[Rachel Osborne]

Oh and on TilTok as @allegrapiduval

[Rachel Osborne]

Allegra DuVal aka ‘Pi’ DuVal is on LinkedIn as “Allegra DuVal” and on IG as @dancepidance

[Rachel Osborne]

Go to stripperweb and have a good old read. All the best info there; see also @survivetheclub on Instagram- good luck

[Rachel Osborne]

No advice but GOOD LUCK 🍀

[Rachel Osborne]

I started pole in 2004 and have never trained handspring or cartwheel Mount, or Ayesha, and lots of things.
I honestly don’t really want them, they do not suit my body. Hyper mobile wrists and shoulders, short forearms and extra-long femurs: it literally does not stack up. My body is wildly unsuited for it, and it’s a gigantic injury festival waiting to happen.
Trust your Instincts.
Maybe later it will feel right but if you have a hunch that it’s off limits for now, stay where you are and do other things. Maybe one day it will feel right, with the right spotter. Maybe it’s just not you. If handsprings are mandatory in a class then I leave that class. The world is full of poles, and classes, and other things I can do.

[Rachel Osborne]

Throwing a chiffon scarf maybe? They float down beautifully. Tuck in shirts or bra, they scrunch up to matchbox size

[Rachel Osborne]

I love free styling all the tricks you’ve mentioned – intermediate pole is where all the goodness is in my opinion – and I find 60-160 second spin passes are the gold spot. To make it into a 4 min freestyle without an invert/climb fail/pole shorts bum wipe etc is pretty much impossible. A successful four minute freestyle therefore in my opinion works in recovery/bum wipe hand drying time and isn’t nonstop tricks but involves some rolling on the floor, leg caressing, crafty wiping of sweaty hands on hair, languid armmwafting whilst bending and arching leaning on the pole etc etc. Keep moving and breathing but don’t kill your self tricking! It’s DANCE not gymnastics 🤸🏽‍♂️

[Rachel Osborne]

Sooooo exciting! 👻👻🎃🎃🎉🎉🎉🦇🦇🦇can’t wait to see all the spookiness

[Rachel Osborne]

What are your favorite go-to moves? I can suggest unusual variations if you let me know😊

[Rachel Osborne]

Good. Facebook is awful. Well done for staying true to your values

[Rachel Osborne]

The python variation in the pic I posted requires less flexibility than regular python: the arm isn’t grabbing the bottom ankle 🙃. The main thing with python is a pole-crushing knee pit squeeze with lots of hamstring effort, it’s like Cupid. The main area you need flexibility is side body bend. You can prep on the floor by sitting in wide straddle and leaning sideways to put right hand to left foot and vice versa. When in python push the back of the tricep into the pole to help you stick on

[Rachel Osborne]

I find brass too sticky
Sad girl or drama queen drop
Python is usually bottom leg turned out and ankle placed on pole, outside arm hand holds shin of the hooking leg and inside arm hand either hangs down or holds the ankle of the straight leg. There’s a Python variation with the foot on the pole like Cupid (see my pic) and in this variation it’s pretty hard to hold the ankle unless you are super flexible.

[Rachel Osborne]

I’m 47 in two weeks 😁🙃
You might find this thread interesting
https://www.studioveena.com/forums/view/534f2546-1450-43f1-808f-22d60a9aa0eb
Enjoy your pole adventures!
❤️

[Rachel Osborne]

Sorry – this link should work https://www.studioveena.com/videos/view/565f9a4f-9450-4a5f-88e6-0016ac110002

[Rachel Osborne]

I know it as Bud and here’s a spinny combo based round it.
One leg is down in your photo but it’s same move
https://www.studioveena.com/videos/view/565f9a4f-9450-4a5f-88e6-0016ac11000

[Rachel Osborne]

Oh my goodness! I can not describe how much I love this exquisite video! The dancing is beautiful and the concept so close to my heart – as a child I wanted so much to be a music box Ballerina. The editing makes it magical – thank you for this early Christmas present! 💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞

[Rachel Osborne]

Done day 1! Posted here and will post on Instagram later

🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🤪🎄

[Rachel Osborne]

There is a possibility that this is actually a repeat of a big/glitch IG problem that happened in January and again in July this year. It tells you you’ve been locked out for service violation but you have not really. Here’s some news on it:

https://thepreviewapp.com/instagram-deleted-photos-account-disappeared-whats-happening/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/7/6/15929478/instagram-deleted-accounts-why

In some cases accounts have returned by IG (bear in mind there’s probably a backlog) . Several massive yoga accounts had this happen – and they were just photos not videos.

So try contacting IG and don’t give up!

Re music; I now only dance to YouTube remixes and DJ remixes. I like lyrical 90s house music and chilled or epic dubstep, I like chill out instrumental mixes so this works for me. If I want specific music eg creepy Halloween I search non copyright/no copyright /free to use music with that theme and if I want to dance to a specific artist I try to find a live version not an album version. If in doubt I play the video on my phone whilst enabling Shazam on another device to see if the music is picked up.

Finally, as well as posting my fave videos on SV o have a back up IG account with a different email and I post videos there too. I don’t use it to interact with followers, just to stash stuff that won’t fit on my phone. So if I disappear all isn’t lost.

I hope you and Latin Poler get your accounts back.
I also wish more people would post their videos here.
It’s lovely to see people on here.
And Veena I would be so happy if you would share your dances again! I love your dance and all you do is inspirational 💙❤️💙

[Rachel Osborne]

Oh no I’m so sorry.

[Rachel Osborne]

I want a video! Thanks latinpoler! On the subject of hair one of my teachers always said it was really a head toss not hair toss and you could do it beautifully even if you had no hair whatsoever

[Rachel Osborne]

You can also get into a cradle/Jamilla . And from that to a bunch of things like Jade, lady planche, nonhands cradle….the problem is that with big moves like Allegra and Jade the pole will slow down which is why I tend to favor tucked up/pulled in moves to keep spin going

[Rachel Osborne]

I like to skip flatline and drop straight into scorpio then speed up the spin into a flowet spin

[Rachel Osborne]

Thank you so much! It’s good to know I’m not being unnecessarily paranoid! Veena I went and watched your excellent tutorial on Elbowstand and saw you did not teach it with the hands wrapped around the pole . I actually just went and tried a headstand and elbow stand in that position with cup grip of pole base and it felt soooo wrong. I couldn’t stack the hips and float up and it didn’t feel safe.

I can’t do or say anything about how it’s taught in class. Nor can I do anything about Twisted grip handspring and TG Ayesha being taught…the instructor is really good. I don’t think she knows that there is any issue or concern about pole holding or Twisted grip in kickup/pressup inversions. It’s so commonplace in the pole world now… I wouldn’t have known if I wasn’t a member here and if Ididn’t do a lot of yoga reading/classes.🤓

Thanks again and happy inverting everyone 🙃🙃🙃

[Rachel Osborne]

Autocorrect changed ‘the stitching frays’ to ‘feats’🤔🙄

[Rachel Osborne]

I think Ellie’s feel cheaper, less padded, less roomy, than Pleasers and the straps always break and the stitching feats…I had them for three years then switched to Pleasers and the difference felt like a real upgrade. I found Ellie’s stable but narrow and small to size.