Update

I’ve been feeling ill for the past week so not really done a lot. Hoping to get back into it this week though starting with the return of Corde Lisse tonight. Circomedia aren’t running the Monday eve class in St Pauls at the moment due to availability issues and I (and most of the rest of the class) were unable to attend the alternative Thursday eve class in Kingswood that they put on so the instructor has started up his own classes on a Monday evening at The Island. I’ve never been to the island for a class before so will be interested to see it. I’ve seen in in photos and videos from my friends silks class and it looks like a nice space. Not as nice as the church in St Pauls but a lot nicer than The Albany so will soon see!

Pole wise I felt I was getting my mojo back a bit after a bad start to the year (I’m hoping the week off that I’ve had hasn’t put me back again). Robyn at 360 Pole in Bristol had a birthday pole jam a couple of weekends ago which was good fun. I like a good jam, it’s nice to catch up with people that you don’t see very often and see what everyone else is working on.

My classes are still going well, it was a quite one last week but I was actually quite glad as I was feeling ill and felt like I was going to fall off the pole every time I touched it! Hopefully that has gone now as I am expecting this week to be back to normal attendance.

I have been given the go ahead by my venue to buy some semi-permanent poles so I hope to get those ordered this week and fitted soon. They will really speed up my set up and packing away times plus I won’t have to lug three heavy x-poles around with me which I am looking forward to.

So hopefully fully back into the swing of things this week.

UK Pole Dance Day

May 1st was UK Pole Dance day. This is an annual event done by the performers society, Equity. The idea of the day is to promote pole and get people involved. I wasn’t going to do anything but decided (somewhat last minute, just three weeks before) to hold a free taster session. The session went quite well. Three of my regular students came along to help out and have a play on the poles. I also had four people that had never tried pole before. Two ladies and two men who one of my regular students had brought along. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, I know I certainly did.

The day that before a couple of friends had been round my house for an afternoon of pole. We all worked quite hard and did quite well. It was fun and something I hope to do more often. I have a scaffold pole ready to make a Chinese pole for the garden so I’m hoping for a good summer so we can make use of that.

Pole on Thursday went well. I was pleased because I got the genie pose with one hand. I hadn’t attempted the genie at all for at least a year (at which time I couldn’t do it at all) so I was pleased that I got the one handed version. I will now be working towards no hands which hopefully won’t take too long (I did manage it for about a second on Saturday during the pole session at home). I’m glad I got a new move, it’s made me feel better about pole again as I had been back in a bit of a rut after a horrible start to the year followed by my shoulder injury that stopped me doing a lot of training.

My classes are still going well. The 8:15pm class is full and I have been getting new enquiries so hopefully I can get a few more people to join the earlier class as well soon.

I haven’t been to parkour since as my Friday nights have been busy but going back this week. There is a pole jam in Bristol on Sunday to look forward to as well. No Corde lisse at the moment though as the church that the classes are held in is in use for other tings for a while so the classes have been moved elsewhere and to Thursdays which is no good for me. I have put my name down for a master class with Jukka Juntti though so hopefully that will go ahead.

Pole, Bootcamp and Parkour!

Well it’s been a while since I posted. Most of the month has been pretty quiet. I’ve been teaching my pole class on Tuesdays as normal but apart from that I wasn’t really doing much (resting my shoulder) until last week when I jumped straight back into action!

Monday was my night off as I am not doing the current Corde Lisse block (again due to wanting to rest my injured shoulder) but the rest of the week was all go.

Tuesday I taught my pole classes. The 7:15pm was quite quiet but my ladies are progressing nicely. The 8:15pm class in currently full so that was a busy one. My three new people seemed to enjoy it so hopefully they will be back again this week. All of my regulars are doing well and mostly manage to get a new trick each week.

Wednesday I did a bootcamp session with Bootcamp Somerset. I’ve know Matt for a long time as our Mum’s were best friends. He set up his own personal training business last year and it seems to be going well for him. The bootcamp was hard work but quite fun. There was quite a lot of cardio exercise which was the main reason I wanted try is as although I do quite a lot of strength work I do nothing in the way of cardio so that’s an area that I need to work on. Hopefully I’ll be able to make the bootcamp sessions a regular thing.

Thursday I went to pole class. I was aching from bootcamp the day before so was a little feeble in my attempts! I was mostly working on shoulder mount lifts, which has gone downhill a lot due to lack of practice but as long as I keep up the practice it should start to improve again. I was also attempting back hook to invert which was always really hit and miss but is now very much miss! I think the last time I tried it was back in September so no surprise there. It’s something I would like to be able to do well so have to remember to practice it regularly. I haven’t made any attempt at an Aysha for at least six weeks. This is entirely down to my shoulder injury as attempting it was causing me pain so I thought it best not to push it. My shoulder is feeling a lot better now though so I am hopeful that I will be able to start working on this again soon.

Friday I went a long to a Parkour class that has just started up at the Gym where I teach my pole class. The class was for ages 15 – 35 and I was worried that I would be the only adult in a class of 15 and 16 year olds but went along anyway as it’s something that I have wanted to try for ages. My worries turned out to be well founded, there were only four other people in the class all of whom were teenage boys. I did really enjoy the class though but found it quite hard. I’m a bit of a wimp so some of the stuff we were doing was a bit scary such as somersaults off a spring board (mine were more like forward rolls but I did improve a bit as the session went on). I had a couple of issues about the way things were run but as it was only their second week teaching I am hoping that they will sort that out once they are more settled in to teaching. It was a great workout, I ached like mad all weekend and can still feel it in my quads now. I’m hoping I’ll ache a little less next time!

Dodgy Shoulder

I haven’t done much over the past few weeks as I have a recurring shoulder injury which has come back to bother me. It’s really quite painful and it’s never lasted this long before so I think I will need to go and get it looked at.

I went to corde lisse last night and took it easy. I missed the week before and will be missing next week so didn’t want to miss three weeks in a row. I got on quite well really. We looked at Teardrop which I managed to do first time, much to my surprise! We were also looking at Hocks drop but that was from a twisty shoulder type thing so I gave that one a miss and just practiced double hocks instead.

My pole classes have been a bit quiet lately but I was quite pleased about that the week before last when my shoulder was particularly bad as I only had to teach one small class. I’m expecting it to be a bit busier tonight though so biofreeze at the ready when I get home! The only personal pole practice I’ve done over the past three weeks was one practice session a couple of weeks ago.

Hopefully I’ll get his shoulder sorted soon. I want to do pole practice!!

Not doing a lot

After my last post a couple of weeks ago I went round my friends house to do a bit of Chinese pole. We had quite a good session although a bit limited on space having been used to using the tall pole at the Albany centre.

Then last Tuesday I was back teaching my pole classes. There were a lot of cancellations and I went from expecting 8 people in the first class and 7 in the second class to having just two in each which was a little disappointing. I’m expecting 7 in each class tonight so fingers crossed that everyone can make it! The small groups were quite nice though as I get to spend lots of time with each person and hopefully everyone went away feeling that they had achieved something. My second class spent a bit of time working on learning the “Teenagers” routine which was fun. We’ll see if they can remember it tonight! I managed to get in a bit of practice for myself as well during the classes as I had brought and put up all three poles. I managed to hold my twisty grip Aysha quite well. It’s still so sporadic though but I still don’t know why.

Aside from that I have done very little practice recently. There was a practice session on 13th Feb but I couldn’t go due to going to see My Chemical Romance (who were brilliant) and then I missed class on Thursday due to going to see Ocean Colour Scene (who were excellent, I’ve seen them over 20 times and I think this was one of the best). I’m having a bit of pole withdrawal. I hope I get a chance to do a bit of practice before or after my classes tonight.

There has been no rope classes for the past two Mondays so been quite inactive really. Will be at pole this Thursday and back to rope on Monday so getting some activity going again!

Back to it

I had not been to corde lisse for the past two weeks due to personal problems so it was nice to be back on Monday night. Jonathan was taking the class this time and he has us working on his swing into catchers which I have now managed to get back (from the floor, still not much success up the rope). I was pleased with that as it annoyed me that I had managed to lose the move. I’ll have to remember to practice it every week so it doesn’t go again! After that we moved on to looking at a double pick up. It’s similar to the swing into catchers but wraps both legs rather than just one. This is used as a prep for propeller. I didn’t manage to do it although I don’t know why I found it so much harder than the catchers pick up. I did have a go at the propeller wrap from a different way in, I didn’t do that well with it, I think because it was towards the end of the class and I was tired because I have done it before.

I haven’t taught my pole class for two weeks, again due to the personal problems. I’m back teaching next week so looking forward to that. I told my students the reason and they were all understanding so hopefully I won’t have lost any. I’m expecting both classes to be nearly full if everyone turns up.

I went along to pole class last night. It was heals night, I haven’t worn mine for ages so had to wash them before I went because they were all dusty and dirty! I was quite rubbish at the movements in isolations that we were doing, it’s not something I do often but probably should as it will help with fluidity. Other than that I was mainly working on my twisty grip Aysha. It’s still really hit and miss which is annoying me. I know I can do it, and when I get it right I can do it well, holding it for around ten seconds. However, that only happens perhaps one time in twenty. The rest of the time I’m doing something wrong and topple straight out. I didn’t practice any of the Becca Butcher stuff last night as my shoulder still hurts from the workshop. I am hoping to do some of it tonight though as I have a Chinese Pole session with some friends.

Becca Butcher Workshops

Last night I took part in two Becca Butcher pole workshops at 360 Pole dancing in Bristol. I was a little late arriving due to my dentist appointment running over 30 minutes late but luckily I only missed part of the warm up on the first class that I was doing which was the intermediate level.

We looked at loads of different things. First was inside / outside leg hang switches which I got on well with. Next we looked at the Holly drop which I had never tried before. I liked it and will definitely be working on it to get it nice and quick and fluid. We also looked at her jump out of shoulder mount dismount which looks brilliant. I will definitely be working on this as I love it. We finished off by looking at different ways into the Superman which was good as I haven’t done any work on the superman for months.

We then had a break while a different class used the studio. Most of the group were staying on for the advanced class so we went to a place up the road for a bite to eat.

The advanced class was also really good. We looked at Becca’s twisty thing into holly drop. See this video of Becca from 1:26 –


We then moved on and looked at a spin into princess grip shoulder mount and from there worked on twisty grip Iron X. My Iron X was non-existent but my twisty grip is getting stronger which I am pleased with.

We also looked at moves from Cupid including Special K and summersault into reverse shoulder mount. I wasn’t very good at these as although my cupid is strong I find reaching down in it a bit scary! Also we had looked at the cupid to reverse shoulder mount in Chinese pole a while back and one of my friends actually lost hair doing it that time so that put me off somewhat!

I had been slightly nervous about going into the advanced class as I had not touched a pole for over a week and I was feeling pretty weak due to some personal issues, 2011 has not been a good year for me so far. Becca was really lovely though and made everyone feel included and welcome. I really enjoyed both of the classes and feel that I have brought a lot away from it. I have lots of lovely new things to be working on. I ache quite a lot today especially in my hamstrings and triceps. Plus my shoulder is quite sore from all though reverse Shoulder Mounts! It’s good though, you know you have had a good pole session when you ache nicely afterwards!