Pole 3: Back In Action

Soreness in my shoulders, biceps, triceps, and upper back?

Tenderness on the palms and pads of my hands and fingers with mini blisters and calluses forming?

Inner legs and arms polka doted with bruises of different shapes, sizes, and colors?

Must be pole time.

So Honey's brilliant plan of me joining Pole fell threw when practically no one else but me signed up. Where's the dedication ladies? I can hardly do some of the moves from my one practice sesh, but I was still willing to commit!

I will admit that it may be for the best for me to fully take and complete level 3, but I'm still disappointed. I really miss Jay, Cierra, and Honey in my class every week. Luckily Erica happened to be teaching a level 3 class on Wednesdays, so at least I get to keep my teacher!

Since my last pole sesh with Honey I haven't practiced...That was about 4 weeks ago. While my back was on the mend my glute was all like "you know what would be fun? If I decided to knot up so tight and deep that using me is going to make you want to lay down and die." No, that actually wouldn't be fun at all. I've been hitting up Koala more than I would care to in order to get that shiz rubbed out. While that's been happening I did the responsible thing of not practicing pole. That's really code for, it was too hard to do tricks when it hurt to lift my leg.

Anyway, I went to class. A class full of strangers. Dios mio. I have to make friends all over again!

After our warm up stretches we started off with free style floor work for the duration of one song that seemed like it was never going to end. I am def watching the class schedule so I can get into one of Erica's floor work classes to pick up some moves!

Next up: the invert. I'm doing ok at it, but def need a lot of work. some times my legs will get high enough, other times I have to reverse climb it to get all the way up. Since we don't know any fancy dismounts yet we just reverse slide down it which causes a lot of bruising on my inner legs and arms. So on one I figured I'd just release my back leg to touch the floor, then I can let the other one down and I'll be on my feet! Great plan...if my glute was at 100% (it's getting close!). When I released the first leg, I managed to pull at the hurt muscle and let out a little squeal from the surprise pain. Great execution, Jes.

We moved on to pole circuits next. This is probably my fave part. You have the options of either copying what Eric does, or improving your own. I just try to copy Erica since she's the master. I love spins and climbing, so it felt good to be doing that again! A lot of the spins felt weird, but I figure if I warm them up a few times than I can get back to where I was before.

One of the dismounts she did from the pole climb was pretty cool: you get to the top, then as you hold the pole with your arms, you bring your body to the side, do a V split, and slide down a bit. Then bring your body back so that the pole is in front of you and continue down however you like.

I attempted the V split...turns out that even though it didn't hurt the glute, the muscle isn't at full strength on the left side, so it was a lazy V.

We ended with full on free style. Def needs work.

I'm super excited to have my stripper heels back on!