In a post from earlier this year I said this year I was going to become the best pole dancer I could be in 2012 and that I was going to strive to achieve a multitude of milestones with skills and flexibility.
The best laid plans, huh?!
The best part of three months ago, I sustained a shoulder injury and have been away from pole for most of this time. I also made a promise to my body at the beginning of this year to do right by it and so instead of being stubborn and pushing through potentially making the injury worse, I stopped, started physio and rehab. When the injury happened I thought, great – I have a body that is stronger, leaner and more flexible than ever before and now I'm risking relapsing back to the old Em who loved her lounge, her pyjamas, her Foxtel and her Paddle Pops. I was scared to say the least, but I told myself there was no reason to regress to my former debaucherous lifestyle of snuggledome – I was a new person with the knowledge, skills and willpower of a fit person who loved all exercise…or so I thought.
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| This is pretty much how I felt after stopping pole. The break was good for my shoulder, not so good for my soul! |
So, even though I couldn’t move my right arm and wasn’t permitted to perform any repetitious actions with it, I signed up to my local gym and started going every weeknight to work on my cardio fitness and toning my lower body. The treadmill, cycle and elliptical machines were good, even though I looked like I had a stroke with one arm glued immobile to the side of my body, and lunges, squats and legs presses all became part of my regime. I also used my home pole to keep up my reverse curls, touch downs and other core conditioning exercises a few times a week. As physio progressed and my arm started to heal and regain mobility, I integrated light weights to a targeted upper body routine. I also monitored my diet even more strictly than even while I was still at pole – I was so hyper-aware of becoming like Gilbert Grape’s mother that I was all about vegies, protein and almost zero sugar.
As the weeks went by, I started getting bored with a capital ‘B’. The same walk to the gym in the cold, the same fight for the machines, seeing the same sweaty, desperate faces of the drones clothed head to toe in saggy grey marl workout clothes and the same shitty line up on those annoying little TV screens (5.30pm Millionaire Hot Seat, 6pm News, 6.30pm A Current Affair, 7pm The Project. Seriously. Don’t get me started on the crud people settle for on network TV).
I started to make excuses for not going – ‘I better give myself a recovery day’, ‘I think I have a headache coming on’, ‘I have to clean the house or it will fall down’, ‘I have my period for the fourth time this month’ – and because I wasn’t having any fun, I had to wonder - why I was pushing myself to do it?
Being a true believer in the notion that you only get one life and, therefore, once chance to be happy and content with every choice you make, I have a real problem with wasting time on things that make me bored or unhappy. Not seeing my family to go to pole most nights was not an issue because I just loved pole – I would look forward to it throughout the day and have a ball when I was there, no matter what I was doing – but missing out on family time, relaxing time, errand time and, sleeping time to go and run on a treadmill just so I didn’t get a pot belly was something I just couldn’t seem justify.
And despite my commitment to this new pole-less fitness regime and diet of mine, although I hadn’t gained any weight per se, I had started to feel extremely…heavy. My clothes started fitting differently, bits felt more prominent in the shower and I started becoming aware of an all-too-familiar feeling of discomfort when I was in tight clothes or if my partner touched my thighs or belly. My body was changing. It wasn’t drastic or perhaps even visible to anyone else, but it certainly was to me and, let me tell you, I didn’t like it. Having said that, this wasn’t enough to make me excited about the gym or motivated to undertake conventional workouts. I didn’t want to get ‘fat’ but I really didn’t want to be bored and that part of me kind of won.
I have come to the conclusion from this whole experience that nothing – NOTHING – shapes the body like pole dance does, not in the same way. It’s not about trying to lose weight loss or about being superbly muscle-y, but there is just a general sculpting that pole affords the body in the most complete way. For example, we might think we’re not using our legs that much in class or perhaps that we’re not sweating as much as we would in a pump class, but for that one hour our bodies are firing on all cylinders HTT (that’s Tyra Banks speak for ‘head-to-toe’).
The results are a flat stomach from our core engaging, smooth hips from recruiting the obliques, minimal back-fat from working through our lats, lifted butt from squeezing in every move, toned thighs and calves from pulling up and extending in everything. Even when out feet are on the floor we’re switched on and THAT is why most pole dancers have that certain look that we all want to achieve.
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| I Can. |
It’s so good to be back. I have missed the team, the dear students and the energy of Studio Verve. I am so encouraged and inspired by everyone, especially how strong my former students are, and all the amazing things that are happening.
This has been my longest hiatus from pole since I started at Verve five and a half years ago and during this time I’ve gained a lot of perspective and I’ve remembered why I love it so much and how much it feeds me personally. Pole has truly become part of who I am, almost like I was always meant to do it J My body feels abnormal when it’s been off a pole for any length of time and nothing equates.
I’ve heard a lot of people use the term ‘pole addict’, but I prefer ‘pole lover’. And I guess it is kind of like true love – it has taught me so much about myself and even though I've dabbled in other forms of fitness, nothing can ever compare to the real thing.
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