Instructors course

This weekend I'm attending an instructors course. I'm really looking forward to this, and my body and mind is overwhelmed by all sorts of feelings. As you know I've been coaching a couple of girls for fun, and when people come visit I often get them to try the pole and learn them a few basic spins. People usually love pole and I really like teaching. So I've been playing around with the idea of starting my own studio.

The course is great for other things to. It's gonna be in a real pole studio. This is actually a bit weird to say, but I've never been to a pole-studio. I've never even touched a pole other than my own. So I'm really looking forward to this. A new experience. More poles. And taller poles! My ceiling is so freaking low I hate it.

This is Drammen Pole Fitness Studio where the course is held

And I'm a little scared to. I'm worried that the other girls are all gonna be like, expert level, shoulder-mounting and iron x-ing all over the place and I'll be left out as the newbie amateur that's never even gone to classes. If that's the case it's luckily just for the weekend.
On the other side I'm happy that I'll be spending my time with girls who shares my passion. Sometimes I feel a little lonely when poleing. I don't have pole-friends who geeks over the trendy move atm, shorts and heels, pole-idols or that can do doubles with me. So it's gonna be great to spend a whole weekend with people that shares my love for pole.

I think this is really gonna help me. We are gonna learn about warm-ups, stretching, technique, grips, damage prevention, spotting, what to teach at the different levels and so on. It will be great for me at least, since I've never attended classes and have basically no clue to what I'm actually doing. Or, of course I've got a clue, I can poledance so I've done something right. But it'll be good to learn how a full workout should be, and whats appropriate to learn when.

Overall I'm pretty much excited. I've been looking forward to this for so long time now, and even if I don't get a studio up and running right away (or ever) it's not gonna be a waste of time and money. The things I'll learn I'm pretty sure is gonna get to good use during my own pole journey. I cant lose one this.

Finally something new to show

Since I've started teaching the girls, I've gotten better at practicing regularly myself. When the girls come over I want them to have as much fun as possible, so I work out an hour or two before they arrive so the pole is warmed up and ready to go. And today it really paid off! I've been stuck practicing leg-hangs for a couple of weeks now, which is fine cause I need to perfect them. But after a while it get's boring to just do the same thing over and over, so today I wanted to try something new.

I tried brass monkey, which I got at my first attempt! Or kinda, it needs a lot of work before I would call it a good brass monkey. And then.... That effing butterfly. It's been bothering me for a while now, I've just never found the proper way to get into it, and every time I thought I had it I got stunned by fear and couldn't let my leg go. But I watched a video where a girl went from gemini into butterfly, tried it myself and it was just ridiculous how easy it actually was.... Here I've been the whole time, perfecting my leg-hangs and struggeling with my butterfly, and this was the solution the whole time? REALLY?! But of course I'm happy I finally "cracked the code" and got it! The moves needs a lot of work, but at least it's a start.

Then the girls came over and we got a lot done today! They're starting to get really good at sitting and climbing, so I decided to teach them the hangback with bridge and inverting. And they did sooooo good! Very proud of how much we did today, they're really getting somewhere!

June in hangback bridge & inverted

And even more pole-stuff happened today! We have decided that June and Maria are going to practice regularly with me, and tomorrow I have another girl coming over for a try. It's almost starting to get a little out of hand, if the new girl want's to continue training and she also needs to come regularly I'm getting a lot of busy evenings. I also see a lot of other people who want's to try pole, but I can't take them all. 

Soooooooo I emailed the only woman in Norway who has instructor-lessons. Like, you get a license and everything if you pass the exam at the end of the lessons. I want to start my own studio when I get good enough, and the next instructor-program is in August, so I emailed her some questions about the program and if everything goes as planned I'm signing up!

Had some girls over!

It's kinda random how all this happened.

I had met this girl once before, and started reading her blog, and the other day she published her bucket-list. And one of the things on the list was to learn poledance.

So I thought about it for a while. I really want someone to practice with, to dance with, to learn with, to talk and obsess over pole with. Just someone to share my hobby and passion with. I couldn't really see any problems or downsides to invite her over for a try, so I contacted her on facebook and asked her if she wanted to come over and try. And so she did, and she also brought a friend along.

I was really worried that they wouldn't like it. Maybe the pole would just be super-slippery, and we wouldn't get anything properly done. Or if they had applied body-lotion, or had way to dry skin. Or if they would feel like they didn't do any good and get discouraged. Or if they felt uncomfortable with exposing their skin, or if I turned out to be a bad instructor, and they never understood anything I tried to explain, or something.

Maria in angel-pose

But that didn't happen! They we're surprised over the amount of strength it takes to just do regular spins, but over all they seemed to enjoy it and they said they had a lot of fun, so we agreed that they would come back on tuesday. I'm really excited about this, I finally have someone to share share all this stuff with!

It was also a lot of fun to play instructor for a day, I really like teaching. What's a little challenging about poledance is that everyone have different preconditions, and therefore the workouts needs to be adapted to each individual. The girls didn't have much arm strength, so most of the spins I had planned out teaching them got thrown away. For now at least. I really wanted to make this as fun for them as possible, so instead for making them struggle with spins they don't have the muscles to do, we focused on things that requires engaged legs. Taught them some different variations of fireman, how to climb, how to sit, front-hook spin and angel spin, and one of the girls even inverted into crucifix!

Next time we're mostly just gonna practice the same moves they learned last time. Since the basic moves builds the foundation for the next levels I want them to perfect the moves a little more before we move on. If they do very good I think we might try out hangback and layback from the sitting position, and maybe some more inverting, since it's fun and strengthens the core-muscles.