I heard about this move a long time ago because a teacher at my studio had been struggling to get it for years.
The first time I saw this move in action was when the gorgeous Sergia Louis Anderson did it in her winning performance at the 2013 U.S. National Pole Competition.
Link>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9rSUud8PmQ (2:10 she does it, but I recommend watching the whole performance because she is just flawless).
Watching my friends struggle with this move who were more experienced than me I figured I wasn't even going to try it for awhile until I felt I was advanced and strong enough.
Then I wanted to get it.
I went to the UK to train with Sarah Scott (check out this beauty if you haven't: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscottperformer) and I injured my wrist the first day but she gave me numerous fabulous tips and preps for it and I wanted to badly to start training it.
Due to a few other injuries it wasn't until about a month or so ago that I finally started to work on it, and I finally got it. (Granted it was not beautiful, my lines are awful and I dead lifted a bit into it more than I would have liked but here is the video: http://instagram.com/p/nZBc4xJ--B/ (and my incredible friend Erica cheering me on - still makes me want to cry because of how beautiful her support is for me). However, this journey was not a good one.
The Phoenix for one is a really difficult concept. The attention and things that have to be in place for it to work out, as far as I understand, are many. For instance:
You have to get enough swing/distance when you go around the pole,
you have to wait at a certain time before you push into the bottom arm,
you have to push your chest out,
you can't have too much grip or too little,
you have to (if you do it properly), bring your legs up straight (or at least one),
you have to push into the bottom arm and pull with the top arm,
you have to look up,
you have to turn your hips and chest up,
you have to keep the bottom arm bent,
you can't drop your butt down when you swing around (keep your hips high),
etc etc etc.
I can't tell you how many teachers I have gotten tips from, how many stars they have gotten tips from, how many tips I've had to learn on my own, gawd.
There are a LOT of intricate little things that make this move work. Even after getting it three time that day I went back to try it and I didn't get it.
Most importantly about this journey was that I injured myself - pretty much every time I practiced it.
One of the worst parts I think about this trick is the shoulder. I have heard of a lot of people, and a lot of famous polers, injuring their shoulder from this movie and I did too. If you don't push your chest out and get your back muscles working for you, then your shoulder takes a lot of pressure and strain and if you are doing this move improperly and doing it trying to power through just the shoulder over and over and over again, pain and injury will arise. My friend explained the "crunching" noise and feeling in her shoulder that I am too familiar with.
I hurt my shoulder every single day I was practicing this move besides the day I finally did it properly, even when I knew that I needed to push my chest out and use my back.
I also hurt my wrist from swinging on it so many times, not to mention the constant chafing and dragging of your top wrist around the pole over and over again.
I am honestly a little fearful and worried for my friends and students who will attempt this move in the future.
Everyone wants to get it but the cost everyday that I tried maybe wasn't worth it.
I feel like people are going to want to get this move too early on before they understand the mechanics, and even when I knew about them I still got injured, a lot. And when it comes down to it, I really don't know if anyone can get this move without failing so many times before it clicks in their own body what they have to do.
The overall theme of this post is that this trick is dangerous and scary. There are so many important parts that need to happen all at once and when you don't do them properly injury is all too easy to come across.
Beautiful tricks like this though are something we all want to be able to do, and stars that make it look so effortless and beautiful and this keeps us others from understanding the reality of what can go wrong.
I do like this move, I think it's beautiful, but I don't know if I want to encourage it for my students until they are far into their pole careers because the injury from it is just too easy to produce.
