“Like a ship without an anchor, like a slave with out a chain…” ~ ST
I have been without a home for over two months now. The studio location I taught at for five years closed its doors at the end of October. I knew it was going to close almost from the day it opened but I wanted to stick it out anyway. I loved teaching classes and was learning so much at the same time. Right before it closed I thought I was ready. I thought I would finally get the time off I needed and after that I would start to improve my own pole skills by leaps and bounds because I didn’t spend my time training anyone else. It turned out I really didn’t need a month off of the pole to rehab my shoulder like I thought I would so I never took it. I just got right to the business of training myself. It’s amazing to realize that though I am making great improvements I am not making them 3 times a week. I have not been able to manage more than two a week. Usually I train anywhere from an hour to hour and a half each time. I know there are people who train way more than that but I suspect they are about a decade younger than I. (And if not, find me on facebook and tell me how you at my age are able to recover from the intense training so quickly.) Still that means I’m only getting exercise twice a week. Time to start cross training and stretching more.
One very important aspect to training is video taping. Especially if you have no studio in your area but are still learning pole through online lessons or just self taught through YouTube, video taping could be the only feedback you receive on your form and technique. I video tape every single session now. If you have no studio or other way to get feedback you can still be your own trainer by watching yourself and seeing where you need to make improvements. In the next segment I will write more about video taping to make sure to get every practice session
In the middle off all of this change more change comes about. I have moved 950 miles (1530 km) away from where I lived the majority of my life. Now I have 9ft of pole to work with right in my living room and plenty of space to tape, too. Unfortunately, it is not safe enough to give private lessons in. It is barely safe enough for me to pole in, but for my own well-developed kinesthetic sense, I have a counter top or a sofa to worry about kicking not to mention the ceiling fan I had no choice but to mount the pole next to. So though I am keeping up with my own skills to keep up my sanity, I have yet to find a home to teach in and definitely miss teaching people the art I love so much. Until the day I do find a new studio or create my own I intend to pole as often as possible and tape every session to get the most out of each workout.
I still know people who do not have access to a video camera. I do not endorse any one brand of camera but feel it is important to use any means you can to record your practice sessions. In part II I will reveal all the things I never knew before I taped myself. If I make it to part III we’ll get into cross training.
Thanks for reading, please feel free to leave comments.
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