I had an amazing class on Monday night! Kelli, one of our brilliant teachers at The Pole Garage, was subbing for our usual teacher (Drea, owner of the studio and our pole dancing guru), ran through our usual breakdown of tricks, but also took us through a flow-through exercise on the poles to start class, as well as an extended freestyle period at the end of the class. The result was a more intensive endurance work out for me (yay!) AND the chance to freestyle to my song for the competition. I was able to throw in a trick combo that I am hoping to include in the final piece, which was great practice! I also was able to shoulder mount alone again, which is AWESOME – been working on that bastard for ages. It’s still not pretty, but hey, I get up, and that’s what matters!

I do have a fancy new bruise from trying the Butterfly into the Keyhole into Gemini, which blows. I hate that trick. I’ve never been able to do it, but wanted to try it again. Ended up frozen in it and aborted the mission halfway through; on the second attempt, I threw myself into it and dropped down on the pole too quickly, resulting in a janky looking move and a brand new bruise on my inner thigh. I’ve found that certain tricks work really well with my body, but that one…not so much. I seem to have such tight shoulders that I have some trouble with tricks where you have to manipulate your shoulders into turns quickly. However, I can make up for that in some other way – and, who knows, maybe it’ll just work one day. Pole is funny like that – one day, you’ll find something impossible; two weeks later, it’s doable.

I’ve sent in my song for the competition, confirmed my place/registration, and am one step further along! I’ve also put out feelers for costume elements – I think it just hit me that I’ll be in very little clothing, and while I do that once a week for class, doing it on stage for an audience feels different. It probably won’t once I’m in the moment, since I’m used to it for acting (see: short film in which I’m in my underwear the entire time, which is on the internet with 15K views). I’m a little concerned about the costume, but it’ll work itself out, I’m sure.

I also went to my first aerial silks class tonight! I was given a Groupon for a class at The New Cirque Studio from my friend and fellow poler, Amanda – she made it into a fun little belated birthday party by inviting another friend as a surprise! We had a lot of fun – the class integrated some of the basic movements we use in pole, so the breakdowns made a reasonable amount of sense, and I did fairly well with what we learned, even earning a comment about my strength from the instructor (love that validation!). I’d love to take more classes in the future, but pole comes first for now. 🙂

I hope to get some training in tomorrow, and I have a transitions workshop on Friday, so fingers crossed that this week continues to be strong with movement! I’m definitely coming upon blocks that hold me back a bit, like my diet (I eat like crap and love crappy food), as well as some mental/emotional blocks on things, but I’m trying to let go of stuff that is worrying me and reminding myself to deal with each thing as it comes along, instead of getting overwhelmed.

Mmkay, off to bed, because I suck at going to bed at a decent hour. 🙂