comandd146178 started this discussion ·
What does it mean if I cant do a pole hold. In the lesson, it involved pole holds. I cant do a pole hold. Or maybe dont know how to use the right muscles to do a pole hold. Any advice?
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Veena ·
Which lesson, and have you started using the lessons from the beginning, going in order? Depending on the lesson I give you an alternative like squeezing the pole between the knees or letting yourself slid to the floor in hold.
It took me a while to get this one ! It's definitely important that your body and pole is warmed up before attempting almost anything as this helps with sticking to the pole. (: It takes a lot of upper body strength to hold yourself steady, I still can't do it as smoothly as Veena can!! As far as executing the hold, I like to make my belly touch the pole before lifting the legs and it helped me to get over the fear I had of bringing my legs up and relying on my arms to hold my body weight. You just have to try your best to keep your upper arms strong and engaged, and try your best not to extend them. What helped me with the actual hand hold is to use some grip aid, my favorite is called Prince, it's really for tennis but it works great to prevent your hands from sweating and slipping. http://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/prince-3-2-oz-grip-enhancer-plus/pid-751407?N=935653668&Ntt=prince+grip&Ntk=All What I love is that you can find it at your local academy for 7.99 and you don't have to pay for shipping or anything. (:
@DestinyCorrine I have pole grip gloves that I use sometimes. I try to do it without the gloves to get the feel. But these are football grip gloves. When I was doing the pole hold, I kept my belly away from the pole. I though that was the proper position. I did extend my arms a few times. Thanks I will try next time. I will keep going thank you DestinyCorrine.
@StudioVeena, I did the day 3 lesson on the 30 day lessons. I am following them step by step and I don't skip around. The pole hold that you are talking about I did not see the one the way you described. Im still on the thirty day take off. Was I supposed to be doing something different? Am I doing something wrong?
Veena ·
Take a look at the lesson again for the pole hold, you'll see belly is against the pole as mentioned :) changing that should help. However the pole hold isn't easy and can take a while for people to achieve :)
If I am a beginning beginner, do I start out with the 30 day take off or do I just work on the basic warm ups then the pole strength exercises?
Veena ·
No you can do the 30 days!! It's for all levels and the goal is to build strength. So that's why the pole hold is in there :). Here is another lesson on the pole hold https://www.studioveena.com/lessons/view/18f06154-b91f-11df-856f-001b214581be
Uggghhh. Pole hold is still difficult for me, but it is getting MUCH better. I started poling 3 months ago. Could not do a pole hold for nothing!!! I kept on doing Veena's pole strengthening routine and I am amazed at how much stronger I have become. that routine is a god-send. if you are doing the 30day take off, just stick with that. You will get stronger without hurting yourself. Hang in there, Literally.
Here is the thing about the pole hold. If you're a beginner, it seems really hard, so hard that it seems impossible. In that way it is very similar to a chin-up or pull-up. Back when I couldn't do any pull-ups, the idea of doing even one seemed impossible. Over a long period of time, I built up the necessary strength to do one (!) pull-up, and it was life changing. After that, it didn't take long at all before I could do two. Or even three. The progression to multiples was easier than the long slow journey to one. There is a huge range of fitness levels between zero and one. If you are closer to zero than one, then "one" will take longer than someone who starts out closer to one. When I first started poling, I took classes that didn't focus very hard on drilling the real "basics" like the pole hold. These classes were great for my self esteem but ended up being bad for my body. With my existing strength I was able to get pretty far into climbing, inverts, etc. but using bad body mechanics to do so. I wasn't engaging my shoulders properly, I was using the wrong muscles to "force" the move instead of building the right ones. I'm very lucky I didn't get injured. Now when I started working on more advanced pole tricks I realized I couldn't fumble my way through with strength alone, and I needed to go back to basics. It was humbling, but necessary. If you can start out doing things right, you won't have to go back later. I know the pole hold seems impossible, but do it the way Veena teaches it, even if it takes you months to get there. Your body will thank you when it has the right muscles to use for the harder stuff, and you will have the right muscle memory for the harder stuff!
