

So how can we apply this to our social media use? How can this knowledge help us feel good, and get all the good bits of social media and avoid the bad bits?

Let’s break it down:

We enjoy the approval because we are programmed to. So we don’t need to feel bad about that. It’s natural. It’s how we are made. Go ahead and like your likes.

Everyone is doing it. They are doing it because they are human too, and they want approval too, even if they are a superstar pole idol (perhaps even more so, no tribal leader wants to lose their prestigious secure position).

However we don’t need to seek approval anymore. Recognise those feelings of approval, but realise they are meaningless.

Don’t let anyone else’s success make you feel bad. They are just trying to assert their safety in the tribe. Another persons progress will not affect your position in the tribe, because that tribe does not exist any more. You are programmed by nature to feel threatened, but those times are gone.  Nature can sod off, basically.

The only tribe you need to impress are your ACTUAL tribe – the family and friends around you. You know, the ones you ignore while you mess about on your phone checking your Instagram likes. See? Evolution is great for Mark Zuckerberg’s business plan, but not for you. Recognise social media for what it is, but don’t let it make you feel bad anymore.

So go ahead and enjoy your social network community. Enjoy the pics and the inspiration and the likes and the comments and the funny videos of cats and get excited by the small things, then put the phone down and go and do something else (after you’ve read my blogs, liked it, commented on it, and shared it, obviously. I’m only human after all ?).

BEXIITA ACKLAND