Hello My Fellow Aerial Artist,
I apologize for being MIA the last couple of weeks, I was extremely busy preparing to take the Wisconsin Foundation of Reading Test (FORT). For those of you in education you understand why I was so busy. For those of you who don’t know what the FORT is, it is a reading test that all educators must take in order to teach reading/English language arts to elementary students. Needless to say I had to spend a bunch of money to take a three hour long test. YUCK! In two weeks I’ll find out my results. EEK!
On to more fun things!!! This past weekend I attended the Minnesota Pole Competition to watch one of our fellow polers compete! Her routine was absolutely amazing! She did a great job and I am so proud of her! She also inspired another poler in our group to want to compete in the Chicago competition!!!! The competition was about an four hour drive, but was well worth it! The Competition was held at the Maplewood Preforming Arts Center in Minnesota. This was the perfect facility to house this competition.
Road Trip Buddies!
We arrived in Minnesota late Friday night. Saturday we started our day with the seminar CORE and MORE by Misty Austin. This seminar had great tips and tricks on how to properly engage/use the different abdominal muscles. I have zero training or education in muscle structure, so I found this seminar very intriguing. Plus I also found out I was doing some exercises wrong Opps. I was not aware that there were so many different ab muscles. Turns out that the six pack abs that everyone is after are not the most important ab muscles for a poler. Who knew? I didn’t. I also learned that it is extremely important that you tuck your pelvis when working on ab strength. This ensures that you are engaging the proper muscle groups. (See our instructors and Paula are right!)
The next seminar was Rigging for Aerial Artist by Dan Jensen. This seminar was very interesting in the fact that it made you realize that what you attach your apparatus to is EXTREMELY important. I am not one for math/science, but Dan was able to break it down nicely for everyone in the audience. He reminded us that yes you have your weight (load), but what people forget is that when you apply a force say spinning to your body on an apparatus your weight (load) increases. So the structure that you attach that apparatus to needs to be able to sustain the change in load.
After Dan’s seminar there was a small break. We walked around the vendor fair, which was set up along the outside of the conference room the seminars were held in. This was the only thing that bothered me about the competition. If a person did not wish to attend the seminar being presented they walked around the vendor fair. This was a problem because some people were not respectful to the presenter and were talking loudly making it difficult for those who were listening. 🙁
I missed a good portion of the Take it to the Stage seminar :(. I really wanted to attend this one and take notes. I accidentally scheduled a mini massage/physical therapy session for my tight hip flexors right in the middle of the seminar. Talk about a good type of pain. At one point I thought that if the physical therapist pushed any harder on my stomach he was going to touch the table through my body. My hip flexors felt amazing afterward telling my I need more massages in my future.
Last but not least! There was an amazing shoulder warm up/engagement seminar from the one and only Paula Brusky! She is the owner of our lovely Aerial Dance! Paula is an amazing speaker and is very passionate about preventing shoulder injurys. After listening to her seminar and taking many classes at Aerial Dance I am beyond thankful that she is the one who is teaching our instructors. She truly cares about our bodies and keeping us safe. I feel that many people in attendance at the seminar do not use proper shoulder engagement during pole. I established my opinion by watching others participate during Paula’s interactive sections in her seminar, You could see the lightbulb click on when they understood why using your shoulder properly was so important. She really got the audience up and moving!
I am not usually a seminar/conference person. I do not like sitting and listening for hours on end, but the seminars that the Minnesota Pole Competition provided were absolutely worth attending! They were engaging and kept ones attention throughout the whole morning! I will for sure be making the trip back to Minnesota next year! I highly recommend that you go next year!
Until next time!
Janelle