It’s a pretty exciting day when you get the email saying “you’ve been cleared for advanced 1 pole”! You’ve worked hard, coming twice a week to class and practice and you’re so excited to start inverting!
Fast forward a few months (or years) and life got in the way and you haven’t been at class as consistently. You’ve plateaued. You leave class frustrated because you can’t do things you used to do. And the result is Advanced 1 Pole is now not fun.
So you have three choices:
- quit the sport you loved
- keep doing Advanced 1 classes and struggle
- move down to Intermediate Pole for a few weeks
90% of our women do number 1 or 2 because their ego makes number 3 hard.
But here’s the deal, Levels in Pole are like Levels in Mario. When you died in the video game you didn’t start where you left off, you went back to the beginning each time so that it got to the point where you could play level 1 with your eyes closed because your controller muscle memory was so strong. Before you ever got to save the princess you had played the early levels a trillion times. You honed your skills in the lower levels OVER and OVER. Why don’t you do the same with pole?
Ego. That is the reason. Because once you’re any level of poler that is the level you are in your head and you think taking any lower level is going backward. IT IS NOT. Taking a “lower level” is actually the quickest way to improve because you hone your skills and make your muscle memory stronger.
Levels at Aerial Dance denote the skills being taught in that level. Nothing more. It doesn’t assign your pole competence or ability. A fireman climb done by someone the first time or a Pole Star is still a fireman climb and Intermediate Pole move. The difference is that the Pole Star has done it a trillion times so her muscle memory is stronger. The more times you do that skill, the stronger your muscle memory will be at it. Therefore, being an “advanced 1” poler and taking “intermediate pole” is actually honing your skills to rescue the princess!
So rescue your damn self and remember that “level” is what is being covered and you want to work on ALL your pole skills to continue on your journey.