A little discouraged

I've been trying to write a couple of posts over the last few weeks, but haven't bothered to finish any of them. Truth is, I'm feeling a little discouraged.

It's different this time. It's not because I "can't" do anything, or that I don't see progress, or that I'm feeling frustrated or something.... I just don't feel like dancing. The thought of practicing gives me a empty feeling, it makes me sigh and I just want to wait until I feel more in the mood. That hasn't happened yet.

But I got a new pair of shorts and a new top, so I got that going for me, which is nice. Haha, ok, bad joke. I love my new shorts, they are gorgeous! And I've desired this top for a long time too, it's so cute. And now it's finally mine! Thanks to RAD Polewear<3

I started working on my first routine though, and it's coming together pretty good. The first minute is already done, a minute containing mostly floorwork. That's been challenging, since I never do floorwork. Floorwork isn't exactly boring, I just feel like floorwork doesn't take as much work to get good at as pole-moves, so I never take the time to practice it. It's looking good though, it's kind of a sexy routine. I'll maybe post a video after next practice. Now I'm starting on the pole-part of the routine. Finally ^_^

Like, who bothers to draw nicely when they're making a routine? Seriously

Aaaaaand I've signed up for a pole-challenge during october. So now I kinda have to keep up my practices. My goal is to actually post one photo (or video) a day. This pole-challenge is excellent for me. I've always wanted to do a pole-challenge, but never found one that fit me. Most of them contain way to advanced moves for me, like maybe I could finish half of it. Day one - Allegra. Day two - Machine Gun. Day three - Spatchcock. Day four - Oversplits. Like, come on guys! And others weren't even about pole. Not really. Like february handstand. I tried to do it. I managed two days in a row.... Just got way to boring for me.

Pole Progress - OMG I'm cheating!

I really wanna make a full routine one day, so I've started practicing on the thousands of combos I've written down in my pole-diary over the months. Maybe I can string some of them together and add some floorwork and such to make a routine? That would be neat!

Anyway, it's a good thing that I've started to work harder on the combos. Cause I suck at poleing continuously. Seriously, after one combo I'm out of breath, sweating and panting ferociously, and I can't for the love of God understand how I'm supposed to keep it up for a whole routine when I can barely make it through one combo without dying from oxygen deprivation. I wonder if it is physically possible to actually forget to breathe....

But I worked on a hard combo though, the combo was all in the air on the pole and included an aerial invert. I'm not doing too well on the aerial invert, it's gotten better as I'm able to get straight into chopper, without hooking any legs on the pole to help me bring my hips up. So I thought I did great, but when I watched my video and noticed that I use my climbing-foot to push myself from the pole and gain momentum to get up.... So I'm actually cheating.... Dang it.... Doesn't look very pretty, have to work on that.

I'm also hooking up with Maria on thursday to start up with the training again. I need to work on my instructor-skills and she told me she's been kind of stuck and lost her pole-mojo over the summer, so it's a win-win! Gonna have a look at her invert, her leg-hangs and see if we can get her butterfly prettied up a little, and maybe try something new? Have to think about it, come up with something cool. Maybe falling star?

The Peacock

During the instructors course I found out so many things about myself. One being that I am actually getting close to shoulder mount! All this time I thought I just wasn't strong enough and that I needed more core-muscles, when actually it was mostly my technique that was wrong. Can you believe that?! Me, shoulder-mounting?!!! I'm so inspired and motivated right now, I just wanna work that core so that I'll get there asap! So yeah, it wasn't just my technique, I still have a long way to go, but finally I get it!
And when I say close, I mean close as in "I'll be lucky to have a deadlift by january", but for now nearly all my dismounts are shoulder dismounts. Prepping that shoulder for some serious pain. And hey - I can shoulder dismount!

PS is being a bitch and wont let me make proper gifs, so you'll have
to bear with me with a crappy snapshot from the vid. Vid is on my IG

Yes, I am a teeny, tiny bit overly excited about this, but this is really huge for me ^^ Been one of those dream-moves, like it's not even human to be able to do this, you would have to be an alien or a superhero or something to be able to do it.

Back to school supplies (hehe, I love this theme) - a new mat and a stretching band. I've wished for a mat since I got my pole in december and started stretching, but it has always gotten down-voted on my priority list. Because.... because I'm stupid. Stretching has been my least favorite part of my pole-workouts, mainly because my floor is just a thin layer of linoleum on concrete, so it hurts to stretch. More than it should, anyway. My heels hurt, my butt hurts, my elbows, everything. But now I'm actually looking forward to some serious stretching on a comfy, thick mat.

And I revisited an old move, the peacock. I've called it the fish-hook earlier, but on the fb-group "you know when you're a poler when" we discussed this, and the majority of people seem to call this the peacock. And poisson. And russian fish... So I changed to peacock.
This was a move I clearly wasn't ready for when I first learned it. It injured my forearms badly, which caused a 3 weeks lasting pole-break. So I had to keep this move on the shelf for a while till my forearms and wrists became strong enough to support it. I tried it again today, and it didn't hurt at all :D Totally pain-free! Gonna ease into it though, take it slow. Don't wanna get injured again, pole-breaks always messes up my pole-mojo.

I'm back!

I'm seriously never going on a roadtrip again! I get motion-sick so easy, so all I can do is stare out the front of the car the whole trip. Only exceptions are when I'm sleeping, and then I wake up with a hurting neck and an arm asleep, prickling and tickling for the next 5 minutes. Also, it was expensive and tiring, and if you thought living in a suitcase is stressfull, try living in a car. A good thing though was that I was so tired at the end of the day, so when we checked into the hotel I fell asleep right away. I've never had such a good sleeping-pattern my whole damn life!

But I didn't come here to discuss the ups and downs of roadtrips of course. The instructors-course was a blast! I've learned so much, about pole, about teaching, about myself... I think I'm still trying to process it all, it was so much info over such short amount of time.

I'll have to post a serious article or something about this later. Something that still get all of my impressions and points covered, but still neatly enough that people hopefully will care to read. We went through so many things, I might have to split the post into two parts.

Hopefully it will be done by the end of the week.

Snapshot of the group ^^