Pole Competition Training

The Bristol Pole Championships are just over two weeks away. I am competing in the advanced category and I’m already terrified! I feel really underprepared as I only wrote my routine at the beginning of the week (although I chose my music and had a good idea of what combo’s etc I wanted to include weeks ago and have been working on them for some time). I can do all of the sections (except for the spinny pole bit, but more on that shortly) when I do them on their own but as soon as I start putting it all together to the music I just seem to lose it completely and end up messing it all up! I couldn’t even manage to shoulder mount on Tuesday when I attempted a run through and my shoulder mount is pretty strong as it’s something I’ve been working on a lot.

The competition has two poles, a static and a spinny. Competitors have to use both poles in their routine for a minimum of 30 seconds. I will be doing the bare minimum of 30 seconds on spinny as I hate it! I really struggle with it. I suppose it’s because I’ve done very little spinny work. I had one hour long lesson as part of a workshop day with Jamilla a couple of years ago and have played around on it on occasions at pole jams or on my own but nothing serious so it just feels so different (and so much harder!).

So lot’s of work going into practicing my routine over the next 2 weeks. Hopefully I’ll be able to pull it together in time! I feel much more nervous this time around than I did when I entered Pole Divas last year. I think that is partly because I know what to expect this time. It’s silly but I enjoy all aspects of competitions except for the actual competing bit! I love the focus it gives me, when training for a competition my poling generally improves so much faster than if I don’t have anything to work towards. I like picking out music and writing the routine and I even quite like deciding on the outfit (although I find that quite difficult).

I know quite a few other people that are entering. They are mainly in the other categories. Robyn is in the same category as me defending her title from last year. Daniel who won the intermediate category last year (who I have never met but have seen perform a few times) is in the advanced category this year. I don’t know who else is in the same category as me but I think it is full so there will be ten competitors in total.

I’m likely to give up competing after this as I don’t think I can stand the nerves again! We’ll see if there’s another post like this one in a years’ time!