Pole 3.5

I hit up open pole to have a spin fest and to focus on the invert. aka - my usual session.

The spins are feeling good on the right, so now I need to start practicing my left. I had taken a break from them since my body has been in shambles for what seems like forever (since June).

Cierra and I had joked before about how the shoes give you power, but I think she was on to something. I have noticed that most of my spins (with the exception of the v-spin) are all better with the shoes. It must be the 6 inches of added height.

I even flip camed a set of spins to show the parents since I'm not about to share a graduation video that's full of body and hip rolls.

And the invert? After straight up kicking the pole with my bare feet and jamming some toes two week in a row, I am happy to report that I'm getting it consistently! I do have to kick into it still, but progress is progress! I got it about 5 times in a row without the shoes, and 3 times with the shoes before my body was exhausted.

So when class time came the following week I was pumped. Too bad that at bodypump I actually did get pumped by increasing my back weights so my muscles were a little tired...

After warm up we started with free style floor work. I'm getting better at it. But by better I don't mean that I will ever claim it as something that I'm good at. And do you know how hard it is to do floor work for about 4 min when you still don't have full hip movement? Really hard. That cuts out at least half of the moves that I can do!

I probably had my best set of pole circuits this day than I've had all level! I even managed to walk into my invert. #skills.

New skills:

• V-up into invert - Basically you just do a v kick, but invert at the same time.
• Twizzler (or corkscrew): You basically walk around, grab high with your outside hand above the inside hand, and lift while keeping your legs together and your body facing out, try to snake your body around the pole (your back is to the pole) and spin once your inside foot hits the ground. (YouTube it). As you spin it helps if you can kind of hula your hips.

I did get the V up into invert. It wasn't pretty or graceful, but I got it one time before my body said it had reached it's invert limit for the day.

As for the twizzler. ugh. I was having a lot of trouble with this one. My upper body was fatigued from my weights class so I wasn't getting as much lift as I typically do. I was frustrated. This will be #1 on my practice list for open pole.

I didn't leave this class walking on sunshine, but with practice I'm pretty sure I'll get these skills down and can return to fun pole Jes.