Well, first, I would ask: What is your flooring, and are you dancing in shoes, or barefoot? All of these things come into play, I find, when I'm dancing!
And, as for gaining more control... for me, it came with a lot of practice. At first, I would get all tangled up because I couldn't figure out which way to turn, and then someone told me the "smell your armpit" trick, and it made a little more sense.
Going slow is usually better than falling over, but I'll tell you... I fall over sometimes, regardless as to whether I'm going slowly or not! I always manage to catch myself, but occasionally something will go wrong, as it inevitably does when you do something so often.
Try to allow your toes to turn on the floor, stay up on the balls of your feet, and keep at least one hand on the pole. Those are generally my tricks. If you're trying to do it with one leg up, then you definitely have to be able to turn on the balls of your feet!
Also, try to pick a "landing point," because that helps me for hand placement a lot. If I'm going for a pirouette so that my back lands on the pole and I can lean on it, then I often catch the pole with my other hand behind my back, sort of like a reverse grab. If I'm doing a full turn straight into walking, I try to grip the pole in my regular grip as soon as possible- in case I lose balance, it won't really look like it, because I can hang on to the pole!
