grayeyes
Forum Replies Created
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Ohio. 🙂
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I purchased a Lil Mynx when I bought a pole for home. The price was a bit better. I have a 45, which I prefer. The 50 is harder to grip since it’s a bit bigger. I have a stainless steel which I find quite slippery but doable with grip aids. I plan to purchase another pole soon and will likely get another Lil Mynx but powder coated for better grip. I like that Lil Mynx changes from static to spin with a push of the button and no tool required. I like to change back and forth on the fly. I would recommend static and spin. I rarely used spin at first but now am very glad I have it and like spin pole just as much. You’ll find everyone has their favorite material for grippiness or not too much grippiness. I think the main at home reputable, safe brands are x-pole, platinum stages, Lil Mynx and Lupit off the top of my head but I’m sure there are more. I would steer clear of the various Carmen Electra style poles in the $100 range as I don’t think they are designed for serious poling and the safety required.
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Ditto what Veena said about the gloves. I feel exactly the same way. I was so excited when I got them thinking I would stick like glue and be able to hold and practice some cool stuff. They made me feel very unstable. I never use them.
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Thanks MdawWat! I had looked at xpole but didn’t read it carefully enough. I thought the vaulted ceiling mount was only for older models. I shall investigate the x-pole. 🙂
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I don’t use it very often either and I don’t find it limiting. I have learned ayesha, etc. using true grip.
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Hey Casi I really, really appreciate your reply. I get very discouraged so hearing that you are doing well is really helpful. I recently saw the sports med doc again after he did a second steroid injection that didn’t help at all. He sent me for yet more physical therapy and, again, says he’s very hesitant to recommend surgery as he is not convinced it will help. I left his office in tears (also related to a chronic hamstring injury I’ve had for more than a year that he also says he can’t do anything for). I feel like a spoiled brat when I get so discouraged because I know there are people with FAR bigger problems and FAR more pain than I have. Apparently I’m unwilling to accept what may be the reality of my age and I’m sick of being told to modify (I just hear quit poling). The doc told me I should take comfort in the fact that the MRI of hamstring looks great so I’m not damaging it by using it. Super, dude, then why has it hurt for more than a year?
Again–thank you so much for responding. It really helps. And to answer your question, the shoulder is okay. I can do quite a bit but like most polers I expect a lot from my body so any limit is frustrating. 🙂
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I think carpet can be quite limiting for low flow and floorwork. My pole previously was on carpet and I really didn’t do floorwork–just didn’t really work. Heels I wore mainly to do tricks as, at least for me, pirouettes, etc. were out of the question as the heels just don’t turn on carpet. I even tried smooth tape on the soles of the shoes to try to get them to slide but it didn’t help. I didn’t find spinning down to the floor to be a problem on carpet but then I never really did any floorwork out of it–more or less just attempted to find a pretty way to stand back up.
This wasn’t hugely limiting to me as I like to do tricks in the air and I found that now that I have a pole over wood floors it freaks my brain out a little bit. My brain seems to think carpet is going to be a softer landing if I fall. I know intellectually carpet will do little to nothing to prevent injury in a fall but my dinosaur brain disagrees so I have a little more anxiety up high over the wood floors.
I know some folks have done temporary floor of some sort. I wasn’t willing to mess with that. I’m moving again and my pole will be on carpet again which I’m okay with but I will miss pirouetting. There are wood floors in my new basement so I’m secretly planning a second pole down there for dancing and floorwork but haven’t let my husband in on that plan yet.
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When I moved into a place with a 17′ ceiling about a year ago I couldn’t find any that were removable. I was told at that height the pole would need to be permanent. I believe 12′ Was the cutoff for a removable pole.
My engineer brother in law designed this for me to be able to use my 10′ pole.
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I’m pretty sure when I called them about 9-10 months ago when I moved to a place with 17′ ceilings they said they could do up to 12′ but after that it had to be a permanent mount–though I wouldn’t swear to that as my memory is not what it used to be. 🙂
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I believe Lil Mynx goes up to 12-foot poles though you do pay more the taller your pole gets. It doesn’t break down into pieces but you can literally put a Lil Mynx up and down in less than a minute. Once it’s down, of course, you need somewhere to put a nearly 12′ pole up against a wall or something–sometimes finding a space that long is harder than you think. I have a 9-10′ Lil Mynx and am very happy with it.
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Welcome! You have come to the right place if you’re looking for a supportive community. I’m 49–think I’ve been poling about 5 years or so. Like you I find that most friends don’t express much interest in it or don’t know what to say and, at least at the beginning and sometimes now, it was/is my favorite thing to talk about! I imagine you can make pole-interested friends at the studio but I don’t go to the studio a lot and, like you, I’m generally twice the age of most of the others. I’m also introverted so making friends anywhere isn’t super easy for me. I find instagram to also be a good place to connect with people who “get it.”
I guess I would say try not to take it personally that your friends don’t get it. It took me a little while to “own” pole and not be embarrassed talking about it to some people. I wasn’t embarrassed about being a pole dancer but I was embarrassed by what other people might think of me pole dancing (if that makes sense). I think I figured any man I mentioned it to (friends, doctors, physical therapists, etc.) only picture me stripping and that embarrassed me. I’m totally over that now. I’ve learned that once I owned it and had not a trace of embarrassment or apology or whatever when I talk about it then people respond differently. And if they picture me stripping, that’s on them. My husband would say that’s what most men are doing anyway whether you’re talking about pole or what to get for lunch. 🙂 Also the longer I’ve done it the more people realize it’s legitimately one of my hobbies and not a phase.
I think pole does amazing things for self esteem for so many reasons and I wish all women would try it for that reason. I absolutely get a high for a day or two when I nail a new trick and I walk around feeling like I own the world. Nothing else in my life does that.
Enjoy! Wish I could see your husband’s face when the pole arrives. Bravo to him for being cool about it–they don’t all get it either.
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@polewithsoul I do other things to try to stay well rounded physically and not specifically to get better at pole goals. I was reasonably athletic when I started poling with no fear of being upside down and generally sort of a monkey kind of person (if there’s a playground around I’m getting on it). I took to pole pretty easily, was able to invert first try, etc. I will say during my current shoulder injury I’ve taken many months off of pole but kept lifting weights during some of it and wen I was briefly back to pole I hadn’t lost much strength (though had lost some confidence). That was a big surprise to me so I do believe they translate and cross over.
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I’m 49 years old and probably an intermediate to advanced poler though currently have a shoulder injury so haven’t really poled for almost 7 months (which really sucks). When I could I usually only poled once or maybe twice a week but sometimes even less like once every two weeks. I lift weights, run, kayak, roller skate, hike, etc. For me if I set a rigid schedule that I have to do X, Y and Z on certain days of the week I find that the schedule inevitably gets interrupted and it made me feel like I was failing and threw off my plan. What works best for me is to try to do something (anything really) most days of the week. At times I don’t feel up to much so I’ll just say I’m going to do something short and pretty easy (maybe a walk outside or on the treadmill) and I almost always end up doing more than that. This philosophy has led me to currently working out 6-7 days a week at least doing some form of cardio or some form of weightlifting but sometimes doing both. I also try to keep the fun in it. If one day the only active thing I do is kayaking (which I consider more fun than workout) I count that. Any time I’m doing something active and not sitting on the couch eating I consider it a win. For me the more I workout and see results, the more I want to. I have learned that I get injured much easier than I used to and it takes forever and a day to heal now so I’m also careful not to overtrain or lift too heavy, etc. It’s just not worth it anymore to go overboard.
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Probably not what you meant but have you seen these adorable things?
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Thanks for all the replies everyone. I’m sure time is the answer but as I’m pushing 50 it seems once one thing heals another thing gets injured. I had been hoping to do the masters open competition at the Arnold this past March but was injured and couldn’t prepare and now I’m thinking the same thing will happen with 2019.
I should focus on flexibility and plenty of other things but I tend to ignore pole if I can’t do it the way I like which is strength and tricks. Not a great attitude but being limited in that way makes me not want to bother. I will say I’ve been running more and seeing some definition in my legs for the first time in many years–don’t think I’ll ever have beautiful @latinpoler legs but I gotta start somewhere.
@athena30 I have gotten two different sports med doc opinions and my nurse practitioner. I haven’t bothered seeing a surgeon as I know their usual answer to everything is surgery. I’m not 100% opposed to surgery but I’m a nurse and worked the recovery room for ortho surgeons and I really don’t want any part of shoulder surgery if I can help it.
It was partially pole related. I strained it doing dead lift prep with a band in class one night–a strain I have had in both shoulders before. I took a week off of all upper body and then went back to weightlifting (I had lifted through the previous strains without worsening them). I believe while doing a dive bomber pushup variation I tore it because that’s when the real pain, clicking, snapping, etc. started, which was new for me.