Pole Class: Day 18

There are some things I will do and some things I won't do. The things I will do are things that my body has a physical advantage over, like climbs and inversions. What always gets me are the twirls. I blame this on my short legs. I also do have a fear of falling off the pole because of my sweaty hands.

This Total Pole class would be the first class I take after my brief 2-week hiatus. I think we started off with a transitional move, which consisted of a hand twirl into a stationary heart beat and a transition out. That was easy enough, although I can't say that I looked the most graceful. Of course we move onto our twirl, the part of the class that I dread the most!! We did the Reverse Grab which happens to be my favorite twirl of all twirls. All I can do is literally stand back and watch my class mates complete this trick while I watch. Sad huh?

After that we did our climb. This time Amber taught us a climb with a more foot emphasis versus the usual upper body grab and pull. I hated this one. The spot right on top of my foot is so weak and bruises so easily that it's painful for me to put too much pressure there. It would've been easier if I was wearing some sort of show, but I tend not to bring shoes to class anymore.

After this climb, Amber taught us how to do the Ballerina. I don't think I'll ever look comfortable doing this move. I should actually ban this pose from my repertoire to save myself the embarrassment. If you're great at contorting your body, this is the move for you! Actually if you're tall and slender this move is for you! Can you imagine a little midget like me doing this one? Not enough body to twist around the pole!

Lastly, we ended with an inversion which was the Caterpillar. We did it both ways. Since I'm pretty comfortable with going down the pole, I really wanted to concentrate on the Caterpillar as a climbing technique. I think it takes a lot of control and strength to do this one so it's definitely one of the ones that I push myself to learn. Too bad I can only really practice this one in the studio with the sky-high poles! You can only go so far with a portable pole at home!

I Feel Pretty

I just signed up for Poletential's 5-week "Pretty" series taught by Christina (and Ellen!) to learn a choreographed dance, because I'm not that great at free-styling. I bet if I had my own pole it would be a lot easier to practice a dance though!

The class was packed, mostly with faces I've never seen before in the drop-in classes. Since the class is themed Pretty, Christina is going to focus a lot on form (pointed toes! chest out! arch that back!) and incorporate a scarf into the dance. At the end of the class we practiced the dance with the scarves...lets just say that it wasn't Pretty.

We didn't get to practice this move in last night's class, but we're going to do a climb into a Ballerina . Ellen helped me with contorting into this move. It's like become a human pretzel on a pole. Once you're comfortably on the pole, you move the top half of your body to the front of the pole (it hurts at first!). Then you grip the pole high with your left hand and let go of your back (?) leg.

Step 1:
Stand arms length away from the pole (on the right side of the pole). Move your hips to the music. Slide out right leg and back.

Step 2: Three-point turn and kick one leg while you hold onto the pole. Inside leg steps to the left and kick again.

Step 3: Walk around the pole into an Attitude Twirl. For this step you can pull off your scarf and hold it out with your left arm while you spin around the pole.

I seriously can't remember all the steps...but I do know at some point we climb the pole, do an inversion and do all these other moves I don't know the names too! Gah!