I have a new game. Whenever I find a new bruise, I ask myself, “Was it pole; dog care; or clumsiness?” [I work at a doggie daycare a few days a week, which frequently results in bruising.] It’s kind of fun. 🙂 I have some lovely new shiners on the back of my leg, which I think are from the dogs, but who really knows anymore.

Things had been slower on the training front as far as practical sessions, up until this weekend. With being on a budget and my usual rehearsal space closed temporarily, I worked on some stuff at home (frustrating) and ended up doing a lot of listening to the song over and over and over and over and…well, you get it. I also watched a lot of pole on YouTube. I do that anyway, but I was watching for ideas and inspiration.

Since I’m not well-versed on spinning pole, I was looking for less complicated moves I could try, to see if I could find something that felt natural to me – something I could turn into my own. As it turns out, even the simple ones I chose were a huge challenge to me. 🙂 My wonderful friend Claire offered me the use of her spinning pole – and her gloriously high ceiling – while I was sitting for her kitties this weekend, so I was able to get in some practice. After trying to not throw up my healthy breakfast and being really frustrated at not being able to make what seemed like a simple trick work, I started to work on some ideas for my spinning pole run. It was a tough rehearsal, but good to work things out. I realized how tired I will most likely be by that point in the routine and made changes to accommodate it.

I’m signed up for my first official spinning pole class, just so I can get some more time in on it – nervous, for sure, but it’s gotta be done. I made the room in my budget (which is admittedly very tight), and I’m going to do what I can to pick up some basic tips – by no means do I think I’ll be rocking it in two weeks, but I’d like to simply have a modicum of control over the damn thing. 🙂

My usual class tonight was tough, but good. I did more of the warm up – I usually opt for a lighter warm up, in order to save my strength for the tricks (we have murderous warm up sequences), but I did the entire sequence of planks – or more than I usually do. 🙂 I was wiped out, though. We had a fun surprise from our classmate who has been out for a month – she popped in to announce she’s pregnant (Congrats, Dani!), so we all had some sparkling cider and chatted before getting down to business. Drea had me rehearse my ideas for my static pole run over and over, so she could find the points that need polishing, and we could throw out anything that wasn’t working. I have some stuff to fix, but I think I have a reasonably solid combination of tricks that I do well. It was challenging, but EXCELLENT to get that rehearsal in. I really love my pole home. 🙂

In addition to my routine stuff, we also learned a new trick – which we were calling the Unicorn (the name given to it by Kat, who disliked the actual name – which I think is either Rainbow or Stargazer?). I worked on my aerial twisted handgrip pencil – so close! – and did one shoulder mount, just to continue practicing it. I was wiped by the time we got to free dance, so my dance was a little lazy, but I did what I could for both songs.

After a long soak in an epson salt bath, I’m going to curl up with my heating pad and my ibuprofen, and hope I’m not too sore in the morning. 🙂 I’ll need my strength for the spinning pole class, and training is going to increase from here – there are transitions to nail, nuances to add, and stamina to build – oh, that stamina!

Speaking of Kat, she’s teaching a twerking workshop at The Choreography House on Friday, May 11th – check it out!

And, of course, I’ll leave you with an incredible video…