The stages of learning

When I was a teen I would try to cook by following recipes and measuring my ingredients with teaspoons and my mom would look over my shoulder and scold me. "You don't have to measure everything! It's not an exact science!" This would just annoy me, and I don't want to overanalyse and say it's why I ended up going through most of my life not cooking, but that's what happened.

I've been reading a book about agile software development because I'm totally not a nerd at all, and the author makes lots of references to ShuHaRi, the stages of learning (from a martial arts perspective, but applicable to software development and aerial acrobatics and everything else).
Shu: Beginner, "obey." Rigid conformity to rules.
Ha: Intermediate, "digress." Coming into your own.
Ri: Master, "transcend." You don't need the rules. You are making the rules.

This reminded me of my own journeys in silks (as a student) and pole (as a teacher). Most of my silks career has been spent in Shu. I like someone to tell me the exact sequence of moves to perform. The steps to a move, the moves in a combo, the combos in a routine. My training partner once tried to make me improvise, and even after so many years of having trained in silks, I was like, "Um, no. Just no."

On the other hand, I've spent most of my pole career in some form of advanced stage--not because I'm that great, but because I've been doing it since before there were so many masters like we have today, and what "advanced" means has truly evolved. (Anyone who's been in the industry for more than a couple years knows exactly what I mean.) I was so used to improvising and inventing my own moves that performing a step-by-step routine choreographed by someone else seemed, well, naive.

And yet I quickly became a teacher, and being a teacher, especially in such a young, growing art form, means teaching beginners. And while I always tried to instill the fundamentals of improvisation and making a move your own, beginners like routines. They like step-by-step instructions. They like do's and don'ts, sequenced information, and, when you come down to it, a way to evaluate whether or not they're "doing it right."

It's easy for the advanced artists who often become teachers to scoff at the beginner's lust for rigidity. But we have to respect the fact that someone who doesn't know the difference between cinnamon and cumin doesn't know how to "eyeball it." Not in cooking and not in dancing. It takes time for the feel to develop of what is the right and wrong pose and pace. And it takes much, much longer to understand when "right" and "wrong" and nothing of the sort.

Hence you have advanced polers who feel condescended to by teachers who try to get them to conform to routines, and beginners who get awkward fits of the giggles when asked to improvise. And both teachers and students who are convinced that one or the other way is "right." When, in reality, it's not the method that's right or wrong, it's the time.

Am I saying that beginners should always follow step-by-step instructions and advanced artists should always pave their own ways? Well, no. Maybe if I had been guided towards creativity when I was a beginner silks student, improvising wouldn't have felt so awkward when I was more advanced. I might not ask less experienced students to improvise a routine, but I do try to guide them in finding and embracing their own touches. And on the other hand, advanced dancers can benefit from experimenting with someone else's choreography. Learning another dancer's vocabulary can break you out of the rut of always falling into the same transitions and sequences.

Whatever your personal preference, it's about respecting what others need at this moment in their journey. Teachers who are driven by individuality should understand that beginners need more granular benchmarks to measure their progress. Teachers who prefer to have all their ducks in a row should understand that advanced artists often have a good idea of what works for their bodies and what is uncomfortable or awkward. And while a student should respect a teacher's progression, a good teacher must respect where the student is today.

Photo from CaptionSearch.com. Hope no one takes offense--I know most of us aren't strippers, but I thought you'd get a laugh out of it!

Facility Review: Dillon's Russian Steam Bath, Chelsea MA

I've mostly frequented Korean Spas before, like Spa Castle and King Spa. But know what? THERE IS NO KOREAN MEGA-SPA IN THE BOSTON AREA. Wtf? Business opportunity, someone!! Fortunately, North of Boston, and conveniently on my train line, there is a Russian spa. Or, a "bath," actually. I knew some guys who had been (no women), and I had tried in vain to get girlfriends to go with me, so I finally gave up and went by myself.

Good things to know:

1. This place has been here since 1885. !!! I love New England.
2. It's not big enough to have separate areas for men and women, so they have "Ladies' Night" every Monday where no men are allowed, and the rest of the time it's men only.

I'd never technically been to a Russian Bath before, but I had been to bath houses in Budapest, so, close enough?

After work last Monday I made my way to Dillon's. It's not a glamorous neighborhood/walk from the train, and the building facade is no different. If I were a random passer-by I might think it looked sketchy, but I was not. I was a steam-seeker.

So I find the building no problem and can't figure out which door is the entrance. (Are we noticing a theme, here?) So I called the number on the sign and explained my predicament and a nice lady told me which door to go to. For anyone following in my footsteps: in the parking lot with the doors, it's the door on your LEFT with the doorbell and the handle, not the door on your right or the door upstairs.

Since I had made so clear that it was my first time, the receptionist, whose name was Madeleine, explained everything to me. I paid something like $17 for entry and $8 for a platza (more on that later) and recieved a towel, shoes, and locker key. Oh--and I asked Madeleine whether most people went naked or wore bikinis (I had brought one just in case), and she said: naked, but you should do what made you comfortable.

She was right--the entire night I think I saw all of 1 person in a bikini bottom. Everyone else was some variation of towel or nothing. Oh, and don't expect to hear a lot of Russian here--the majority of voices I heard were layered in a thick Boston accent.

I was a bit of an early comer, so I got to look around in peace. There was a pretty large lounge area with a big TV and snacks, a locker room area ("room" is a generous term--it was more of a locker corner), a steam room, a dry sauna, and a shower area.

The steam room was great--when it was hot, it was HOT. It was so hot that there was a cold shower IN the steam room. That was a new feature to me, and very neat. No need to kill your buzz by leaving the room when you're getting too warm!

The sauna is where people would sit and chat. It was also pretty hot, but tolerable. The sauna is also where the platza service was.

So, the platza, which they pronounced "plah-tsee" or "play-tsee," is a treatment where you're brushed and beaten with a thick cluster of soapy oak leaves. I had heard that it was pretty nice, and I figured it was just the sort of thing to try, like when am I gonna have a chance to be beaten by oak leaves again?

I indicated to Paula, the platza lady, when I was ready, and we went into the sauna where she showed me a raised table to lay down on. So here's the thing--it's right out in front of EVERYBODY! Like, it's not like a normal spa where they take you to a partitioned-off area. The sauna is full of people and they're basically sitting facing you while you're laying naked on the table. Not for the shy!!

So the platza lady asked if I wanted the table cooled off with cold water before she started, and I said no, but once she started the water from the leaf bunch was like burning my butt for some reason, so she had to douse the table under my butt off with water and then I was fine after that. They put a damp washcloth over your eyes (she kept pointing out that it was scented with lavender essential oil but I couldn't really smell it) so you don't get soap in your eyes. Then they brush up and down your body with the leaves, which have been dunked in soap water. The bushel kind of looks like a giant kabuki brush--short thick handle (needs to be held by both hands) and big wide poof of leaves. So after they brush you down, then they basically hit you with it. Then you roll over on your stomach and the process repeats. Then they throw a bucket of cold water over you. Even though I knew that was part of the treatment, it basically came with no warning, so it was pretty hilarious. And it was the best part, because you're so hot at that point.

The table was littered with fragments of oak leaves, and so was my skin. I kept finding them trailing off me as I walked around and I tried to make a joke about how I was "LITERALLY exfoliating" but nobody got it. :(

A couple other people got platzas after me--a regular and her visiting friend, who were the only people I was able to really get into conversation with. (The friend was from Idaho and told me that when I go I HAVE to go to "The Lavas" hot springs and I'm like, done!)

It was really cute because almost everyone there is a regular and they had like boxes of toiletries and products--like, facial masks, body oils, all that nice girlie stuff--and I think they just kept their stuff there. That makes it seem really fun, like not just go for a sweat but have a whole beauty day of it. 'Cause really, who has time to do that stuff at home?

I hung out for a few hours because of the awkward train schedule. I probably could have left an hour, half hour earlier, but I made the best of it, reading in the lounge when I was tired of being hot.

Anyways, they kept trying to get me to become a regular, and I don't think I would dedicate a whole night a week to relaxing, but I'd go back if I were sore from training or if friends wanted to go. They have facials, massage, waxing... I dunno, the oak leaves thing might have been a one-time experiment for me. But it was pretty nice; don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

STATS:
Dillon's Russian Steam Bath, Chelsea, MA
Amenities: Steam room, dry sauna, locker room, showers, lounge. Platza, massages, and waxing available at extra cost.
Drop-in Price: I believe it was $17 for ladies' night, though the site says $23 which must be for men.

Studio Review: Esh Aerial Arts, Cambridge MA

Esh. Trevor on the floor, students milling about.

I've done silks for many years, but on a sporadic, on-and-off basis. Most recently I had my own rig at my last place in Chicagoland, but since I moved to MA I haven't found a place to set up (nor really had time, as I was both working and studying full-time this past year). So I really hadn't been on the silks since last summer. There's not really a circus school that's conveniently-enough located to me without a car (I'll get one eventually...), so I wasn't about to start frequenting anywhere locally. And I wanted a chance to review my skills (after the better part of the year off) before showing up for open training somewhere.

The perfect opportunity presented itself in the form of a silks workshop focusing on drops. I hadn't had room to do drops at my place in Chicago (just saltos and the wimpiest slack drops you've ever seen), so it was material I needed a review on anyways. And the only prerequisite was being able to do a "star drop," or a 3/4 side rotational drop as I knew it from my beginnings at Firefly/NYCAA/Circus Warehouse, so I figured it wouldn't matter that I was rusty. Either there would be some new material I'd never learned, or it would be all review and I'd just be a rockstar.

I was confused in registering because I never got a confirmation email--Esh doesn't use Mindbody but something called Zenplanner that I've never heard of? Anyone else use this? So I wasn't totally convinced that my registration went through (long story but I once registered for a marathon and got a confirmation screen but never the emails and found out like a week before the race that my registration hadn't gone through and I was SO MAD AND SAD and had to scramble to find another race in another city to expend my 4 months of training on, the upside being that Lisbon was lovely), but I checked my bank account the night before and the $50 had been deducted from my account, so I figured all was well.

The class was yesterday afternoon, and I arrived somewhat flustered because I hadn't been able to find the entrance to the school. There was no sign, I found the address but the door was unmarked so I thought I must have the wrong entrance, and there were buzzers but only 2 were marked and none said Esh. Pacing up and down the block, I went on their website in hopes of calling the front desk for directions, but neither their website nor google listed a phone number. Fortunately a lady at another local business told me which entrance to use and the door turned out not to be locked, and I was able to finagle my way to the studio's room. It wasn't obvious though, so leave extra time!

Being used to bigger spaces like the Brooklyn Lyceum and STREB, I was surprised how small Esh was. It was 2 rooms that were pretty average-sized, but with ceilings just high enough to do big drops from. One of the rooms had a boisterous class of people doing some sort of acro-balance and laughing like they were having the time of their lives, and the other was quiet and mostly empty with a pair or two of silks released from the ceiling. I was greeted by someone who was one of the studio managers or owners or something, and by the time I finished getting dressed the other workshop participants were starting to straggle in and stretch on the floor. Everyone was quiet and not talking and I felt disappointed that the atmosphere wasn't friendlier (like pole studios, circus spaces are intimidating to visit for the first time), but things warmed up quickly once we got to introductions.
The instructor was Trevor, who had trained at New York Circus Arts Academy around the same time as me, but had gone on to the pro track at NECCA while I went on to focus on my poling. So we knew a lot of the same people and drops, and fortunately for me he was able to translate terminology into something I would understand (circus move names are even more nebulous than pole move names).

Trevor gave us a handout of the moves we may or may not have been learning (we had a list of possibilities and chose from it based on our levels and what people wanted to learn) so that we could take notes, but of course I didn't because I suck about taking notes and I think I lost the handout anyways. There were 6 participants and we released one set of silks for each, but the rule was that only 3 people could do a move at a time so that the instructor could keep an eye out. Also, the ceiling was higher on one end of the room, so for bigger drops we could only use the silks on that side anyways. So while we had 6 silks open, only 3 were usually active past warmup climbs.

Trevor's teaching template was to fully explain a move, then demo it, then answer questions about it, then let us try. We also had to check in with him before throwing a drop, and like everywhere I made him say "3-2-1" before every throw so I wouldn't chicken out.

There was a good mix of drops I knew and drops I didn't. I even volunteered to demonstrate one that he called a "New York slack drop" because of what a staple it is in the NYC circus school scene. I found the other students (who had mostly been studying a couple years) to be supportive and eager to try new things, even when they were complicated or scary-looking.

Despite being small, Esh was still a fun place to spend a weekend afternoon, and I was able to leave feeling accomplished, happy, and just the right amount of sore and tired. However, the class ended at 4:30, and the train schedules being what they are I didn't get home until after 8. Sure, that gave me some quality shopping time at Downtown Crossings while awaiting the next commuter rail, but don't expect to see me there too often.

Oh, and because I know my readership is mostly pole people: Esh sometimes has classes in swinging pole. No, I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but sounds intriguing, huh?

Stats:

Esh Aerial Arts
Equipment: Didn't count everything--there were at least 6 sets of silks, some trapezes and stuff, a swinging pole...
Amenities: 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms, changing stall, some sort of changing room-type situation
Drop-in price: $30 for aerial stuff, $20 for ground stuff (the workshop was $50 for 2 hours)

Facility Review: Chung Dam Spa, Cheltenham PA

Part of my time in Philadelphia I spent hanging out with my old circus teacher Cypher (see Masterclass with Cypher Zero). It was coincidence that we were in town at the same time. So we did typical circus stuff: training at an aerial space, consuming many calories, and hitting the spa.

Cypher wanted to check out Chung Dam Spa, a smaller Korean spa outside Philadelphia. So we headed there the Saturday afternoon before I came home. As with the last time I went to a Korean spa (see Facility Review: King Spa, Chicago), I was having a Very Bad Day, and a couple of hot tubs sounded like a good idea.

Chung Dam was way smaller and less impressive than King Spa or Spa Castle, but we weren't there to be impressed, we were there to relax and restore.

Be forewarned: unlike the larger spas, almost everything here is gender-segregated. Only the salt room and lounge are coed. So, it's not a great place to go and spend time with a member of the opposite sex. Also: we were both given a set of towels, but only the ladies get bathrobes. (The locker rooms had baskets of the typical Korean spa uniforms that you could wear into the common area.)

Here's a weird thing: as in other places, there's an area to take off and store your shoes before you go into the main locker room. But the shoe storage was just cubby holes, not lockers. So there was a sign up next to them advising against leaving your shoes unattended. Uhhhh, so that's why there are shoe cubbies right at the area where you're supposed to remove your shoes? (True story: I had a pair of sandals stolen from the NYSC locker room once. They weren't even nice. WTF?)

So once you get dressed or undressed, there are showers that you are required to take before using the hot tubs/not hot tubs.

The big question everyone has: Do you HAVE to be naked? I'm going to go with a yes-I-think for the hot tubs. There was a sign that said you could not even wear a bathing suit in the "lower body tub." But only one of the three tubs was labeled "lower body tub." I'm going to assume they meant all 3 tubs, because they were all about the same size, so what's the difference?

In the hot tub another American woman struck up a conversation with me. It was her second time and she was there for the salt scrub (a typical treatment in Korean spas), and she looked at me like I had 2 heads when I said I wasn't getting one. Side note: I cannot relate to people who talk about massages and spa pedicures and scrubs saying things like "It's ONLY $60 and it's SO WORTH IT it's like for 2 hours." As a person who's been broke and busy for most of my adult life, neither spending $60 on recreation nor laying around doing nothing for 2 hours sounds appealing. I don't even like the time and money investment in mani-pedis. I'd much rather get my eyebrows threaded. You're in you're out, here's $8, I look good.

The tub that was labeled "lower body tub" was not hot at all. Lukewarm. No one was in it. The third tub was a cold one with a stream of water dropping into the middle so you could give yourself a nice shoulder massage under it.

After that I went into the coed area to touch base with Cypher. The lounge was nothing special, although the recliner I ended up in was comfy. There were muscle magazines with frighteningly veiny men on them. NOT RELAXING.

What was cool was the salt room. I'd been in salt rooms before, but none that had A GIANT PILE OF SALT IN THEM.

I wasn't totally sure what to do with it. I tried rubbing it on my skin, but that didn't feel like anything special. I figured it was too hot to bury yourself in. (It was a salt sauna, not just a regular room with salt on the floor.) I settled for sitting on the bench and digging my feet into it. Later, when I looked through the window and saw other people in there, I saw them laying down in it. I guess that's what you're supposed to do? Anyways, it reminded me of being in Bolivia.

Finally, it was time to check out all the other saunas. These were back in the gender-separated areas, so you could be naked if you wanted, but not everyone was. Some people wore their robes, some wore their uniforms. If you're gonna be naked though, you should probably lay on a towel. That's why they give you like 3 towels.

The "hot clay with charcoal room" was pretty nice and smelled good. The "warm granite room" was super lame. It was supposed to be 98 degrees but it didn't even feel warm enough to be a summer day. I was like, "Is this thing on?" No one else was in there either, so I guess they agreed with me. Or it really wasn't on.

There was a steam room that according to the website is supposed to be "mugwort" but it seemed pretty normal to me. Still nice though. Steam rooms are my favorite.

There was also a regular sauna, which always seems wasted in a Korean spa. It's like "WE HAVE 10 KINDS OF SAUNAS and also a normal one."

All in all, it's not a mega-spa, and it's probably more worth it if you're getting a salt scrub (the $20 entry fee is included for that). But it's clean, cozy, and a nice place to relax if you're in the area.

Chung Dam photo from chungdamspa.com
Photo of me by Cypher Zero

Snark is bullying.

As with many feminist-tinged communities, polers are apt to speak out against bullying. The power to love and accept your body as it is is a defining tenant of pole for some people, and as cattiness and intimidation is as rampant as it is in any female-dominated industry, taking a stand against such behavior is smiled upon.

What startles me is that the same people who say they are pro-supportiveness and anti-bullying will use social media to say, or, more passive-aggressively, retweet and share mean-spirited comments and captions under the guise of humor.

What's the god-damn difference?

Is it "ok" because it's funny? You think bullies don't think they're being funny? They think they're fucking hilarious. They're not name-calling and teasing to be jerks, they're doing it to get laughs. Any stand-up comic can tell you that nothing feels as powerful as making people laugh.

Is it "ok" because you're shaming a faceless group of people instead of shaming a specific person? I guess that makes racism, misogyny, and prejudice against all kinds of people "ok."

Is it "ok" because you're doing it out in the open and not behind someone's back? Well, when your victim reads your snark and has their feelings hurt, they can take solace in the fact that you're humiliating them in public.

I think I have a sense of humor. I use sarcasm, irony, wordplay, self-deprecation, and I think I'm clumsy enough to add slapstick to the list. And as you can plainly read in the pages of this blog, I have opinions and am not shy about expressing them. But I really do try to stop and think about how my words will be taken. Maybe that's more practical than big-hearted of me. I'm not famous or popular and I can't afford to make enemies. But I'm not going to try and get popular by putting people down for a few yuks, either.

I've come out against this kind of bullying before (see Four Things Women need to Stop Doing to Each Other and Stop Skinny-Bashing), but I was probably too specific. Let me open it up.

I don't always wear nice shoes. I accidentally write your instead of you're. Oh, and I sometimes use emoticons. ;) If making fun of me for these things and getting likes and lols makes you happy, well, I guess it's wrong of someone's happiness to make me sad, but... that's kind of sad.

And if you wear leggings for pants, you can still be my friend.

Studio Review: Philly Premier Pole Studio

I'm in Philly on music business for a few weeks. Since I finally have immediate access to urban public transportation for a bit (no commuter rail for me!) I thought I'd take the opportunity to get out and pole a bit.

Philly Premier Pole Studio was the place I really wanted to check out, partly because they were on my trolley line, and also because they accept male students (not into all classes, but the non-sexy ones). I like to support equal-opportunity studios when I have the chance, and anyways I like training with guys. Plus they had an interesting line-up of classes. There was one called "Modern Pole Dance." the blurb on their website reads:

This class is designed to in corporate the modern styles of Horton & Graham to the aerial performance of Pole. In this class we will learn to think of pole as a tool to take dance to the next level.      

I don't know who Horton & Graham are, but "aerial performance" and "the next level" lead me to believe that it would be the most advanced class, so I signed up for it. If nothing else, whoever was leading the class/wrote the description had a vision for what they wanted it to be, so it would be different. 

Tuesday night I made my way into Philly Premier Pole Studio, and the first thing to hit me was the smell. There was a conditioning class finishing up, and the stuffy room reeked of sweat. You might be saying to yourself, "ewwwww, sweat!" or "oh good, sweat!" and which of those rolls off our tongue probably says a lot about what kind of pole studio you belong in. For me, it's not ambrosia but I know I have to adapt to it if I want a good workout.

I arrived early, and nobody was all jumping up to talk to me, so I butted my way into a few conversations and met some nice people. Since I am self-trained, I mostly go "out" to pole for social purposes.

One of the first things I noticed about the equipment was that they had a handful of brass poles. Most studios economize by going for chrome or stainless steel, so brass is a rare luxury. You could tell from looking, though, that the poles weren't brass due to any splurge, but because they were old school. The studio has been around since before mass-produced dance poles were a big business, so they had homemade, stripper-style (50mm, brass, static) poles. The rest of the poles were chrome X-Poles. 

The class itself was SO not what I expected. It was more like a ballet class for polers. We did all the ballet positions, and pliés, and across-the-floor spins both with and without the pole. 

Now, you may not know (or believe) this about me, but I have ballet experience. I took musical theatre-major ballet, tap, & jazz in college, then tried to keep up ballet & jazz after graduation. I gave up on ballet within a year, realizing that my body was better suited to jazz, and eventually let my half-hearted attempts at intermediate jazz trickle off after a few years, admitting to myself that I just wasn't a good dancer. (I have good rhythm & energy, but lack basic skills like staying upright and touching my toes.) So even though I suck at ballet, I know how ballet class works.

The thing about taking ballet as an adult who didn't grow up with it is that there's not really room for true remedial dancers. Even "beginner" classes are mostly populated with ladies who did ballet as children and now want to get back into it just for fun. I mean, during my couple years of ballet I managed to remain more or less the worst student in the class. Dance is sort of an old boys' club, and if you're not "born" into it by being inducted by the age of 3, there's never really a place for you.

This is a drawn-out way of saying that taking an ACTUAL remedial ballet class can be really helpful, and it was nice to do my pliés and feel like one of the more experienced students for a change, instead of the class dunce like I always was. 

After we were done playing ballet, we worked on the beginning of a routine. It (and the class in general) was meant as a study in transitions. We didn't do any moves more complicated than a fan kick or a--what do you call a reverse grab spin when you don't throw/grab, but start with both hands on the pole? Well, that sort of thing. (btw, I appreciated that the teacher, Katherine, didn't freak out when I told her I have shoulder problems. Anyone with an injury or physical problems knows what I mean.)

I think the whole chunk we did was only 4 bars, and we learned it slowly. It was like a normal dance class, where you learn what move goes on which beat, and the teacher goes back and shows you the tricky parts again, and you run it in chunks and at the end you run it all the way through a million times.

There must have been 6 students, because when we did Across The Floor we were in lines of 3 and 3. 2 of the students were men, which is a good ratio for pole.

Considering what a short & easy routine it was, we got a hard workout in (or at least I did). The teacher filmed the last round of the routine. (Students could opt out.) I think the idea was to give outsiders an idea of what the class was about, which is s good idea, since I obviously hadn't known. I don't think I got caught in any of the video, since I was in the corner, so don't keep an eye peeled for me on the website or anything.

My one complaint is that we only did the routine on one side. We did it a million times and it was driving me crazy not to be able to "even myself out" by switching sides for a few rounds. 

Even though the class had me winded, my inner pole trixter felt neglected, and when they didn't kick us out at the end I played a bit. Nothing show-offy, just to scratch the pole itch. (I was too sweaty to do most stuff anyways!) Some other students pole played, and some stretched. I got to chat with Katherine and some of the other students a bit. They were really cool and respectful of me as an outsider, which means a lot to me. At the end of the day, whether or not I have fun at your studio has more to do with how nice you are to me than what I learned. That might not sound like a good policy, but tell me it's not true in your book, too.

Generally I don't love group routines in pole, because pole is an individual (or potentially team) art and not an ensemble. But I do think it's good for polers to have a safe place to learn classical technique. There are so few places where you can really do that, and it's so beneficial.

Philly Premier has 16 poles, but some of them are in tight spaces. They apparently have another space with 16 foot poles (!!), but there are only 4 so it doesn't get used for classes regularly. The main pole studio location a few blocks from city hall (and next to Nodding Head brewery where I enjoyed some frosty pints with friends afterwards) is über-convenient. Overall, I'll stick with my nose's initial impression. If you want to sweat, come here. If you want frills & pampering, go somewhere else. 

Stats:

Philly Premier Pole Studio

Equipment: 4 homemade brass 50mm poles, 12 X-Pole chrome 50mm poles

Amenities: some chairs?

Drop-in price: $15

Slow and Steady

For a non-elite poler, I am relatively strong. I've taught conditioning classes, and strength training is something I'm known for as a teacher.

Wanna know what my current gym routine is? 2 sets of pull-ups, 2 sets of bench presses, lots of stretching, and usually some abs. MAYBE a set of shoulder presses if I don't feel like leaving the gym yet. Less than 20 minutes--and most of it spent stretching. And oh yeah: I only go twice a week.

My students will probably feel ripped off to read this. "But Pippi! What about all those conditioning exercises you gave us? You said I had to do 10 reps of that awful exercise 3 times a week! You don't even do them?" Not at the moment. But I did. I did them a lot. I did them a lot over the course of several years. And I will probably take them back up again when I need them.

The thing is, I've been working out for... does the math... 11 years? I've reached a base level of strength that I can maintain without a ton of effort. Sometimes I'll decide I need to be stronger in a certain zone in order to do certain moves, and I'll ramp up effort. But if I have other priorities, I can more or less coast.

Pole (and cirque nouveau) is such a young art form that my 9 years make me somewhat an old timer. (Although plenty have gone before me and paved the way for me and the rest of us.) Most of my students, even very advanced ones, have been training for much less time. I often have to remind them: "I'm not at the level I'm at because I'm something special. It's because I've been doing this for 9 years."

The problem is that "slow and steady" doesn't sell. We all know we're a "gimme now" culture, and that applies to skills as well as to material possessions. (See Training when you don't have enough time.) Plus, there are always outliers you can point to and say "She did it in only 3 months! I should be able to do that too!"

The truth is, I'm really into efficiency. But there is also a place for patience and growth over time.

I always hear/see people say/post "I'm going to get this move by the end of the month!" Goal setting is admirable, but you don't decide when you're going to get a move. You can influence how quickly you're going to get it by how hard and how smart you work, and who and what you consult for help. But ultimately, your body is going to make that decision, and if you try to force it, you'll hurt yourself. (See Are you overtraining?) And if you try to hold to unrealistic goals, you'll frustrate yourself.

I do believe you should work hard. But I also believe it's OK to say "If I practice this move a few times per session regularly, I'll get it eventually."

Finally, don't confuse patience with laziness. The second half of "slow and steady" is "steady." I've been poling for 9 years--consistently. I've been doing silks for almost as long--on and off. I would feel comfortable in any advanced pole class anywhere in the world, but I've never been truly advanced at silks or any other circus art.

Meanwhile, not to be cheesy, but enjoy the journey. Polish what you can already do, and appreciate the movement on an internal level: not because you like hearing the applause or lust after respect from your fellow artists, but because it feels amazing to do it. If you don't feel like Superman when you're doing a superman, you're missing the point.