Pole dancing - don't fear the reaper. It's time that you let go of the fear and achieve that health and fitness you've always wanted!

Lets dance.

As I was walking to school this morning (late) I was following a group of students (who were also late) when all of a sudden this cat walked out from the bushes in front of them.

The cat didn't even pause, instead it laid down, rolled over meowed and waited for the kids to pass it.

Anyway....

As I said in yesterday's blog....it was pole night.

You all know how I feel about pole night, but last night marked the 16th week I had been going to pole - that's 4 months of my life that have apparently just flashed past without even noticing. Every week I look forward to our hour of pole dancing, because for an hour I can challenge my body and my mind to make me do things I never thought I could.

Pole makes you forget what the problem was. I went to pole in an uncharacteristically savage mood yesterday and an hour later I stepped out of the leisure centre chipper as a cat in an aviary.

We don't usually attend pole on a Thursday so there were lots of new faces, who of course then assumed we were new - it was like stepping back 4 months into that first lesson, with everyone looking and giving encouraging smiles - you're here, well done! There were of course the people we knew, who get the opportunity to do it twice a week - lucky sods!!

Anyway, the new person shine wore off once we stepped onto our poles and started inverting. That drew a few "ah, right"  glances.

We had Robyn instructing us, who (as all of them do) makes it look super easy!! She's very patient and when I told her I needed a challenge she went through the possibilities. I rather sheepishly told her that my inverts aren't so hot so she asked me what AM I good at?

Well, I'm good at climbing. I've also put a fair amount of work into deadening the nerves on my thighs sufficiently to do a good knee-release without grimacing.

Usually I do a knee release holding my foot - like so

But tonight it was both hands off of the pole, asking my knee to use the force (haha).

Here it is...

As as a still - which makes me look like I know what I'm doing ;)

As you can see, I'm not new to climbs - they're nice and easy, but the two handed thing threw me....what if my leg gave way?

It didn't.

How many times have I tried to get myself to trust my body and accept it knows what it's doing? Know that it's strong enough to face whatever challenge I put in front of it?

This is an important lesson for the upcoming event. My body knows how to survive, it knows what to do, when and it's strong enough to complete. That is what I need to have faith in.

Every week, slowly but surely I add to the arsenal of knowledge that I AM strong enough, that I CAN do it. As I said yesterday - what happens when we think about what we CAN do instead of what we cannot?


after thinking about this. Knowing that I made the choice of whether to be scared by these news things or not I decided to choose to work against it. To know I'm strong. The Butterfly that I was trying to get last week happened almost immediately after I gave up the fear.

Try it for yourself :) (letting go of your fear. Not the butterfly. I mean, you're welcome to try that too but it HAS taken me 4 months.... :p)

I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes:

To get on with it and challenge myself. To acknowledge that I am the person I am trying to be THIS VERY MOMENT in time. Not in a week, a month, when I'm skinner, braver, richer, older....This is my creed.