Track Your Progress - You Never Know What May Come of It

As a pole student I have always been told to track my progress.
It sounded like a lot of work I wasn't too interested in.
Now I understand.

Over the last year of learning pole there are so many goals I have set and accomplished.

(Abs in top photo: August 2013. Bottom: December 2013) 

(Splits Left: July 2013, Right: November 13)

 

I wish I had taken more photos and written more notes and moves down.
Tips for myself and for my future students

I was often too shy to ask a teacher or another student to take a photo,
often afraid of feeling show-offy or not wanting to blast my FaceBook page with "look at me" photos.

I'm telling you right now to let that go.
You have no idea what this may bring yourself and someone else.

You can visually see your growth and your challenges.
You can remind yourself of how far you have come on your days that you are feeling lousy.
And you never know what your progress can bring another person.

Who knows? Maybe they will start pole after being inspired by you and it may change their life for the better forever.
Maybe your helpful tips may bring friends and students someday closer to their goals.

Keep track, don't be shy, and be proud.
What you can do, most people can't.
<3

Being a Poler with an Injury

To preface:
Everyone is different.
Every injury is different.
Every person's pole passion is different.
This entry isn't about the ways polers get injured, but rather what happens inside of them after.

This entry is about what it's like to be a poler with an injury.


I say "poler" with an injury because even though we might be off the pole because of our injury, being a poler is a part of our identity. This is a crucial element to understanding the mental and emotional aspects following an injury.

I will be the first to say I am lucky. I have been doing pole for about a year, doing rather tricky aerial moves, and all of my injuries have been relatively minor and have not kept me off of pole for long (/"long").
I am lucky because recently I injured my shoulder and not only did it not hurt when I did it, but I was only out for a month. Well, I say "only" a month if I'm comparing myself to other polers who have been out for months or more from an injury, and I know there are some who are so injured they may never pole again.  I say "only" out of respect for those who have been injured more than I have.

If I wasn't comparing myself to them, I definitely wouldn't say "only."

Being away from pole for days kills me.
Being away for weeks -- it takes a bite out of you. 
Being away because you need to/have to/must is even worse than if you are sick or have been too busy. (Though any time away for me is just difficult no matter what.)

If I am sick, maybe I'll do something simple here or there for a short session.
When I'm injured, and I know I have to stay off the pole, it's different.
(I usually don't because I'm stubborn and hate being away from pole).
But this time I really couldn't go near it.
I needed to stay away because I would risk damaging myself even more if I didn't.
This threat doesn't always scare me but there was something about this injury that I knew was on the brink of serious damage if I pushed it like usual.

I have a pole in my house. When I was injured I would see it every single day and know that if I tried any little move I would try more and more and end up injuring myself.  So I closed the door to that room so I didn't have to see my favorite thing in the world. 

Every day that went by that I wasn't doing anything for pole I just kept realizing "you aren't progressing. You are stagnant. And you have to deal with it." Not only did I feel stagnant, but I knew that I wasn't getting stronger, and not only that, I felt I was getting weaker.

My FaceBook and Instagram is filled up with polers, pole associations, pole competitions, tutorials, routines, pole friends, etc, etc, etc. Knowing that everyone was out there improving while I was staying in place was lowering my self-esteem.
 I wanted to be progressing and getting better. I know the improvements that can be made every single hour on the pole and to know how much I was losing ... was just depressing.
I had no idea how long it would take my shoulder to heal either. Days? Months? Would it ever be the same?

Maybe this sounds like a bunch of cry-baby "deal with it" babble for some people,
but for me it really matters. My identity and my heart and my mind were not at ease.
Injury matters to everyone - but when it means you can't do what makes you whole, it digs in deep.

Realizing that if I didn't heal quickly I could easily be surpassed by people doing pole a fraction of the time was not a pleasant thought either.

I can't imagine what it would be like to be out for longer and I pray to the Powers that Be that that will never be a reality for me.

Pole is a constant risk. You can get injured at any point in time doing anything and not even realize it when it happens.
This is a dangerous sport, and I love it dearly.

This blog isn't to declare that I have had some serious injury or set back, or that I am mentally damaged forever because of my injury.
I know there are people who have struggled longer and harder,
but this blog is just to shed light on that spot in everyone's psyche who has been through something similar to this.
We put ourselves at a constant risk by doing what we do, and we realize this from time to time, and it will never stop us because this is who we are. It's in us.

An amazing performer and aerialist I know has been injured for quite some time after a car wreck a long time ago. She has been finding other ways to get back into her identity, but she injured her shoulder recently as I have and has had to stay away from her normal activity as well.  I asked her to write about her experience as an aerialist with an injury:


"I've been dealing with a shoulder injury for about 2 months now. My shoulder started hurting right before I had two performances, so I was not only rehearsing a lot more, but I wasn't willing to listen to my body and take the time to rest.

 The week of my shows (two in one night) was when I really hurt it badly. I did five straight days in a row, when I'm used to training on lyra only 2 times a week. Then, caught up in the adrenaline and the rush, I went back to practice the day after my shows even though I was so exhausted I felt dizzy and nauseated even on the ground!

  I realized the next morning how badly I was hurt and continued to wake up in pain every day, despite not doing aerial or upper body workouts at the gym. The psychological pain is harder though. Aerial is my passion, it consumes my thoughts every single day and I get more confidence from doing it than any other activity. To lose this from my routine resulted in a very, very rough month of depression; between the physical and psychological pain I ended up missing quite a bit of work and felt very socially isolated, since a lot of my friends are from aerial class.

This is clearly very unhealthy, and I was scolded by those close to me about the need to seek balance and learn how to handle physical setbacks better. And they are right. As athletes, aerialists, pole dancers, we are doing much more with our bodies than the average person so we must not only be more tuned in to what our bodies are telling us, but we must also be mentally prepared for downtime, rest, recovery, and hopefully not too often, the occasional overuse or sudden injury. 

Mine was diagnosed as bursitis by my doctor a couple of days ago, with a prescription of more rest, Aleve, cortisone shot, and starting in a few days, strengthening exercises for my back to help stabilize my shoulders. I'm happy to report  that I've been able to adjust mentally and being instructed to continue to take it easy didn't leave me feeling desperate like it did before. I have to say that being able to workout at my normal gym makes a big difference, the two weeks I couldn't do that at all were the worst. But what has also helped is identifying some non physical activities I can focus on in the meantime."

     --  Instagram: UpsideDownGirl (she's amazing)

For those of you who are injured, I sympathize and I can empathize somewhat as well.
What I held on to was the reality that time away can be time to rest and come back stronger and better. Hang in there - you have a passion that most people will never even be able to dream of <3 <3 <3

Proud of that Performance Still?

I was talking to a pole competitor and one of my best friends, Linda Crane, and we confessed - well, confession makes it seem like it was a long and difficult process. What would more accurately describe it as: we very clearly, openly, with no hesitation, already-thought-about-this-a-ton said that we honestly were no longer proud of our previous performances.




This is not to say that we are not proud of getting out there and doing it. It's not to say that we are not proud of the effort we put into it. But it's just how we feel looking back. Let me explain:

Now, I have only had one performance. The process through that was not something I would give up. Well, I might not have been to sad to give up the injuries, many hours working on things I didn't even use, and the frustration and anxiety that went along with it. Even if it is "part of the beautiful process" (which I do believe it is), but it is still not fun to go through at the time. Anyway, the performance was difficult. The first time I did the first 40 or so seconds I was on the floor panting like someone had just pulled a lung out of my chest. It was exhausting, and very fast, and very difficult. Eventually I got to a point where I could get through the whole thing, improve it, and at the end I even added another difficult move because I had already gotten my routine down. I was proud when I could get through the entire performance more than a few times before my showcase.

However, there is a dilemma all polers who have performed are aware probably aware of. There's no word for it really, but essentially you just have to force yourself to stop changing the choreography. When you are deciding to do a performance, you have to set up a choreography and make it flow, perfect it, and get through it, but in all of that time - you keep learning. You discover new moves, new combos, find new songs. A ton of things arise in the process of you working on a performance, but the problem is, you can't really allow yourself to put in new things. If you change your song, it is a larger difficulty than adding in a new move, but even adding in a new move, especially if you keep doing it, can eventually put you in a position where you are no longer perfecting a choreography but just adjusting it. I believe, perhaps not for very experienced performers, but that there is a process with a performance that comes from something like:
1) Finding a song
2) Trying to put together a choreography with it
3) Changing some moves as you better learn the song and discover smoother transitions
4) Trying to perfect what you have made

If you keep adding moves, you may not be working towards making a good performance an even better one. Perfecting details come with practicing the same thing over and over again. So you have to force yourself to just stop adding new things so you can "perfect" what you have already developed. The unfortunate thing is that this may not show off just how skilled you are, especially if you have had the same choreography you have been perfecting for such a long time (which means more time that you have learned more tricks and gained more strength).
It is probably more possible for confident and advanced performers to always be able to change their moves even days before a show, but I still say that can't be without some difficulty in some form, and they probably don't think it's wise to change a lot of them either.

Back to my original point: I was proud to have completed a difficult routine, but am I proud of it even a month after? In one word: No. Some will probably say I'm being overly critical of myself, but looking back, the more you watch your performance, you can see in every handful of seconds something you wish you had done better. I promise I don't sit and watch my performance and scrutinize it. I'm not here trying to express that, but what I'm saying is that I know at least one other poler who watches old routines and cringes at small things that we would never allow ourselves to do now. I am sure that even from my one performance that I have experienced this from, many others have experienced this even when they haven't messed up or fallen in a routine either. There is just something about it that yes, we are always our own worst critic, but you cannot help but kind of be disappointed in yourself. It's sad, honestly, and even fully acknowledging the logic behind these feelings and saying "This was your first performance, of course it wasn't the best," "Just getting through it was hard enough, be proud," and telling yourself "You did a lot of cool shit and didn't fall or slip, so be happy about that," you can't help but know that "I could have done better." There is always of course a chance to do better in the future, but that small knowledge of "I could have done better" is just there anyway.

Like I said, we are our own worst critics, and we probably see ourselves worse than others do, but the truth is just what it is: it's hard to be proud of old performances, at least when you are a pretty inexperienced poler, and I wasn't really expecting to feel this, at least not so soon. I knew I would look back eventually and be like "oh, small potatoes, first performance, whatevs" but it's just a part of you and it's hard to want to distance from it. To not want to show others. Where does this mentality and series of thoughts originate from? That's a whole other blog entry worth :P

My point in this entry is not to evoke from others "You should be proud!" or "don't be so critical" or "that performance rocked". Even though all of these things still mean a lot to us and make us happy to hear (even about performances we no longer like), the point is just to openly admit that this is a part of the poling experience in growing and learning, and that it's kind of sad, but it's just the reality of the situation.  I believe sometimes it's just important to let others know that you are probably going through something similar, and I believe there is comfort in that. I accept the reality of the situation as just that, and thought it was worthy of attention.