Tag Archives: support

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

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