[Cinara]

Hey there! I couldn't get the link to work, but I'm fairly sure I know the move. It's so cool! I'm too tired to actually try it now (my attemps are sketchy at the best of times) but I tried with my feet on the ground and it seemed like it was too much pressure on my top wrist when I tried to turn my back to the pole 🙁 I would be very happy to be corrected though!

If it helps, I've found it much easier to get into it from a CAR and a Bow and Arrow. As for the twisted grip to split grip version, I find it helps me to think of it like going into a brass monkey. I usually even hook my knee onto the pole for balance while I transition. (Balance seems to be a big deal!)

I hope that helps, and I really hope I'm wrong about the split grip because I always like more options.

[Cinara]

My hip took a long time to get better so the physio referred me to a sports doctor because of suspected torn cartilege. Luckily one MRI later it was determined that my cartilege is fine (no surgery whoo!) but I had inflamed psoas tendons. Luckily by this time my hip was almost better so I didn't worry about further physio. The Dr advised me that training on my injured hip would delay healing and cause it to hurt more, but wouldn't do more serious damage. So given my "walk it off"/ "you're always saying you hurt something…" youth I just kept training.

My hip was pain free for awhile although the clicking never went away. I was training harder than ever (4-5 hours of pole a week plus 45 minute walk and 30 minutes of flexibiity every day) with no problems, and even managed to get my right leg split.

Since things were so good I decided to try again with a splits and flexibility class, which is what originally caused the problem. I promised myself I wouldn't push myself as hard, and with my depression improving I knew I probably wouldn't be calling myself a bitch and punishing myself with the stretching quite so much

Unfortunately my hip started hurting again after a few weeks of splits and flex. I'm not sure what the exact trigger is: whether it's the partner resistance stretching, the dynamic stetching, too much work on box splits or just getting too competitive and pushing myself too hard. The main thing is I know I can improve my flexibility without formal flex classes so hopefully avoiding them will keep my hip happy. I'll just have to accept that building flex will take me a lot of time, and my extreme childhood flexibility is gone.

I'm probably going to try going back to the physio again. I'm not sure how much it's been helping, but I know that they're evidence-based and will not cause harm. As an anecdotal caution, both my husband and I have been to (separate) chiropractors who have failed to diagnose (or even send off to x-ray) our respective spinal fractures and then just went ahead with spinal adjustment! So personally, I would recommend going with conventional evidence-based treatment first, to rule out medical diagnoses, and if for some reason doctors and physios aren't enough on their own, try alternative medicine (chiro, accupuncture, etc) second.

[Cinara]

I've finally got the allegra! I just needed to practice a few more scorpios with good technique to build up pain tolerance for my leg and side. Also I had to grab my other foot before I even thought about lowering my body (due to my mediocre hip flexor and back flexibility). I have to do the same thing for a closed rainbow, which is where I got the idea.

I haven't had the problem of my hand slipping, though I find I'm holding on with my fingertips, so not the best grip. I just reread Amy's suggestion of using a cup grip and I might try that.  Otherwise, the main thing that helped my allegra was spending a lot of time on perfecting my scorpio, flatline scorpio and jade. It really helped me get good side grip, hip turnout, and the balance to rearrange my hand and thigh grip easily. Once I worked them for about six weeks I could suddenly do an allegra (though it's still clumsy getting into position).

[Cinara]

Hey there! I go to three studios, plus StudioVeena so you're not alone. They all know about each other and seem fine with it.

I'm not really comfortable with the concept of loyalty when it comes to studios. This is based partly on my experiences in high level sport. I have serious concerns with the traditional "guru" system of training, where you have a close relationship with one trainer/group who acts as an authority figure and is just as invested in your sucess as you are. The way I see it, I'm an adult, and only I should be responsible for my sucesses and for how my pole journey takes shape. The studios I go to are tools to help me in my journey and keep me connected with others and I reciprocate by paying for classes. But at the end of the day I like that they're only interested in my money and my positive attitude, not when, where or how I train, what moves I learn, or whether I compete. (Not saying other studios are like this, just that in my head I associate this attitude with loyalty to a studio).

I figure as long as I pay what I owe, respect each studio's intellectual property (routines, etc), and don't badmouth one studio to another, I'm okay. I try to be friendly with everyone and stay neutral to any points of contention. I think if you're honest, ethical and friendly it shouldn't be a problem. Any studio that has a problem with me training elsewhere probably doesn't have the right sort of perspective for me anyway. I guess I'm just lucky three studios in my city are compatible 🙂

[Cinara]

Oh, in case it wasn't clear, I wouldn't ever suggest deliberately falling to practice falling! Just practicing safe exits – for instance I was never taught the basic exit out of a gemini – just to go into crucifix! And things like learning aysha make sure that at all times you're in a position to clamp your legs back onto the pole, and know to do that. (Personally I was happy to just flip right over into a crouch if I lost my balance, but it would be crazy irresponsible to suggest that as the ideal exit to other people!) And practicing inching down the polw one limb at a time is good practice for if you ever get tangled

[Cinara]

I'm not an instructor, but I would consider myself an expert in falling :p Here are the things that I do to avoid injury when something goes wrong:

1. The obvious one is cushions around the pole when learning new tricks, of course

2. Cling to the pole with whatever you can! It will either stop your fall, and buy you some time to figure out how to untangle yourself and get down, or at minimum slow you down enough to reduce the impact. A fall flat onto your back could be a disaster from 5 feet in the air, but from 1 foot, it's just kind of embarrassing (that was me in class last week after my stupid sweaty hand slipped off the pole in an aysha).

3. Never let go with your hands! If a hand is on the pole it's just about impossible to land head first. In tricks where you're meant to let go of your hands, make sure you know how to regrasp the pole with them if needed.

4. Before you try a new trick, think about the "escape routes": how you might fall and how to prevent it. For example, in a gemini you might lose leg grip, so practice taking your hands off and then putting them back on and lifting your chest and head up a little. Practice this a few times so if you do slip it's automatic to regrasp the pole with your hands.

5. Practice emergency escapes. Work on going from any inverted trick back to a basic invert (with hands on the pole), or any upright skill to a pole climb position. You could also try inching down the pole one limb as a time from a basic invert – this came in handy once when I got all tangled up on a spinny pole going way too fast!

6. Tuck your head down towards your chest. If you are going to end up head first, this is the best way to minimise damage. That's not to say you wouldn't be hurt at all (I once landed head first on a trampoline from great height. I pulled several muscles in my neck and got a badly bruised sternum, but if I didn't tuck my head in it could have been a broken neck!) 

7. Never land on an outstretched hand (I broke my arm as a kid doing this. Never again.) If you're falling to the side land on your side with your bottom arm straight and palm down just in front of your thigh (if that makes sense).

8. Of course, all of this is kind of hard to actually do once you're falling! Just practice what you would do in a fall, and try to stay calm (if that's even possible). And be safe to prevent falls too!

So that's what I've learned from experience. I'm sure some instructors on here would have plenty of useful stuff to add, or maybe even disagree with me!

[Cinara]

For the first one, maybe the sad girl drop? I'm not sure whether that's only drama queen to drama queen, or whether the crucifix to drama queen version is also called a sad girl. The hints I've heard for this one are to move the back leg back, not just out, and that you don't need to drop very much to make it look good, because you're going from upright to a little ball anyway.

As for the jade drop, I've managed to drop down in little 1ft increments before. There was another thread on it here and someone said that Jenyne had told them that it's "all in the arm". That was how I managed to drop a little bit.

So when I first learnt a jade, I didn't actually have any armpit grip, only leg and side (I almost never use armpit grip). What I had to do was tilt my split backwards a bit (leg you're holding onto closer to the floor) so that I did have armpit grip. Then you just release the armpit grip and the leg grip together. At first I found that I would tilt forward instead of just drop, so I had to almost try to tilt backwards (head first!) to drop down level. I also had to make the split a bit less flat, but I'm not sure if that's just a rookie thing.

I hope that helps. I tend to learn by just trying stuff and seeing how it feels rather than breaking it down so I'm not always the best explainer 🙂

[Cinara]

Wow, what an awful man! I'm so sorry to hear about that. It sounds like you are doing everything that is reasonable to make sure your business isn't a problem. What might be a good idea is to document all the accomodations you've made: scheduling noisy events during off-peak times, having students wait at reception, etc. Also everything that happened with that man, just so the business manager knows what's going on and that he's the difficult one, not you. Do it in a "just so you know" way, nothing defensive or complaining (feel free to write the complainy version first and then revise!)

Maybe you could also get some sort of screen or petition and block off a corner of the studio to make a change room? That would cut down on the amount of traipsing up and down the corridor, so there would be nothing at all to complain about.

I'm not sure how likely you are to change this man's mind about his prejudices, if that's what's happening. But if you keep being the reasonable one, he'll have noone on his side and he'll have to keep quiet at least. 🙂

[Cinara]

Sure! Assuming we mean the same thing by a cradle (aka a Jamilla), it's not too complex. Your hands are already in the split grip position, so all you have to do is unhook your inside leg. It takes a bit of strength and balance, though so that's probably the main challenge.

[Cinara]

I like to go into a regular scorpio, but this combo might be too low for that. You could also try going back into a cradle and down – that would make it like a palindrome combo!

[Cinara]

On the positive side: the fact that your name is in bigger letters than any of the questions in their FAQ gives the impression that you are one of the most important and influential pole teachers in the pole community! If I were a new poler I'd be like, "Wow, that Jessica must be a really famous pole-dancer to be mentioned right at the top of the FAQ. I wonder why those guys don't like her?" And then I'd look you up, and see that you didn't say anything bad about them on your site, and no-one else said anything bad about you and go, "Wow, she's so famous she has hype backlash! I wonder if I can get into her course?"

[Cinara]

Ouchies! The jade took me ages to do too! And if it helps, it's taught in the same level as air shoulder mounts, the superpain and cartwheel mounts at my studio, so certainly not remedial!

 The way I got it was to go from gemini, but before you take your hands off the pole for the gemini, use your arms to lift your body up slightly and make sure the pole is running along the squidgy bit of your waist below your ribs (you'll need side grip, so no long tops). Hopefully the quick rearrangement of your side grip in the gemini will keep the pole off your ribs! The other thing that helped me was to make sure I pulled my leg across your body diagonally to get the lock. 

[Cinara]

Welcome and congrats on your first comp! Personally, I prefer to do choreographed than freestyle routines, but it depends on the person. If you have a dance background, or freestyle regularly freestyle is probably easy. I don't have either so I sometimes find that I get stuck and don't know what to do.

The other thing you can do is a semi-choreographed routine. Plan beforehand what tricks you want to do, and roughly when you want to them. Then freestyle it and film. You'll probably find bits you really like and then you can keep them in the routine. You'll find you slowly start choreographing from there. Plan moments of hip rolls, body rolls and the like that you can be flexible with on the timing so you have something to do if you're ahead or behind, or just forget what to do.

It really depends on what works for you though. I have a gymnastics background so I make pole routines as though they're floor routines. A bit of dance, three separate combos of tricks in place of tumble runs, a floorwork sequence, a pirouette and spins in place of the leap series and acro-gym-acro combination. So you'll probably find what works for you. For now just have a bit of a play around and you'll figure it all out.

Good luck!

[Cinara]

Other alternatives would be a physio or sports doctor. I add them because I once had a chiro fail to diagnose a fracture in my back and just try to "click" it into place right over the fracture site (!) And he was the official chiropractor for the Olympics too! That said, chiro works great for my Nanna, so I'm sure they're not all bad.

It's probably a good idea to get someone to have a look at it to make sure there's nothing serious and make sure practice won't make it worse. Otherwise, there's RICE – rest, ice, compression, elevation (only the first two are easy on a shoulder) for the first 24 or 48 hours (google will help with the correct amount of time) and then massage and heat after I think it's 48 hours.

Hope it's feeling better soon!

[Cinara]

I've been there before, and I wonder if you're experiencing the same thing I did. I had a look at your profile pics and you have learnt an impressive amount of stuff very quickly and with some nice lines too! That, plus how you mentioned you enjoy learning new tricks makes me wonder if you're very achievement-oriented like me?

What I found was happening was that I started being too hard on myself and getting very focussed on learning new tricks, and progressing. I'm naturally quite self-critical and I started comparing myself to other, better polers and getting frustrated that I wasn't as good as them. I suspect this all had a lot to do with frustrations in my non-pole life as well.

What I did is make a very strict rule for one practice that I was going only do stuff that was fun. No goal setting, no "shoulds", no strength practice, no drilling weaker skills to improve them, no trying stuff that I feel I should be able to do but just can't get (helloooo knee hold). Just doing whatever tricks I felt like doing and doing goofy dancing to the music.

If you do this kind of practice every day you won't improve as quickly as with more disciplined training. But, it will keep you from quitting. You might find you don't care about more disciplined training and just want to have fun every session. Or, it might reconnect you with you love of pole, so that then you can start setting goals and being more disciplined again without being so hard on yourself.

The other thing you can do is just change up the kind of training you're doing. So if you've been learning tricks, switch to learning how to freestyle. If you've been inverting a lot, switch to learning booty-popping or getting flatter splits. Or something like that.

Hope that helps 🙂

[Cinara]

Yeah, the "marion amber" is crazy right? I couldn't even get as close as you so well done!

 I also learnt an important lesson: If you are going to try a new trick on Pole Dance Dictionary, pay attention to how to get out of it, not just how to get into it! I tried a "dangerous bird" and got into it fairly easily, and apparently it looked quite nice… but then I realised I was stuck! Plus for some bizarre reason I was trying it up the pole instead of near the ground.

I eventually got out of it by kind of flicking my free leg and jumping down into a ninja crouch (or a clumsy facsimile thereof). So yeah, really should have planned that better :p

[Cinara]

Is it the thing Jenyne does at 3:20 in this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvqGI56e-9c&feature=PlayList&p=651F146EFC0CF2C2&index=3

[Cinara]

The reverse grab spin took me a few months to figure out and I used to have the exact same problem. I first started trying at about the stage you're at now. I'm not sure if the reason I finally got it was just more experience or being taught by someone different with different technique (in my experience it's not uncommon to get a new skill simply by having it taught to you in a second way.) What I changed was to step out away from the pole on my last step on my outside leg, rather than just stepping forward like I would for other spins.

I've never come close to getting into a flying ballerina from the pretzel spin (in fact I only just figured out a pretzel spin), but you can also get into it from an upright crucifix position. It takes a lot of flexibility in some sort of weird direction I don't entirely understand and it's a bit bruisy, but worth giving a go for the prettiness.

Here's a video of me getting into it: 

https://www.studioveena.com/videos/view/4dac4e91-0264-4e67-9c08-1ee20ac37250

And here'sone from Blueeyes that I favourited to learn it myself. (Blueeyes, I hope you don't mind me posting this, but it's been so helpful for me https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif&nbsp😉

https://www.studioveena.com/videos/view/eae66438-bb68-11df-856f-001b214581be

Of course the way pole terminology goes, you could have meant something entirely different, and this is all useless to you but oh well…

 

[Cinara]

Sorry to get so heated, and sorry to Kaygee for the highjack. This is my last post on this, I promise.

But this site gets so demoralising at times. I look at everything I've achieved, and it's the only area of my life where I have any sort of confidence in myself, and then I get onto this website and people like to tell me everything I do is cheating. (And all the artistic gymnasts in the world are also cheating apparently).

This is usually such an awesome, positive, supportive site, but the tendency some more advanced dancers have to tell everyone else that they shouldn't be progressing so fast, they're not good enough to try whatever yet, or their achievements don't really count is actually really depressing. (I mean if there's a safety concern state it by all means, but don't come down from on high and tell people what they can and can't do). It just shakes people's confidence.

A nasty thought sneaks into my head that in a small sport such as pole dancing there is an incentive to keep newbie dancers from improving: one day they might be better or know more than you. (General you and general they).

[Cinara]

For most people, yeah, there's no harm in putting them off. And as I said in my last post, unless you are just sliding down and frustrated, there's no point using one at that point.

But, for some people, they know that no matter how much strength work they do, how much they try to grip onto the pole, how good they are with everything else: leg grip, balance, arm and abdominal strength, flexibility, aerial awareness, all they hear is "sorry, you can't participate in pole dancing because for some reason people have decided that this is the ONE THING that matters".

You know what happens when you arbitrarily decide to ban grip aids for newbies? People with sweaty hands quit. They just quit. How are you supposed to builld your grip strength, when you can't even grip to build your grip strength? I mean, sure there's gyro balls, and tennis balls, but come on, if you (general) were forced to sit around with a tennis ball and watch everyone else progress and just KNOW you could join them if only you could put a bit of antiperspirant on your hands, would you really feel like continuing?

Here's the thing: I don't go to threads about people with motion sickness and say " oh you shouldn't be learning any inverts while you get dizzy. Because if you're having trouble with the movement of the spinning pole you clearly haven't developed the right sort of balance and aerial awareness to be up on the pole. And you're a CHEATER CHEATER CHEATER and you can never progress and never get better and you have to just sit there clinging to a spinny pole because obviously everyone is exactly the same and if you don't have the same tolerance as me you obviously aren't good enough to be a pole dancer.

The next person who implies I'm cheating gets my un-grip-aided hands wiped on them :p

[Cinara]

Solsticedark, it's funny: I feel the same way about spotting that you do about grip aids! I would never ever use a spotter. Yet, plenty of people believe in spotting new moves and if it works for them, cool.

Just for the fun of debate:

I guess the thing for me is, I have sweaty hands (and shins, shoulders, sides and legs in anything but mid-winter). Without antiperspirant grip aids the pole actually feels (and sometimes looks) wet (gross I know). So I would say that me not having grip aids is like someone without such sweaty hands gripping a wet pole. If you can't do a move on a wet pole (or hey, even a greased pole) does that mean you can't do it?

I guess it becomes a question of where you draw the line: At what degree of friction could you say someone can truly do a move? And if we were to somehow measure the friction between someone's hand and the pole, would all people and poles be equal? Does one person using iTac 4 equal one person's Tite Grip, equal one person's nothng at all? 

And there's the fact that weightlifters and gymnasts use grip aids and gloves/grips. And golfers, tennis players, plenty of other sports are fine with it too. From an aesthetic standpoint gloves might not go with some forms of poledancing (although pole-fitness focussed stuff suits them), but other than that, why is pole any different from any other physical activity that relies on grip? (Just being rhetorical).

No grip aid is so good that it would "glue" you to the pole (that I know of!). I personally don't use anything with tack in it (except shaving gel on my legs on cold dry winter days) because I sweat through it and it makes the pole even more slick. But I don't think compensating for my sweaty hands by applying Tite Grip before a routine is in any way cheating. 

Just debating for fun 🙂

[Cinara]

Please note this is just my personal opinion. How soon you might need grip aids is very individual. The way to tell if you need them is if you're holding the pole as tightly as possble, but sliding down. If it's your grip loosening over time (as in, you can hold onto the pole for a second, but then slip), or you can feel your grip getting looser or your fingers peeling off the pole one by one, then it's a strength or endurance issue, and a grip aid won't help. (Same thing applies to leg grip). If you are having none of these problems, you probably don't need a grip aid yet. I'm sure there are some people out there who never use grip aids at all.

If the first problem is happening for you (grip stays tight, but you'restill sliding) that could either be due to your skin (too sweaty or too dry) or not enough grip strength or most likely, both. In my opinion both problems can be improved by grip aids. Some people say not to use grip aids early on or else you'll become reliant on them and not build grip strength. On the other hand (pun not intended), if, like me, you're sliding so much you can't even do anything on the pole, you are not going to be on the pole long enough to build grip strength in the first place. If it wasn't for my Tite Grip, I would never have built my grip strength at all.

The other things to think about with becoming dependent on grip aids are whether you're willing to pay for them (although I'm not sure how expensive they are outside of my ridiculously expensive city) and also how often you need to refresh them. If all you want to do is learn some tricks in the comfort of your own home, it's probably not a big deal to be wiping your hands and applying a grip aid in between each move. If you want to do full routines, you need to be able to pole for at least five minutes without replenishing (ideally you should be able to last for longer than your routine, so getting through the routine is a cinch).

As for the inverted V, I learnt it at my seventh ever pole lesson, and it didn't cause me any injuries. (Learning a cradle spin too early did though, so beware).However, learning an inverted V so soon meant I learnt with poor technique that I'm still trying to unlearn. On the other hand, maybe you're an olympic gymnast/amazon goddess and it's easy for you. This is all assuming that we're all thinking of the same inverted V.

[Cinara]

From what I understand, almost all your weight should be taken by your top hand. The bottom hand is only there  to hold your body in position or away from the pole. If you're straining your elbow it could be because your top arm isn't able to take enough weight. The thing that helps me is working on one-handed spins to build my strength in supporting myself. I'm sure other people will have some more specific advice, though. Hope that helps 🙂

[Cinara]

I'm with you in struggling on 50mm poles. Personally, I don't find a huge difference in hand grip between 38mm and 45mm.  As for leg grip, 45mm and 50mm feel about the same to me, and 38mm was a bit more difficult to grip with my legs before I got used to it. 

One of my studios has just bought some 45mm brass poles, but they're not installed yet, otherwise I could give you some more advice on them.

[Cinara]

Unfortunately the best way to deal with the pain of a superman is just to do it over and over and over again. You can try the beginner* way to get into it (invert, handstand, slide legs down, reach one hand behind you, then you're in a superman an arm's length from the floor. If you're on a spinning pole, you can then push yourself around and play with your legs). Try adding this to routines and freedance, because the performance aspect may help distract you from the pain, and you can get into it more easily while building tolerance.

I have no idea of your relative thigh size from a picture, but I found what really helped me and my large thighs was to grip the pole about halfway down my thigh, rather than right at the top. If I try to grip at the top, my leg gets "stuck" on the pole mid-flip, and my hand ends up too low. So maybe play around with where your thighs grip. Maybe superman has a "sweet spot" just like the knee hold?

(By the way, by "beginner" I mean beginner at learning superman, not pole in general!)