solya-- work on the elbow grip caterpillar climb before you do an elbow grip ayesha. you'll learn the proper way to get into it and build comfort with the grip itself with your legs still on the pole. you should push up like a caterpillar and get your elbow grip up as high as you can, right below your knees. with the elbow grip ayesha it's actually teh most stable when your torso is as far from the pole as possible and your bottom bracket arm continues the angle of your body (transferring all your weight straight into the pole).
just thought i'd add a little more to this since i was in a workshop with pantera today ( 🥂 🥂 ) and she gave some great pointers. my elbow-grip aysha is very mcuh a work in progress and i thought a lot of this could be informative, her explanations were really concise and helpful even to realize basic things i was doing wrong. sorry in advance for such a long post!
-make sure that when you push up in caterpillar, you are using mostly legs and NOT arms. it's like when you are on all fours and you sit back into child's pose (http://yogame.com/media/childs.jpg onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)-- the energy should be coming from your quads and butt... save your arms for the tough stuff you are going to be doing later! (i realized that i do this the other day when a friend was asking me to explain how i do a caterpillar one-handed).
-a great exercise is just to caterpillar a bunch of times in a row, making sure your knees are totally not moving and your grip is solid, and you aren't sliding down the pole. concentrate on touching your butt with your heels-- get THAT far up when you caterpillar. or at least aim for it. after a certain point in the caterpillar up you will realize it is ALL legs to get your butt that far up because your arms literally can't push you up any higher.
-if you aren't confident and need someone to spot you (this is for you at-home polers who have someone around that can help with this), the way to do it is to have them stand behind you (facing your butt). caterpillar up and then have them put their hands on the sides of your waist to cup your hip bones from underneath. those are like handles! haha. then as you release your legs from the pole, have them take as much of your weight as you need them to while you find your center in a tuck position-- don't extend your legs yet. when you are cetnered and balanced, THEN extend your legs. have them gradually give your weight back by supporting a little less at a time and make sure they let you know how much weight to expect.
-when you are in aysha, make sure that you have a slightly rounded back (this is called hollow body in aerial arts: pantera didn't refer to it this way but this is a description-- http://www.ehow.com/how_2210492_do-hollow-body-hold-gymnast.html onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and a pic is here: http://www.americanparkour.com/images/articles/2005/Hollowrock/hollowrock1.jpg onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). dont stick your butt or chest out. this also allows your body weight to stack smoothly through your body/spine and transfer straight into your arm. i am used to sticking my butt out, since i started with the forearm grip aysha and in that one, you stick your butt out to counterbalance your legs and get your crotch away from the pole.
-finally, something else i realized today, is if you really want to get your body far from the pole, then your elbow isn't actually directly in front of you, it's off to your side! this may be a no-brainer but i dont know why i had such a mental block about figuring this out. like this: http://ipole.tvhttps://pub-a085b59791bc4c1a94b0a223a67a37d6.r2.dev/wp-uploads/2009/01/aysha-with-elbow-grip-advanced.jpg onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
