Trying New Things
A New Term is Upon Us! Each passing term brings a roller coaster of feelings! For some it is the excitement of transitioning to a new level and others it is the shear joy and terror of a new pole/aerial adventure. For me, this new term brings out feelings of nervousness, joy, and fear. Many of you know that Steve and I have decided to do a piece for the Student Show Case. This is a new adventure for the two of us. Steve has been to many doubles co-ed hoop workshops, but he has never performed. He is really stepping out of his comfort zone for me on this one. Thankfully he enjoys hoop so it won’t all be terrifying for him. This will only be my second time performing in the Student Show Case and my first time ever performing on an apparatus that is not pole. We are just getting underway with deciding which song and how to edit it down. I am a pretty tech savvy person and feel I should be able to cut the song down. Steve and I are both excited to work together to create a beautiful routine for the show. I am hoping that we can showcase his strength on the hoop and showcase some of my strengths on pole. It will be an adventure and I am hoping that we won’t kill each other in the process. I will keep you updated as we move along! Compromise Steve truly is a good sport when it comes to taking classes at the studio with me. He was a trooper at the Couples Valentine’s Day Workshop. Instructor Chrissy and Dan did an amazing job with the choreography! It was a an absolute blast. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. If your significant other is on the fence about taking workshop reach out to others who have done them. They will be surprised by all of the positive responses! With each class Steve takes at the studio to support my passion, I try to do something to support one of his. Recently this compromise and support system caused me to watch Steve shoot a 3D Archery Tournament. A 3D Archery shoot has 3D foam animals to set up to shoot at various distances. The shooter is ideally aiming for the 12 or the 10 point ring on the target. The shooter must go through the course and shoot one arrow at each target. The person with the highest score at the end wins. Depending how many people are shooting the tournaments can get pretty lengthy. While sitting and watching Steve shoot, I decided that I am much more of a doer rather than a watcher. After Steve had finished, I told him that if he was willing to teach me how to shoot. I would learn how and shoot with him. I have been to many 3D shoots and have thought I would enjoy shooting archery for quite some time now, but I was afraid to try something new. Archery is primarily a male dominate sport. I wasn’t sure if I would be cut out for it. When it finally came down for me to make the choice of if I was going to learn or not I decided to go for. Learning how to embrace new and uncomfortable things is one of the biggest lessons that Aerial Dance has taught me. I firmly believe that I can embark on this new journey, because Aerial Dance has taught me to find strength within myself. AND not to give up after failing. I have only shot my bow two times at actual targets. So far I have broken one arrow, but I did mange to hit the 12 point ring twice on 3D at 40 yards. With each passing term at Aerial Dance you learn and discover a little more about yourself. I can’t wait to see what my Aerial Journey will help me conquer next! Until Next Time! Janelle
Hand Balancing
Elizabeth Blanchard February is the month of Love! Aerial Dance is asking you to not only show love to others, but to remember to love yourself!!! I was able to show myself some love by participating in the Hand Balancing Workshop taught by Elizabeth Blanchard. To say that I was a little star struck would be a lie. I was so star struck and focused that I forgot to take pictures during the workshop! I only took one picture of her and I at the end. Elizabeth is one of my pole and aerial idols! She is an absolutely amazing athlete! Elizabeth is a strong and determined woman who achieves her goals. I would give just about anything to see her perform, so being able to learn from her was more than I could have ever asked for! Before the workshop, I was very nervous to work with Elizabeth, but as we got started, I was able to relax. Elizabeth is very much a person just like you and I. Her personality is very kind, caring, and she is hilarious! She is able to share stories about her success and failures to help us grown and learn. Sometimes we forget that Pole Stars started out like anyone of us on our aerial journey! Plus she is extra amazing for wearing Batman socks! Hand Balancing Handstands or Hand Balancing is a dream that many aerialist share. Elizabeth was able to help me think of Hand Balancing in a different way. She compared Hand Balancing to starting a new apparatus. Do you remember the first time you touched a pole, hoop, hammock, or silk? You weren’t a master from the start. You were timid, unsure, and afraid. It took time to build strength and trust in your abilities. Those feelings are the very same feelings when working on Hand Balancing. Your hands are just another apparatus! You had to work to become comfortable with pole. hoop. silks. or hammock. So you must work to become comfortable balancing on your hands!By changing my thinking just that tiny bit about my hands, it made Hand Balancing a little less intimidating! I am always open to try a new apparatus. Throughout the workshop Elizabeth stressed the importance of strengthening and engaging the Psoas (so-as) muscle. When the Psoas (so-as) is engaged your pelvis is tucked and your rip cage is closed. Tucking the pelvis and closing the rib cage helps create your hallow hold position. A hallow body position helps you to create balance while in a handstand rather than “finding your balance”. The idea of creating balance, rather than finding it, shifted my thinking about handstand EVEN MORE!. Learning the techniques to create balance ensures that you will be successful in a Hand Balance, rather than relying on the luck of the placement of your body to balance. Action Plan At the end of the workshop none of us walked away being experts in Hand Balancing, but Elizabeth helped us to create an action plan to improve! She suggested that we work on Hand Balancing at our own level for 10 minutes twice a week. That is only 20 minutes a week. This 20 minutes could be done in your home or at the studio. I know that many students attend 1 or more classes a week at the studio. Fitting in Hand Balance work is possible, if you make it a goal! Many of the conditioning techniques and tools we learned from Elizabeth our instructors work on with us. This workshop was very beneficial for the fact that Elizabeth was hands on with helping adjust your body to feel correct positioning. She also taught us how to elongate our wrists after compacting them while Hand Balancing. This was a god send for tired wrists at the end of the workshop. I would highly recommend taking a workshop taught by Elizabeth. It was amazing and super fun!!!!! My muscles are very sore from all my hard work! Until Next Time Janelle
Register for March Pole
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Registration is now open for Beginner Pole starting in March. The next 8-week Beginner session begins the week of March 3 and runs until April 27. The cost for Beginners is $160 for the full 8-weeks and includes 8 class and 8 practice sessions. 16 visits in 8-week! We offer Beginner Pole Courses at both our Appleton and Green Bay locations. See class time/day options and register online![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_btn title=”Register for Appleton Beginner Pole” color=”purple” size=”lg” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Faerialdanceappleton.com%2Fbeginner-pole%2F||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_btn title=”Register for Green Bay Beginner Pole” color=”purple” size=”lg” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Faerialdancegreenbay.com%2Fbeginner-pole%2F||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
The challenge of challenges
Owning a Pole & Aerial studio means appreciating and HATING the internet. I love it because it helps me educate about my business and connect with students outside of class times. I HATE it because students are also connecting with other business in the industry that don’t give a crap about their saftey and instead just want them to tag their business in posts so they get more publicity. This means they create “challenges” so that students participate do their marketing efforts for them by posting pictures of them doing the challenge each day tagging the company. It can be really exciting. Some companies have done really cool challenges. And some have done challenges that are dangerous, and students rarely recognize the difference. Right now there is a doubles challenge going on. When I first saw it, I thought “fun”. How cool to do simple doubles with a friend! Then I actually looked at the doubles moves they had in the challenge. NO. Just no. One of the moves they call something else, but we call it a “circle” where one girl is in a superman and layback is in a plank and they hold each other’s feet. The video on the challenge facebook page shows it as this simple thing, not spotting required. And that is where I draw the line and decide I need to write a blog out of my frustration. Seven or so years ago we did this move for the first time at Aerial Dance. We had two spotters, one for each girl, and helped walk them into it. They then did it a few times figuring out ways to make it easier. And how to enter AND EXIT the safest. A few of these trys the spotters caught and we analyzed what went wrong. After we had a good working understanding of how to do it well, we tried to break it. We tried to do things wrong to see what would happen while we had so many people around to spot. Through this process we created the best option for entry and exit and optimal cues for teaching it. That multi-step process is so important for learning new moves. It isn’t about watching a video and doing it because they are only showing you one entry that they do (most don’t even show you an exit) and they don’t explain the serious saftey cues. This is why our studio rules state that if you want to learn a move to send it to us and we will go through our process to keep you safe and develop a plan for teaching it. We aren’t saying you can’t do it; we’re asking that you respect the instructors enough to give them time to figure out the best method to teach you. So as our students get excited about challenges, how am I as the studio owner supposed to keep them safe? I’m forced into the role of the bad guy and I then I have to ask my instructors to be as well. We remind students of the studio policy covering new moves. We ask them to care about it. We remind them of the importance of saftey even though the challenge says the move is no big deal. I ask my instructors to be firm in sticking to the studio policy even though they want to be nice. And we dash our students hopes of being Facebook famous. And that sucks. We don’t want to be the bad guys. We also don’t want to fill out an accident report after you leave in an ambulance. So ask yourself as you see these challenges online: is doing the marketing for this company worth your neck? Is doing the marketing for this company worth the neck of whomever you ask do to the challenge with you? If a challenge is upright and there isn’t a lot to it, great, party on. If the challenge has any inverting, is this company so important to you that your neck is worth the photo and tag?
Wicked Cold
Good Ole Wisconsin Weather 🙁 Last weeks weather was a roller coaster! A snow storm on Monday to temperatures dropping to -50 degrees in some places around the state. Not anyone’s idea of ideal weather. With it being extraordinarily cold, I found out something about myself……. I found out that I am a boredom eater…. I was eating myself out of house and home and for no good reason! ALL BECAUSE I WAS BORED! The weather threw my whole weekly routine off! Monday has always been my pole night, but due to weather the studio made the wise decision to close. On Monday, my morning started off great with a lot of ambition to clean the apartment, laundry, dishes, and so on. When you wake up at 6AM and have no where to be you can clean your house pretty quick. By mid afternoon my chores were done and the boredom set in. I started to get the munchies. I try to keep very little junk food in my house, but I was finding everything and anything to eat. After thinking about last week, it was not my finest moment. I have been working really hard at eating better. So hard in fact, I have even been tracking my food on MyFitnessPal. Monday was a sad, sad day. Always Learning! Tuesday was my saving grace with two hours of studio time. I was so ecstatic for time at the studio, because it truly revives me inside and out. During my extreme pole class with Instructor Leah, we worked on Inverted Pegasus. It was a move that I had never even heard of before, but looked flipping awesome! I was not successful with the whole move, but a lot of the little pieces clicked into place! It even helped me to make sense of how to position my head for baby bird. Little successes are key to the bigger picture! Wednesday and Thursday brought more being stuck at home. Again, I did as much as I could around the house, but I had taken care of most of the house work on Monday. The munchies started to set in again……. This time, realizing I was a boredom eater. I tried to construct some strategies to combat my boredom eating. I would like to say that I was 100% successful, but that would be a lie. We are constantly learning new things about ourselves. I learned that I am very much a creature of structure and routine when it comes to daily life. Throw off my routine and structure and I am not sure what to do with myself. Another Success! During my pole class, we were also working on pole handstand variations. Twisted Grip handstands have not been a friend of mine. I have always somersaulted over the top. Once I saw those on the board, I was less than enthused. Thankfully, I take classes at Aerial Dance, where negativity is in very short supply, if heard of at all! The ladies in my class were right there to encourage and cheer me on! I had to have the entrance to the Twisted Grip Elbow Stand showed to me several times before I even attempted it. I don’t know if many of you know this, but I am a pretty big chicken. Just ask the ladies in the silk and hammock classes when it comes to drops. YIKES! With a little more encouragement and a swift kick to my own rear end, I kicked up into the elbow stand. AND!!!!!!! somersaulted right over! I tried another 5 to 7 times, but I FINALLY was able to do it! I am pretty sure that Instructor Leah thought she was teaching a elementary gymnastics class watching me try and try again, but she never gave up on me neither did my pole sisters! Like Leah says, ” Some moves take anywhere from 5 to 587 times before you can do it! Just keep trying!” I am still working on all forms of handstands, that is why I am so excited to be taking the Hand Balancing Workshop with Elizabeth Blanchard! I will keep you posted on my progress from the workshop! I can’t wait to work with such and amazing pole star! Until Next Time, Janelle
