I have silks!

Finally, after six years of recreational tissuing, I have my own set of silks!

Why didn't I have them before? Well, two main reasons. First was that, since I started circus, I lived in a tiny Manhattan apartment. I didn't have room for both pole and silks. Pole works better (not optimal, but better) with a standard-height ceiling than silks do, and pole is my primary apparatus anyway.

Secondly, I had no shortage of training opportunities in New York. There were both session and drop-in classes every day of the week, and even when I couldn't afford classes (most of the time), finding training space was easy. The Skybox, Streb, and Circus Warehouse were all easy to get to and affordable for open workouts or silks rental, and I had people who I did pole-silks exchange with.

It's different where I am now. The couple of places to train, which I'm sure are all great, are really far away from me. Aside from my pole teaching and some small-time music and writing gigs, I'm basically an unemployed grad student, so there's no way I can afford classes. And anyways, now that I'm living it up in suburbia, I have more space. Not a luxurious amount, but coming from the Upper West Side, it feels staggering.

Plus, my students have been begging me to teach them. I've even had a local pole studio ask me to teach silks classes for them.

So I finally used my tax refund to buy my own set of silks. My dad's a skilled engineer, and he and I carefully weighed all our rigging options. We came up with something that allows a decent amount of space and height, and excellent safety. I'm gonna experiment with it for another week or so to make sure I like it. So far, so good!

So I've been re-training myself. I've actually been going with the extremely basic building blocks so far. Unlike with pole, I didn't originally train in silks in order to teach, so now I have to look at everything again from a pedagogical perspective. What's the clearest way to explain this? What mistakes are students likely to make? How do you bail out of this if something goes wrong? (My students laugh that when I teach them a difficult new move I usually start by teaching them what I call "the bail.") So I'm revisiting things that I normally do without thinking, and thinking very hard about them. Which, honestly, I love.

The silks I got are really wide, so it's an intense hand workout, but doesn't pinch the body too much. Not too stretchy. I do have a swivel (whee). They're far enough away from the pole that the two can live in harmony.

So I'll be busy playing on that for the next few weeks, getting my silks mojo back and developing a pedagogy. Hope to see you all in the studio soon!

Studio Review: Tiger Lily Vertical Fitness & Dance, Geneva IL

Tiger Lily was the first pole studio I visited when I moved to Chicago. I mean, it's one of the first anythings I visited. I was right off the boat, and a local poler I'd been corresponding with tipped me off to their grand opening party, and invited me to meet up there. I didn't know anyone or anything about the local pole or aerial scenes, so this was my introduction.

Last night, over six months later, I went back for open pole. I'd been wanting to go for ages! They kept mentioning their Open Poles on Facebook, and it just kept not working out for me. Mostly because, as a severely underemployed grad student, I just didn't have the $20 (for non-Tiger Lily students). But I sincerely did want to go. I love my Platinum Stages brass convertible, but my space is just too tight for some of the things I need to do. I need to do hard climbs (shoulder inversion climbs, no-feet climbs, inverted climbs) to train my muscles, and I need height to climb. I mean, I can jump to the top of my damn pole at home. Plus, as an independent poler, I am pretty isolated, and I like to get out and meet people. And sometimes it's nice to train when other people are looking, 'cause then you have to make an effort to look good and not just drag your feet!

So I signed up for Open Pole online the night before. I got an email from Sarah, one of the co-owners (whom I've met several times in person--actually she took my conditioning class once, she's strong!), telling me the class was moved an hour later (and of course offering me a refund it that wasn't OK). That was fine, as Geneva is not that close to me, so I got to take the extra time to digest dinner before jumping around like a poling maniac.

The door was actually locked when I got there (they let me in when they saw me standing there looking confused though). Turns out I was the only Open Pole student, and there was a photo shoot going on before my class. I was disappointed that it wouldn't be a more social workout, and probably would have cancelled if I'd known it was going to be just me. But at least I got to hang out with Caroline, the other owner, who I hadn't gotten to really talk to much yet. She's cool, I like her!

Tiger Lily is not a huge studio, and while they do fall back on hot pink, they use it in much tamer quantities than other studios, alternating it with easier-to-digest shades of lilac. So we can forgive them that.

The dressing room--I'm not sure if that was their usual dressing room or if the photo shoot people were in the usual dressing room. Anyways, it was small but cute, I think it had a fainting couch or something. And it's OK that it's small because they only have one pole room, and there are only 8 student poles, and they only do one-to-a-pole classes, so there's not gonna be more than eight people needing to get dressed at the same time anyways.

The pole room is very simple, with nine poles--8 for the students and one for the teacher--reaching close to 10 feet high (they weren't able to give me an exact height measure so we were estimating). The really cool thing is that the eight student poles are at the front and back of the room, with the teacher pole in the center--not in the front of the class, as in a normal dance class. I think that's brilliant. Not only does each person get an equal view, but pole is a three-dimensional art form. There is a lot of spinning (and unintentional rotating), so you really do need a 360-view. After all, while theaters where traditional dance takes place usually present a two-dimensional, face-front view to the audience, like a TV screen, aerial pole has its origins in strip clubs and circus tents, both of which usually offer seating on all sides of the performer. So it only makes sense that we should perform it that way when we can, or at least teach it that way.

Since there wasn't a class before me, the poles weren't as warmed up/grippy as they might have been. They were stainless steel, and I know people say those are less grippy than brass, but I find that as long as they're warm they are about the same. I picked out the four poles that were the warmest (all towards the center of the room--those must have been the ones they were using for the photo shoot!), and used them for my climbing, and then settled on one towards the front so I could use the mirror.

There was a wall of mirrors, which is always helpful (I like to check to make sure I'm even on things like iron X's and shoulder planks), but there was a ballet bar attached to it that always seemed to be RIGHT in my way. Guess I'll have to practice my power moves aerially next time!

The ceilings are drop ceilings, and the ribbing is on the narrow side, so it's nigh impossible to do any ceiling work. I can usually find a happy place for my feet in a ceiling lay on a drop ceiling, but here no matter what I did I ended up poking through the ceiling.

The sound system was solid. Caroline offered to put my iPod on, but I'm sick of my own music so I let hers run. We didn't play it that loud 'cause we wanted to chat, but I'm sure it can get crazy in there for a dance party.

I don't think they had a shower (correct me if I'm wrong), but they did have a nice bathroom with baskets of complimentary q-tips and tampons for those in need, which I thought was cute! 

Like my last studio review, this was Open Pole, so I can't really say anything about the instruction. Caroline offered to spot me plenty of times though, and asked if I needed help if I even made the slightest grunt. So I guess that's the best "instruction" you can get in a non-instructed class!

I wish I could say something about the clientele, but obviously I can't in this case! Apparently there are usually a few women at Open Pole, but I just came on an off night.

Anyways, Tiger Lily is a smaller place than Flirty Girl and Tease and Rondi's and I think even Bombshell (trying to think of all the studios I've been to in Chicago), but it has a nice feel and friendly instructors. Open Pole is their only drop-in class, which is on Fridays at least once a month (sometimes more), so if you're in the area and looking for a place to practice, definitely check it out!!

STATS:
Tiger Lily Vertical Fitness & Dance
Equipment: 9 10' 50mm permanent poles, Platinum Stages, stainless steel, static-spinning convertible
Amenities: Just the entryway (some merch available) and the pole room, with one or two small dressing rooms
Drop-In Price: $20 for non-students, $10 for students. Open pole is currently the only drop-in class.


Photo from Tiger Lily's Facebook page, because I forgot to take one.

Should aerialists run?

The fitness world is divided into two camps: those who run, and those who don't. Most people are firmly on one side of the fence or another. Although health benefits and drawbacks are often given as reasons, I find it tends to just come down to personal preference. Still, if you are an aerialist considering taking up jogging, you should weigh the pros and cons pretty seriously.

As a pole instructor and four-time marathoner, I find myself in a good position to advise students on their running habits and aspirations. I ran distances for years, and several of those years alongside aerial training, so I've been through it all. Here's what I've learned, first-hand and from observing my classmates and students.

Pro: Running will make you lose weight. As a person who's been through all kinds of diets and exercise throughout my lifetime, my thinnest, leanest body has always coincided with distance jogging. Whenever I take up a running regimen, I lose weight. I can do pole, circus, walking, circuit training, power lifting, and dance classes, but none of these shed the pounds for me like running does. I can diet obsessively and train hard, but I will still be at a much higher body fat percentage than when I am marathon training. In theory, there are many ways to lose weight. In my experience however, on all occasions, running works the best. 

Con: Running will destroy your flexibility. Back when I was a NYCA/Firefly student and running marathons, there were two other marathoners in my class. Whenever we all bent over for hip flexor stretches, the three of us would look at each other and laugh. We were literally the only three people in the class who couldn't get to the floor. This was no coincidence. Running is horrible for your flexibility. If your poling is going to suffer because you can't get a center split, chose another sport.

Pro: Running is amazing for your mental health. Most exercises are full of ups and downs. Aerial acrobatics especially are rife with frustrations. We have good days and bad days. We feel elated when we conquer a new trick, peeved and irritable when we can't. Running, on the other hand, is almost always a mood lifter. You can have fought with your boyfriend, boss, and mom all on the same day, then go for a jog in the park and feel like a million bucks. Really, what's more important than happiness?

Con: Distance running takes up a lot of time. If you are running marathons or half-marathons, you will have days when you are out on the trail two, three, even four hours at a time. If you have a day job and are poling or circusing as a hobby, you are probably already really, really busy. The time and energy spent in the park will likely cut directly into your poling time. This is OK if you are poling as a casual fun thing to do, but if you have set goals for yourself, time spent running might be a considerable setback.

Pro: Endurance. If you're moving your poling from doing a few tricks and sequences to performing an entire routine, you need some serious aerobic and anaerobic endurance. Running is a simple way to achieve that. You might need to do more HIIT than straightforward jogging, to get your heart rate up where it needs to be. But it's good to be able to train yourself to relax and breathe while you're doing strenuous things on the ground, rather than wait 'til your in the air.

Con: The weather. While running is the perfect way to enjoy a beautiful day, a beautiful day is not always what you get. Running in the cold or rain could weaken your immune system, and running under a heat wave isn't good for you either. You don't want to catch cold or have a stroke. On the other hand, restricting your jogging to nice days only is not really a good training plan. Of course there's always the treadmill, but if you are running for any sort of distances, that can be tedious. Hope there's a good Simpsons rerun on the gym TV.

Pro: Running works different muscles than aerial. Because pole and other apparatuses depend mostly on upper body and core strength, running can be an excellent complement. You will be using your quads and glutes a lot, which are relatively neglected when we are swinging around in the air. By running, you can tire out muscles that won't interfere with your poling, and create balance in your body.

Con: Injuries. You won't get as many injuries running as you will in the circus, but it can still happen. Knee complaints are common, and hip, IT band, and foot pain happen to the best of us. While sore glutes shouldn't mess up your aerial work too much, a pulled muscle needs to be rested, period. So it's still possible that running injuries can keep you off of the pole for awhile.

So, my dear aerialist, is running right for you? It depends on your priorities.

Are you overweight? Is your performance inhibited by extra pounds? After all, in aerial acrobatics, we are working with our body weight. Dropping some extra weight is one of the most efficient ways to improve performance, and overall health. And running is, for me and many people I've worked with, the most effective way to lose weight.

Are you training to become a professional performer or elite competitor in the near future? You will have to find some other way to keep thin. You need your flexibility in this profession.

If you decide that jogging is the right choice for you, here are some pointers:

• It doesn't have to be all distances all the time. HIIT is an effective way to lose weight. Although I have to say that it is much more manageable on a treadmill, where you can control your speed. It can be too hard while running in the great outdoors to lose your concentration.
• Stretch like crazy. You can't just stretch like a runner, soothing your calves before and after your workout. You need to stretch like a dancer. It will be time-consuming, but if your flexibility matters to you, you need to do this.
• Get foam rollers and massage balls. I have these "barbells" from Trigger Point Therapy, which work WONDERS on overworked calves.
• See a professional for help with your body. I had an IT band problem cured after one Feldenkreis session. I also visited a studio in NY that works with a lot of aerialists and dancers. Doing things like this is a cash and time investment, but it's important that you keep yourself aligned.
• Go ahead and run a marathon. If you are an aerialist, you are probably already an overachiever. Running a marathon is a good life goal. But you can stop after one. Marathons have excellent marketing, and it's easy to get sucked into trying to beat your "PR" and seeing the world's greatest cities via mass running. That's fine if that's what you want, but you don't have to fall for the hype. Again: if you are an aerialist, you probably have the self-discipline to stick to a training regimen without such an extreme goal.

I describe myself as a former runner. I like to say that I ran four marathons, but I "retired." I decided that it was interfering with my flexibility too much. I am not a flexible person and never will be, but I care about the aerial arts enough to prioritize them. Plus, it's fun to look out the window on a freezing, snowy day and say, "Guess what? I don't have to go running!" But I don't regret a minute I spent in Central Park or along the Seine or the Charles River. I was happy, I was skinny, and I got to eat a lot of spaghetti.

Image from tipshealth.net

Michigan Pole, Aerial, and Vaudeville Expo

I'm at home, recovering from an intense weekend! This Saturday, I attended the Michigan Pole, Aerial, and Vaudeville Expo in metro Detroit, in order to cover the event for Vertical Art and Fitness Magazine.

I've had a few failed launches with VAF. They were going to publish one of my blog posts, but ran out of room in the issue and asked if I could cover an event instead. We agreed on an event, but that fell through (I think it was cancelled). And then they asked if I could cover this event in Michigan. I hadn't been planning on going, because I'm dead broke, and also because I work on Sunday mornings, so a weekend away doesn't really work for me. However, I didn't want to say no after so many failed attempts. And it turned out that the bulk of the event was on Saturday, so I could make it back in time for my gig without missing too much.

I left Friday noonish, after borrowing money from my parents to pay for gas. I have friends about 45 minutes from the Ukranian Cultural Center who were letting me stay in their sweet house. But I had to be there by 6:30 for a business meeting. (They are music contacts of mine.) And I hit really awful rain. So I was all worried about being late, speeding and trying not to hydroplane. I figured that my GPS wouldn't account for the time zone switch, so when it said my ETA was 5:17, I assumed that meant 6:17 Michigan time, and couldn't afford to lose a moment. Imagine how surprised I was when I turned a corner at 5:16 and "Gypsy" (my GPS) said, "Now arriving at destination." She had accounted for the time zone change after all, and I had made incredible time, thunderstorms and all!

So I arrived at the house that is so amazing it makes me want to cry, and waited for my other friend to arrive for our opera meeting. We tossed ideas around, and then they took me out for a sushi dinner (my friend running the opera group is Japanese). Who knew there was such good sushi in Detroit? I'd never had a tofu tempura roll before. Recommend!

Somehow the drive had taken a lot out of me, and I was too exhausted to stay up and watch movies in the movie theater in the basement, but not too tired to take a hot soak in the guest room tub that lights up like 9 different colors. Whaaaat.

The next morning I got enough of a start to find an Einsteins Bros. for breakfast, and learned that a bagel is not good highway driving food. Can some creative inventor find a way to make cream cheese less messy? I was a relatively early arrival at the expo, and was given a VIP wristband, which made me feel really special, even though they were the same color as the regular wristbands (but said VIP VIP VIP VIP) so no one knew but me.

There were basically three aspects of the event: the showcase performances, the vendors' tables, and the workshops. Most people who come to these things from out of town come for the workshops with celebrity pole instructors. I didn't have money to invest in workshops, and they would have comped me for whatever still had room, except they were ALL sold out, every last one of them! So I used that extra time to hang out in the main room, talking to whoever else was sitting around while their friends were in workshops. I got to sit down with the event's organizer, Charley, and have an extensive conversation about her vision for the expo. I hadn't been planning on recording anything, since my article is so short I'm not going to have a lot of room for quotes, but she was so interesting and so engaging I had to turn my iPhone video recorder on halfway through the conversation. She was dropping gems left and right! A writer's dream interviewee!

I talked to pretty much everyone--co-organizer Jessica of Pole Addiction and Aerial Dragonfly, star poler Shadow, the manager of the Ukranian Cultural Center, Mattcrobat and Swift Ali, my friends at Skindustry, and anyone who was hanging around. Saw almost all my current students from Chicago, too!

Most of the rest of the day was spent watching the showcase. There were 50 performers of all levels. Mostly pole, but also silks and lyra. I hesitate to give highlights here, because there were so many I'd forget something.

I'm waiting on some info from Charley before I write my article. You won't see it here--it will be exclusive to Vertical Art and Fitness Magazine. So you'd better subscribe today!!

Pole, where is thy audience?

I sang a Brahms Requiem this past weekend, and the best part (the fast, firey part) shouts at its center, "Tod, wo ist dein Stachel?" "Death, where is thy sting?"

Maybe it's just these words floating around in my head that make me ask: "Pole, where is thy audience?"

Pole is a tiny, tiny, tiny community. I've been a part of many discourse groups over my lifetime, and some of them are pretty compact. Circus is pretty intimate, and pole is, in the grand scheme of things, microscopic.

And yet our industry, on the surface, appears to be thriving. Pole studios are springing up worldwide, organizations are forming and formalizing, publications are found on newsstands, and enough people are now aware of pole fitness as an activity separate from exotic dance that most of us can say what we do and raise interest, not eyebrows. We have been here long enough, and have experienced enough growth both as an industry and as an art form, that we have proven ourselves to be Not A Fad.

Underneath the surface? Things continue to improve, but there are still some fundamental difficulties that we have yet to overcome. World-class polers that leave us starstruck are almost entirely unknown beyond our ranks. (My non-aerial Facebook friends will occasionally post a YouTube video of Jenyne Butterfly or Felix Cane, but without any recognition for the person behind the "wow pole dancing is hard" act.) Respected competitions are often held in dingy hotel conference halls, rather than in theaters and arenas. And most instructors are lucky if they break even on their pole investments. Even the best of the best earn most of their income traveling around teaching workshops, even if their teaching is not up to par with their breathtaking performances.

Clearly this lack of profitability just goes to show how truly we love our art. But does it have to be this way?

I am a classical singer. I sing in operas and concerts and churches. Most of my non-poling friends are also opera singers. We like to go to the opera sometimes. We might participate in or watch the occasional masterclass. We buy CD's and videos, especially featuring roles we hope to learn and idols we hope to emulate.

But we are not the audience.

The audience is opera buffs, theater lovers, patrons of the arts, cultured members of society, music fans. We opera singers and other professional musicians, we might be in the audience. But we are not its backbone.

Opera is widely known as the most expensive art form to produce. You have a full-fledged live theater production, a full-sized professional orchestra, a full-sized adult (and maybe also children's) chorus, possibly a troupe of professional dancers, and very, very, very specialized soloists, and all their understudies, because the tiniest cold or allergy attack can knock a singer out of the production. All these elements come together to rehearse for (hopefully) months, to produce a spectacle that will only be performed a handful of times.

Can you imagine if the only audience was only other opera singers? Where would the money come from? We are starving artists! Who would fill the thousand-seat opera houses? We are busy, we have rehearsals for our own productions!

Think of the worldwide popularity of soccer (or football, if you want to pretend you don't know what "soccer" means). Arenas are filled. Fans are screaming. People are killing each other over team rivalries, for christ's sake! I mean, I'm not saying that's good, but what I am saying is: what if the only people who watched soccer were other soccer players? Gone are the fans. Gone are the arenas. Gone is the swelling of national pride.

Gone is the money. Gone is the organization. Gone is the funding for athletics-centered research.  Gone are the careers of everyone in the industry, and the perfection that comes with being able to focus on what you love full-time, instead of as a hobby.

Who goes to pole conferences, competitions, and performances? Other polers. Maybe friends and spouses of the performers, but mostly, it's us. The teachers, and more enthusiastic students (and self-teachers), of pole fitness.

Why is that?

Well, one reason is that we are a good client base. Pole is a relatively expensive hobby, and people who go into it tend to have enough expendable income to attend workshops and buy products. We are an extremely supportive and enthusiastic audience, and a practitioner of an art can always appreciate minutiae of a performance that escapes the layperson. Polers like watching polers, and polers like polers to be in the audience.

But if we remain this insular, we have little room to grow. We are like an isolationist nation which has nowhere to turn when drought or famine strikes.

A more deeply-rooted cause of our seclusion is our increasingly distant but ever-undeniable relationship to the adult entertainment industry. That relationship might be something like second cousin twice removed, but we come from the same blood. This isn't a problem for us: most polers respect and admire strippers, and the strippers I know respect and admire fitness polers. But we, the pole community, tend to use our lack of public performance as a way to draw the line between poling and exotic dancing. (After all, not all exotic dancing involves nudity, so you can't just use the "I have clothes on" argument.) Oh, we're not "exotic dancing," we're just taking classes. Oh, she's not a stripper, she does pole competitions. In fact, some amateur polers defend their hobby with the explanation, "I don't perform in public or anything."

The biggest hurdle is behind us. We've gotten the public to understand that pole fitness is not stripping. It took years, but the message finally got (mostly) through. If we can do that, we can make them understand that pole performance doesn't have to mean exotic dancing, either. It's another genre, in another venue. A singer singing in a classical style in a heavy costume in an opera house is an opera singer. A singer singing in a dark nightclub in front of a rhythm section with upright bass, using a modern, belty and improvisational singing style in a slinky gown, is a jazz singer. They're both singing in public, but you're not going to confuse the two.

Finally, maybe the reason we have no audience is because we haven't invited them. While we appreciate stumbling across pole stories in the media, we aren't out there creating our own headlines. Without outreach like televised pole competitions, running shows in theaters to advertise, and our stars being interviewed on The Daily Show, we have no public presence. Pole is strikingly visual, hauntingly beautiful. It seems odd that those visuals would be so unknown to the world.

Have you heard of the concept of an "echo chamber" in media? It's sort of like what the news networks do. They report on a story, and then report that everyone's reporting on it, and then they have to keep reporting on it because how can they ignore such a big story that everyone's talking about? This concept applies even more aptly to smaller discourse communities like our own. We bounce names, stories, products, incidents, moves off each other via forums, blogs, Facebook, and our newfound publications. These things then seem famous, because we're all talking about them. But it's just us talking to each other. Our voices don't permeate beyond the walls of our echo chamber.

In contrast, I learned more traditional aerial acrobatics alongside my pole education. Circus comes from the opposite perspective. People have been crowding circus tents for generations. When the circus came to our grandparents' towns, it was like Christmas. Today, Cirque du Soleil generates over 800 million dollars every year. How much must they make in merchandise alone? They are just one of many cirque nouveau companies producing shows to rave reviews. And they took what could have been considered a dying, outdated art form--circus--and brought joy to millions. Joy and jobs.

We have so much to offer. Our art is ripe for public picking. We have jaw-dropping, death-defying, scandalously sexy, achingly beautiful, human art. A light that we hide under a bushel. I guess I'm ending this post the same way I began it, with a Bible verse. (Ironically, I am not Christian.) I always liked the way this verse was paraphrased in Godspell: "But if that light's under a bushel, it's lost somethin' kinda crucial!"

So let your light so shine before men.

What do you think? Do you prefer the intimacy of our community, or would you prefer a wider audience for what we do?

Image taken from http://dashes.com/anil/2010/02/the-power-of-the-audience.html

Are you overtraining?

A lot of polers come to the art form with great passion and enthusiasm, but without a lot of intensive athletic experience. Sure, some are former or current gymnasts, ballerinas, cheerleaders, or other kinds of aerialists. But many are just everyday folk who fell into the art form and fell in love with it. They might be able to learn the moves, but might not know the ins and outs of athletic training. One of the biggest pitfalls for these people is overtraining.

Am I in danger of overtraining?

If you have to ask yourself this, the answer is probably yes. If you think you might be overtraining, or might fall into the trap of overtraining, you are probably a type A personality. An overdoer, overachiever, competitive with others or just with yourself, enthusiastic, determined, goal-setting individual. If your problem is not making yourself train, but making yourself leave time to heal, you probably have a tendency to overtrain.

The balance between training and rest lives on a very fine line. If you don't push yourself hard enough, you won't improve, or you won't become the best. If you push yourself too hard, you will get hurt, or decrease the quality of work you're able to do. If you were an Olympic gymnast or a pro football player, you'd have coaches figuring this stuff out for you. But most of us are on our own. You might have a personal trainer helping you map out your workouts, or pole instructors teaching you which moves to learn in which order, but as for your day-to-day training time, there's not much guidance available besides what your own body is telling you. And we don't always know how to listen.

How do I know if I'm overtraining?

If the symptoms were obvious, it would be easier to stop ourselves. However, overtraining masks itself as dedication and "no pain no gain," and we don't realize we've overdone it until it's too late.

Meanwhile, here are a few things to look out for:

• The quality of your work decreases.
• Your strength is inconsistent, beyond the little ups and downs that are normal.
• You're working out muscles that are still sore from the last workout.
• Your pole (or fabric) burn is compounding.
• You become emotionally "burnt out" on pole/circus.
• You start to panic if you feel you're falling behind on your training.

What can I do?

"Lay off the training" just isn't enough for the overzealous among us. You want to keep progressing towards your goals, after all. And how much down time is enough? Here are a few specific suggestions for chronic overtrainers:

• Cross train. You can't ONLY work out on your primary apparatus. It's important to branch out. At least one a week, participate in another kind of exercise. Maybe you have another apparatus, like silks. Maybe you're a yoga person. Maybe you like a good run in the park. The important thing is to balance out the way you are using your body. (Also, try to be aware of how your cross-training activity of choice interacts with your poling.)
• Mental rehearsal. Other competing athletes do it; you can too. Put on the song you're going to dance to, close your eyes, and visualize everything. As realistically as possible. Getting ready, putting your make-up on, warming up, waiting your turn, the stage lights in your eyes, and every move you are going to perform, as perfectly as you can possibly perform them. Sights, sounds, smells, the feel of the brass in your hands. Mental rehearsal takes concentration, but it costs nothing, and does not wear on your body.
• Create a plan and stick to it. Plan out your week of practice, classes, teaching, and weight lifting in advance- including cross-training and REST! Then try your hardest to stick to it.
• Don't work the same moves/muscles every day. Preferably not two days in a row. You need time to recover.
• If it hurts, don't work it. That goes for muscle soreness, bruises, pole burn- everything!
• Use the tools at your disposal to help you recover. Epsom salt baths for sore muscles, arnica for bruises, ice packs for swelling, A&D ointment for pole burn. However, these tools can only do so much. You can't erase a hard day of training with a hot bath.
• Don't overdo a difficult new move. I know you want to reinforce it when it's going well, but you can end up pulling something that will leave you on the couch for a week or longer, and have to start from scratch when you finally recover.
• Schedule shorter sessions. As I stated in Training when you don't have enough time, you don't have to practice for an hour. You can get plenty done in half an hour, still feel accomplished, and end up feeling fresh instead of wiped out.
• Rest. I know you know you need to rest. Just a reminder.

Is there ever a time to push through the pain?

What are you training for? If you are training for a career in the circus, you will have to perform every day, whether you're tired or not. If you intend to compete, you might have to dance under non-ideal circumstances. It is desirable to be able to put on a good show on a bad day. Just be careful. Save the easier stuff for your tired days.

Take a lesson from me. I'm writing this today (though I've been meaning to write it for awhile) because I'm sitting with an ice pack on my neck, wondering if I'll be able to make Open Pole on Saturday. I broke all my own rules. I haven't been cross-training. I overdid a new move, and did it two days in a row. I kept going when I realized my neck was hurting. "Just two more rounds!" I knew all the right and wrong things to do, but I justified overworking (if I do it today, I can rest tomorrow and be fresh for Saturday!), and I got what I deserved. So I'm speaking to you from first-hand experience, as an aerialist and as a former distance runner. Overtraining is a real thing, and it's important not to wait until you hurt yourself to realize it.

(Don't worry, I'll be fine in no time! Will I have learned my lesson? Hmmmm... no promises, but I'm trying!)

Image from simplyshredded.com.

Studio Review: Flirty Girl Fitness, Chicago

I usually train at home or at Rondi's, but yesterday I had a huge gap between two commitments downtown, and was looking for some way to fill the time. Of course the first thing I did was check the area pole studios to see what was happening. And I was in luck: Flirty Girl Fitness had an Open Pole class that perfectly coincided with my downtime!

I booked over the phone, and the lady who took down my info was friendly. I had to give a credit card number to reserve my spot, even though I would be paying in person the next day. I assume that's so they can charge no-shows.

I had lost my CTA card the previous day, so I had to walk like 50 minutes to get there. The whole area was really dead; I dunno if that's cause it was Sunday afternoon, or because I'm used to the intimate hustle-and-bustle of New York.

The studio was down the street from the Oprah building, so I had a little tourist moment.

I had been instructed to get to the studio early to sign a waver. I got there really early, because I wanted to have time to check the place out and get comfortable.

The studio was really gorgeous inside! It looked like a converted something. You know, farm or bath house or train station or whatever Chicagans convert into things. So it gave it this really hip, indie feel, with the exposed wood and brick.

I signed my waver and paid by credit card and was directed toward the dressing room and where my class would be. They had two studios, the "Marilyn Monroe" and the "Bette Davis." Marilyn Monroe was the pole studio, Bette Davis was an open studio that was used (while I was there) for abs workouts and belly dancing. I think there might have been a third, smaller studio off to the side, but I didn't get a good look.

The locker room was really sweet. But I think I'll take this moment to broadcast a PSA to all pole studios everywhere. PLEASE LAY OFF THE HOT PINK. WE ARE FEMALE. I GET IT. WE ALL GET IT. IT'S A REALLY OBNOXIOUS COLOR. I mean, I LIKE pink. a LOT. I'm wearing pink right now. Put come ON already. Hot pink does not go with anything else, so when you chose to center your color scheme on it, you are completely restricted to hot pink, black, and white, and it becomes a little nauseating.

That said, I did like my hot pink towel.

I talked to a couple women in the locker room. One was there for belly dancing, and was talking with another woman about how she was afraid to try pole because she has sweaty hands, so the topic of *product* came up. I had some Dry Hands with me so I let her try it. Then she asked where to get it, and that's where it got awkward because I mentioned it's the brand we carried at my studio, but I had to stop there, because the LAST thing you want to do when you're a GUEST at another studio is start talking about where YOU work (or YOUR private lessons). That is just bad business etiquette and not fair to the studio. So I tried to downplay it when someone asked where I worked and be just like, "oh, it's wayyyyy out in the suburbs. Like, SO FAR."

So here was something awkward: I hadn't realized how big the studio would be (many are just one room), and since I was told class was barefoot (or in socks), I hadn't brought any shoes to walk around in. So I was timidly walking around the lobby barefoot, hoping not to get in trouble for a health code violation or something. Everyone else had socks, sneakers, ballet slippers, or flip-flops. I had come straight from a gig (in my other life as a musician), so all I had was pantyhose and business lady pumps. Nobody said anything, but I felt embarrassed to be the only asshole standing in the lobby with bare feet, like someone would think I was disgusting. (I personally don't mind, I got tough feet!)

I wasn't totally sure when class was starting, because I think most of the students in the class before Open Pole stayed for Open Pole, so there wasn't a big diaspora of students coming out. So I poked my head in timidly and a nice blonde Russian girl smiled at me to indicate that I was in the right place, and the teacher called me over and took my "attendance chip" and offered me the pole in front of her. (Yeah, they give you a poker chip to hand into your teacher for attendance, not sure what that's all about.)

The class before us was, I think, "Beginner Pole Tricks," and they were just wrapping up. Looked like they were working on the "Split heel." With all due respect for Pantera, is there a new name for this move yet? Now that most people dance barefoot, it's a bit of a misnomer. I direct my students to "step up" when using this mount, but that's not really a name, just a description of the transition.

So, the teacher's name was Diana, and she seemed really great, like really friendly and a lot of personality. But since it was Open Pole, she wasn't teaching per se, so I don't know what her teaching style is like.

My fear going into this was that, because it was the middle of Sunday afternoon, there would only be like 2 other people. Wow, was I wrong! The class was packed! Some people were sharing poles, but I don't know if that was because there weren't enough to go around or just because they were training together. It was hard to tell how many people were in class, because I never knew how many people were just overlapping from previous and next classes.

There were 13 50mm poles (I forgot to count but the lady at the front desk told me). Nobody could tell me the material or height. I think they were stainless steel, based on the way they looked. I'm a horrible estimator of height, but it took me six shoulder mount climbs to get to a ceiling lay both times I tried, so I'd say that's 11 or 12 feet. Plenty tall for most tricks. The pole was extremely grippy, because it was warm from the last person who used it, and also I think there was some grip product on it. I didn't see what the club sold, but the teacher (or somebody who's stuff was near the teacher's) had a bottle of Mighty Grip, so I assume that was their standard. I didn't have to put on anything or wipe the pole down.

I think the poles were homemade. They were just straight sticks permanently affixed to the floor and ceiling; nothing to imply that they were X-Poles or Platinum Stages or anything. But I'm just theorizing; I figured if no one could tell me the height or material they certainly wouldn't know the manufacturer.

The teacher took music requests, and I didn't ask for anything. I think it was mostly hip-hop with some standard club rock.

Since I didn't know anyone, I tried really hard to mind my own business and not stare at anyone else. In retrospect I probably should have been a little more smiley and gregarious, because I really did want to meet people. Anyways, from what I caught out of the corner of my eye, the levels were across the board. I saw people trying to learn Fireman spins, and people doing yoginis and spatchcocks. Again, I tried not to watch, because, you know, some people are competitive, and I'm advanced, and I didn't want anyone to think I was throwing down. I hope I didn't come off as a snob, because no one talked to me the whole time. And I didn't talk to anyone, so that's fair.

One other thing I should mention was that they had TONS of pole mats! There was more than enough for everyone, some people even had more than 1. It was the square kind that you velcro around the pole (if somebody knows the brand name I'll link to it).

The class was only one hour, but I had a really great workout. I enjoyed the atmosphere, the pole was just right, and I left feeling energized and in a great mood.

I was too shy to talk to anyone in the locker room. I did enjoy a nice hot shower.

On my way out, I asked permission to snap the photograph you see at the top of the page. The white walls are the perimeter of the pole room. See how it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling? I wonder if they do that to make it cheaper to heat, or for pole stability. I mean, if I had a tall ceiling like that, I'd want my poles to go all the way up!

My only one complaint about this class was the price. Open Pole was $25, for 1 hour. I can see charging $25 for an instructed class, or charging $25 for two hours of Open Pole. But $25 for one hour of open training is a lot. However, they have monthly memberships that seem like a really good deal, and I think most people who were there had memberships. Unfortunately I probably won't go again because of the price. But if I lived nearby and needed a place to train, I would love to be a member here!

STATS
Flirty Girl Fitness, Chicago
Equipment: 13 50mm poles, stainless steel (?), make unknown, static.
Amenities: spa, bar, nice locker room, gift shop
Price: $25 for a 1 hour class

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