Pole update - Intermediate 2 weeks 1 and 2

At the end of term 1 in Intermediate 1 I was a little concerned about moving up to Inter 2 as I wasn't feeling as awesome at it as I'd like. Bloody Capricorn tendencies coming out. Now that I have started Intermediate 2 I feel fine - I'm not sure if I gained my mojo back or if it's more that some of the girls who would get every move right every.single.time straight away aren't in the class, but something is better.

via Pole for My Soul

We spent a lot of the first class doing moves like the one above. I was able to do it with no hands straight off, so was really happy with it. It's just a really nice looking move that is easy to do, rather than the hard ones that don't look hard. 

Week 2 was spent doing a lot of handstands. I can't find the pictures easily, but this is similar to what we were doing - lots of going into Batman and then sliding down into handstands and doing various leg things. I couldn't see my legs in the mirror so I don't know how they looked, but hopefully it was OK. 

Handstand variations

I went to the physio the day after as I'd hurt my back in a pole strength class two weeks before, and my physio asked me why I liked pole dancing. I thought about it for a while and said "Because it's like gymnastics for adults". Doing the handstands in class made me realise that my body can't really handle a lot of that any more (wrists can only take so much after all) so this is a brilliant replacement. 

We did however do some other moves in the strength class, such as: 

Sumo squats

Cross-legged L climb. 

BLOODY HARD! Basically you use your arms, with your thighs to anchor you before you pull yourself up again. I can get maybe 4 climbs in a row and that's it. 

We also did lots of planks, push ups, wall sits, arabesque leg lifts and pole squats. The other killer move apart from the cross-legged L climb where the core exercises. You'd stand to one side of the pole and pull yourself up like you were going to invert. Instead you'd do 10 crunches then swap sides. 5 sets on each side.  Ow. 

Sadly my back is still sore today, several days after the physio (sorer in fact than it was previously...) so I'm taking it pretty easy. Hopefully it will be fine for Wednesday's class. 

Here's some more prettiness to finish off this post :) 

via Pole for my Soul

Pole update week 7 and 8

Wow, I've been slack on the blogging front hey!

We did some pretty cool stuff at pole over the last couple of weeks. I missed one session because I was in Canberra for work, but came back to some awesome stuff. I think this first move is my favourite. I'm not entirely sure what it's called, and Pole Dance Dictionary calls it inside leg hang so I'll go with that. It's incredibly easy but looks really nice.



Inside leg hang

I can't really remember the other moves we did since we did some choreography for our end of term performance (which was rubbish! rubbish I tell you!) but it was fun.

And there ends my token blog post ;)

Pole update weeks 4 and 5

This weeks' pole class was fantastic, which was in start contrast to the week before. Week 4 we spent on the spin pole. Spin pole looks amazing - most of the performances you see are on spin pole - but it's very hard to do. It's a completely different set of muscles and thought processes, and there is centrifugal force to contend with. I walked our of the class feeling a bit shit. There was one move I just couldn't get, and I was not feeling at the top of my game.

Luckily, that changed this week. We learnt a bunch of new tricks and a lot of them were strength based, so I did pretty well.

Reverse chair - my favourite move, but you switch over so you're going in reverse.
Boomerang hold - we called it something lese. Pretty difficult to hold and killer on your upper thighs.
Backwards dizzy spin - we did pizza legs/wonder woman into backwards dizzy. Fun.
Hello boys! Our was slightly different - the plan is to open your legs wide (hence the name), so similar to boomerang hold above. Again, good upper thigh workout
Pizza legs/Wonder Woman

All images are from a nifty site, http://poledancedictionary.com/moves

In other news, I bought a chin up bar on Friday. Worth every cent of the princely $12 I paid. Looking forward to the gun show :-D

Pole Update - week 3

Last week's pole session was pretty good. We learnt a lot of new moves but I left feeling like I could have done them better and with more finesse. I'm still good at the strength moves but not so much at the pretty moves. Anyway, practice makes perfect right?

In order for me to remember some if the moves (and give me a wonderful excuse to google pole dancing), here are some of the moves we learnt:

Advanced layback













Side spiral



Inverted crucifix minus one leg



I've also realised that I am going to have to live with constant bruising. I saw this in Dakota Fox's Facebook page and swiped it. Have already bought some arnica ;)

Pole update - week 2

We had a really good class last week. After having the last class cancelled due to hot weather, it was cold and rainy and good to be inside. We started the warm up which includes lots of fan kicks, which I'm rubbish at. I asked the teacher Ally to go through it with me, and since the rest of the class were also a bit rubbish we all went through it. So I think I can confidently say I know how to do fan kicks. Hopefully. 

It was straight into climbing the pole three times right to the top and then down but not touching the bottom. It was more tiring than expected. But then we got to do my favourite part of the night - inverted crucifix! 

It's pretty cool holding on with only your legs, although getting down or out of the move isn't very attractive - a painstaking slide into an awkward handstand or just down to the ground.

We also had a go on a spin pole, which was pretty full on - definitely a different set of muscles and doing everything. Our instructor said that at some point this term we are going to have a lesson purely on the spin pole. I foresee lots of awesome and injuries in my future :)

We also did a bit of sexy dancing to pad out the lesson. I think our instructor must despair of us because I certainly wasn't looking sexy, and sadly my classmates weren't either. But we can totally learn that, right. Right?

Final pole class

This week was my final class in beginner's pole. Since I couldn't make it on Monday as I was in Sydney, they were able to fit me in on Tuesday, which was absolutely fantastic. 

The first thing I noticed about the girls in the new class is that they were good. We had to climb three times and then invert, which they all did easily. Compared to my class where it was only me and another girl (who was on her third round of Beginners and is also doing Intermediate) that could invert, it was really inspiring and made me want to lift my game! 

We had to do a performance for the other group and vice versa, so we learned a routine based on most of what we'd learnt over the past 8 weeks. I always forget what comes next in things like dances, tai chi or karate (which is why I no longer do them), so this was an interesting challenge. For the most part it was fine -  I did better than expected, although I did forget a step which meant that Fan Legs didn't work. And because a lot of it was on the floor my knees are still bruised, several days later. But all in all, it was fun! 

Someone took a photo and put it on FB, so you can see what it was like! 

I'm in the green shorts

We did our routine in front of the girls doing Fan Dance 2, so we had an audience. It was pretty good when they'd cheer at an awesome move, particulalry when we all slid down in Fireman's pose at the same time. We then watched the them do their routine, and it was great to see. It really is quite body affirming as there are all these women of different shapes, fitness and colours doing their thing wearing not a lot. It takes balls to do it, so well done to them!

Unfortunately both Beginners and Intermediate 1 are booked out for term 5, but I might be able to do a casual pole strength class. I'm interested to see what that is like. I'm hoping it will be a heap of conditioning and stretching exercises and will fill the void until next year. Fingers crossed!

Pole dancing

Unfortunately, this was my last class in pole dancing tonight. And due to a last minute (yet awesome) work trip I couldn't make it!

My friend K and I had been deliberating whether or not we'd do another class. I was keen to, but she wasn't sure. If we weren't going to do it I had plans to follow my physio's instructions and do Pilates instead.

In the last session I was the only one who was able to do the basics for Spiderman ( I still don't think that's it's real name). Basically it's where you jump upside down on the pole, wrap your legs around it and then slide down to the bottom. Next class would have been removing my hands so it was just being held up by my legs, but unfortunately I wasn't in class today. Boo!

It looks a little something like this, minus the arms holding on. And in this photo doesn't look nearly as awesome as it is:

I realised after spending a tram trip to work thinking about how I could do a vertical splits move up the pole and what grip I'd need my hands to be in for maximum effect, that I should probably do another class. Luckily, my friend decided she wanted to continue so we've reenrolled in Basics again. I could probably do Intermediate, but it will be good to perfect some of the moves and keep on practicing them.

After looking at a lot of the Sillygirrl archives where she had been trying to get stronger and more flexible, it inspired me to do the same. So now I am pledging to do the splits by the end of the year (which I haven't done in about 12 years), and open up my hips so my middle splits are more splitty (which they're so not at the moment).

I'm really looking forward to it. It's nice to have something where being strong and flexible is a requirement. rather than just a nice to have tacked on the end. I'm really looking forward to getting bendy flexy again. To goals!

Pole progress

It's been ages since I last posted! Things have been good but crazy. Fitness-wise, not a lot has been happening. Injury (shin splints/tight calf and bad neck/back) has meant that I've been out of action for a while.

Pretty much the only thing that I've been doing is pole dancing. Which is pretty awesome.


We've been doing a lot of climbing lately, and this is one of my favourite tricks/positions: The Seat

It takes a bit of strength to clutch the pole with your thighs, and it hurts a fair bit, particularly on your foot as you've used it to climb and it's now gripping the pole. Both of my feet have massive bruises from the climbing! 

Last night was a mixed bag in terms of performance. We learnt some new spins which just didn't really work, and even practising some older ones just wasn't working, so it was all a little hard. And then we did a final trick which involved going upside down. It was the basis of an intermediate trick, and I was the only one to do it, so that was kind of awesome. I thought it was called spider legs, but trying to Google search that got me some weird responses :-/ 

It it pretty much this one, which is the start of the Eagle. 

We have a couple of weeks left of the class and I'm weighing up what to do from here. I think it's hurting my neck and shoulders so it may not be a long term thing. But it's really fun, and I'm enjoying doing something different that incorporates both strength and flexibility (I don't really have the sexy/coordinated aspect so am not going to focus on that!). We could do the Beginner course again to perfect everything, which many people do, or move onto Intermediate which I'm technically good enough to do but not as good as I'd like to be. 

Decisions, decisions! 

Pole Dancing

On Monday, I had my first Beginner's pole class. After doing pole dancing at my Hen's night earlier this year, a friend and I decided that we wanted to take a class. After some issues with timing, we finally got around to booking it and Monday was the first session.

We got there pretty early, not really knowing what to expect. After waiting around for  a while some other students came in, mostly for pole but one lone person for burlesque (that would have made it an slightly awkward class I'd imagine!).

Our group had a mix of people - my friend K and I, some uni students, some women who were back for another semester of beginner to try to improve, one who was on a dare, and another who was a roller derby chick who can't skate anymore so thought this would be low impact. There were a range of body shapes from thin to large and everything in between.

Our teacher Jacqui is pretty cool. She looks like an aging stripper and is awesome. I like her a lot. Her pole is named David (as in Beckham).

Our teacher Jacqui

On to the tricks! We learnt how to to do Round About (which is basically walking around the pole in a very sexy way), and Carousel, which is spinning down the pole. It's easier to do if you don't have a cut in the middle of your hand that opens every time you spin.

It wasn't as hard as I thought, and we didn't end up doing as many things as we did at the Hen's night. Class was only an hour though, which wasn't long enough. I'd like 1.5 hours - an hour for stretching/conditioning and an hour for practice. It's also important to do the moves correctly, as it ends up being a sequence.

All in all, it was fun. I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks when we'll be climbing up the pole and doing awesome stuff. I only ended up with one bruise on my foot, but am anticipating a whole lot more in the next 7 weeks!