People often ask me how long I’ve been poling for. I’ve recently been saying 8 years, although last night when I was asked once again, I realised that it might have tipped over to 9 years now.
I can never remember when I started and so I have to look it up every so often!
At the beginning of the year (I think I started in March) I usually add on a year… So this year should be my ninth year. Imagine my surprise when I looked it up to find that I’ve only been poling for 6 years!
6! Happy Days!
Woo Hoo 😀
On one hand I love to be able to say that I’ve been poling for such a long time – I feel like I started before the recent boom in people taking up pole – or perhaps just before social media gave it more exposure.
While doing anything for a number of years is a long time, I still feel like a bit of a newbie – and yes I shall be using that to my advantage!
The question of ‘how long have you been poling for’ is a bit subjective.
On one hand I’ve technically been poling for 6 years and 8 months. When you actually break it down, my time on the pole is far less than it sounds. For the first few years I only went to classes once a week. And in years gone by, I also kept taking extended periods of time off the pole.
I used to act and our rehearsals were 3 or 4 nights a week. Team that with working in a bar and you can pretty much guarantee that there is no time for pole of an evening.
So I went as often as I could, but had to keep taking breaks – and when the term lasted 6 weeks, I had to try really hard to fit it in.
Of course, there are other people who have been poling for say 2 years and are super-advanced, because they go to multiple classes a week. (And I’m super jealous!)
I wish I had done this, but I simply didn’t have the time when I was learning. I also didn’t realise quite how much pole would become part of my life.
So, when it’s a question of ‘how long’, someone who has been poling multiple times a week for 3 or 4 years might actually have been on a pole a lot longer than someone who has been poling for say 10 years on-and-off.
But of course it doesn’t really matter!
There are so many other factors that can help your poling – gym sessions, flexibility, pilates, yoga, rock climbing – so many things.
I know lots of gymnasts and have friends in the circus who take to the pole so naturally that they look like they were born to do it.
It’s All Down to Perception
I remember watching a competition where an advanced pole competitor had only been poling for about 8 months.
Everyone was really, really surprised – and impressed. We were then told that she had been a contortionist (I think) since she was little; everyone groaned in a ‘well that makes more sense’ kind of way!
I find it really interesting how we equate time with level of difficulty.
If someone has been poling for only a few months, we assume (probably because it’s a safe progression route that a lot of us have taken) that they are doing ‘beginner’ moves yet someone poling for years should be able to do the harder moves.
I think nowadays that really isn’t the case. We all come from such different backgrounds and have different amounts of time we can dedicate to pole, and therefore how far we can get in pole within a certain amount of time can really be on different ends of the scale.
All in all it really doesn’t matter how long we have been poling for, or how quickly we progress. (As long as it’s safe) All we need to know is that we love pole and our poling journey 🙂
** It took me so long to proof read that I’ve now been poling for over 7 years! Woo hoo!
