So during a photoshoot yesterday I fell for the very first time in my pole career.
It was a pretty traumatic moment.
My mind started playing out my biggest fear - that I may not be able to pole again.
I am humbled by my experience because ...
As a poler I get injured - a lot.
I legitimately always have at least 3 injury-type things going on at any point in time.
None of them are "major" in the sense that I am literally going to ruin myself forever for being on the pole when I have these injuries. I don't pole when I feel something is serious or going to last a long period of time, or even cause me future pain.
But I have "injuries," like my ribs come out of alignment because my muscles are strained, and sometimes I have random pains in various parts of my body.
As polers, with the amount of abuse we put our bodies through, we tend to block out painful events and just try and wait out injuries.
None of these issues besides my ribs are ever reoccurring which I am grateful for.
I have been grateful and lucky because I have had injuries that are not severe or going to cause me chronic pain (which is not something every poler can say).
When my back started hurting and my ribs were bugging me this summer I stayed away for a little while but I kept coming back.
When I almost pulled my shoulder in December, I was off pole. For serious. For the first time.
I didn't do a single pole trick until I was healed.
That experience alone made me feel blessed for my luck and I had to realize that I need to actually step back to heal myself sometimes. That this can actually happen to me.
As a very passionate poler with big dreams, I train a lot.
As much as I can really.
Because of this I need a lot of body work and I don't always give myself the rest that I need to.
I however, have not had anything more serious than a shoulder injury that kept me away from the pole for 3 and a half weeks.
Being away from pole depresses me at any point in time when I am injured, and I have thought about the possibility of being so injured I will never be able to pole again.
This scares me more than almost anything.
When I fell on my shoulder and knocked the bone out of place yesterday (I still cringe every time I think of it)
I have a freak-out moment every single time.
This fall has made me realize something else other than: yes, I
can be injured, and yes to the point where I need to stay away from
poling for an extended, painful, length of time.
This struck something deeper.
Lately I have been feeling like I have been getting tricks right and left, and this streak has made me so happy because I was frustrated for a minute in December feeling like I wasn't really getting any moves.
But my crash made me realize that I need to stop flying and rather breathe through my experiences.
I am so eager to learn and to bust out tricks and get strong and improve and advance and perform.
I know that my biggest flaw as a poler is the inability to slow things down.
Slow moves down. Slow the process down. Slow my transitions down. You name it.
My teachers always tell me to, and I actively have to think about it in order to act upon it, and it's still the biggest struggle I have.
When I came out of my position the other day I wasn't thinking about the situation, my position, my body, and I fell - hard.
I have inverted a million times and there comes a point when you have done the same pole move so many times that you no longer even think about what you are doing or how you need to get out of it. You don't think you need to because it's just second nature by that time.
I learned that this is the wrong way of thinking the hard way.
I will never dominate pole - it will always be dangerous and deserve constant respect.
I always remind myself that my body is a temple.
I love my body. Flaws and all.
I eat well, I sleep often, I try and be good to myself.
However, I love pole so much that I often forget to take care of myself and I put pole first.
I don't take the time to remember that this is the one and only body I will have forever.
My drop reminded me that pole is a very scary and very dangerous sport.
I would say that non polers don't really understand, but I clearly forget and don't always understand as well.
The best polers in the world fall and get injured all of the time.
We hold ourselves up with the smallest amount of skin possible on a fast-spinning vertical bar in high heels 10 + feet up in the air.
This is very blatantly something that deserves extreme respect and attention and it's so easy to forget.
My point is that this experience has humbled me.
I am reminded that I am human.
I break very easily.
Pole is a very dangerous sport that deserves respect and that it is too easy to forget this.
I always tell myself I need to go slower, but now the universe has screamed at me, telling me that I can't keep brushing this need off like I have been for so long.
Always know where your points of contact are, and always know how you are going to get out of a move the safest way possible.
As a teacher I am almost overly protective of my students and making sure they are safe - but this is a practice I need to place on myself as well.
Crashes happen and injuries are pretty much inevitable in this lifestyle.
I hope that my experiences of injury are nothing any of you beautiful other polers ever have to experience.
My goals for this year are to take things more slowly, and allow myself to heal when I have injury because of everything I have explained above.
What we can do with our bodies is empowering and incredible, but we will never be able to defy gravity like we sometimes believe.
<3 <3 <3
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