Celebrating Three Years of Slink Through Strength: Reflections and Future Plans

Written By Randi Fentress

In this special anniversary episode of the Science of Slink podcast, host Dr. Rosy Boa celebrates the studio's third year by sharing personal reflections, milestones, and statistics. She discusses the inspiration behind founding the studio, emphasizing evidence-based practice and the joy of freestyle movement. Dr. Boa also talks about the evolution of the studio's offerings, including the shift to incorporating class recordings and a focus on building a supportive community. She highlights upcoming changes such as new class times for European participants and the introduction of a new membership tier, Essentials of Slink. The episode ends with a heartfelt thank you to the community and an invitation to celebrate together through special classes and discounts.

Come celebrate with us!


Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Anniversary Celebration

01:15 Founding the Studio: The Short and Long Answers

01:34 The Importance of Evidence-Based Practice and Freestyle Movement

04:51 Music and Playlists: A Curated Experience

07:07 Teaching Hours and Student Milestones

09:02 Changes and Learnings in Business Approach

16:00 Upcoming Classes and Membership Options

18:50 Building an Online Community

21:44 Conclusion and Special Offers

Transcript

Introduction and Anniversary Celebration

Hello and welcome to the Science of Slink podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rosy Boa, and today is a little bit of a self-indulgent episode and hopefully will be interesting to some of y'all as well. But the studio is turning three years old this month, July, 2025. And I am as a person, I'm a big believer in goals and I'm a big believer in reflection. I'm also a big metrics nerd. So to celebrate this anniversary, I've pulled together some statistics about the studio that I think are interesting.

And if y'all have taken classes with me, perhaps you also will think are interesting. And also it's been a while since I talked on the podcast about the studio story and like what it is I do and why I do it. You know. My whole deal. What's my whole deal? What's the studio's whole deal?

So that's what we're gonna talk about today, a little bit of an anniversary episode. And I hope you will come along with me for the ride. And as always this episode is brought to you by the Science of Slink members. Big, big heart to y'all. Really appreciate you as always. And thanks for letting me do what I do.

I do not take it for granted, and especially at this time of reflection, you know, I'm getting a little bit, a little bit, you know, warm fuzzies that I get to, to hang out with such cool folks as, as part of my job. So yeah. Thank you.

Let's start with some story time. 

Founding the Studio: The Short and Long Answers

So why did I found this studio? And the, there's a short answer and a long answer. And the short answer is because I couldn't find the type of training that I wanted online. And so I was like, dang it. If if no one else is doing it, I am doing it. And I sure did. And here we are. It's three years later, and that's a short answer.

The Importance of Evidence-Based Practice and Freestyle Movement

But the long answer is that I, as a mover really appreciate a couple things. So one is probably obvious evidence-based practice, right?

I have a background in adult pedagogy. I really wanted to be a university professor. Did not work out. I am sure many of my alt-ac folks out there are like yep. I see you. I see you all too. And that's okay. I had a career in tech that was, informative. And now I do this but.

Evidence-based practice is something that's really important to me, right? And like you know, I have personal training certification. I really, when I am doing movement, when I'm taking movement classes, I want those classes to be really built on a solid foundation of exercise science and what we know about human bodies and human learning and motor learning and how to make it easier to learn to move. And, you know, it's the things that we can do to help prevent injuries to the degree that we can by building those into the structure of class.

I'm picky. I'm picky. And I do work with folks online. I've talked about some of those on my Instagram as well. But unfortunately that does mean that a lot of classes that even if they're very good at what they're trying to do, just aren't gonna be a good fit for me in what I'm looking for a class in terms of that evidence-based practice.

And sort of the other side of this coin is that I am a freestyle lover. I love freestyle movement. I love  really getting to explore my autonomy with movement. I really like deciding what I do and how I do with my body, and I found that to be not only like a wonderful artistic wellspring to explore, but also something that's been genuinely helpful and transformative in the rest of my life. Right? A freestyle class is a fantastic way to really embrace and practice radical bodily autonomy to really know what it is that you want and then do it. And those are skills.

Those are skills that you have to work on, and they're also skills that are not really in our, you know, western industrialized society as a whole. Not really prized or fostered particularly. So having a place to practice that. So having that as part of what I have in my life and that I can bring in and really have that enrich the rest of my life is also really important to me.

So I want a movement space, right? Big old nerd. Gotta get that, that good, good exercise science. And also you know. This mystical freestyling creature where I want that part of that as well, and I wanted them together. And also I, listen, if it's just me left to my own devices, I'm not gonna do my conditioning at home.

Come on. I got all this stuff to do. I am busy. It's, it takes brain effort to be like, okay, here's what I'm working on in my technical stuff. So here's the specific conditioning that I have to do, and like, oh, how can I like make my freestyle so that it fits in with all that. It's just hard. It's work. Right.

And it's work that I do for my students so that everything does work together in our curriculum. And all of those things are together and interwoven. And I'm trying to be better about, like, explicitly saying like, this is why I'm doing these things and making that, that scaffolding and making that pedagogy and that planning very explicit.

But it's part of the service that I provide and I'm not gonna do it for myself. Right. I just know that about me especially if I'm working full-time doing something else. I, I just don't have the time or energy. So. I wanted a studio where I, I could get that and I couldn't find it, so I made it, and here I am.

And just some stats before I get into sort of some learnings from last little bit. 

Music and Playlists: A Curated Experience

I, I am a hoarder of music, so I I organize well, first of all, I have to report all the music that I play in my classes for streaming rights, right? Because I, I pay for the music that I play in class through through rights management organization.

So I have to keep track of it, like legally for that side of things. But also I like being able to like go back and look at old playlists. And actually all of the songs that we're dancing to this month in my classes have been songs that have been requested during free dance portions of classes over the past three years.

So it's been really wonderful, like little memory lane exercise for me to like go through and listen to these songs. Like, oh yeah, I remember the dance that, oh and it oh, I'll put the playlist, the link to this playlist in here. But it is the 35 hours worth of music and I've removed duplicates. So I have spent more than 35 hours over the last two years just sitting, watching, enjoying y'all's dance during the freestyle portion of classes.

And I consider that time very well spent. I, I very much enjoy watching dance. I very much enjoy seeing y'all explore and grow artistically. And it's, it's a wonderful time and I hope that you have enjoyed dancing as much as I've enjoyed appreciating it. But yeah, I've almost a thousand playlists and 955 playlists. And some of those are for classes, specific classes. Each class has its own playlist and I switch 'em out every month. For the freestyle classes, each individual class session has its own playlist. And some of them are just sort of like ways of me organizing music, right? So I have like I've got a playlist about mermaids that wanna kill people. I've got a playlist about werewolves. I've got a playlist about being sad on a space station, right? Just like thematic things that I can like go and organize and curate. And that's a big part of my job, honestly, is curating music. Because if you do. You are really leaning into that more artistic side of things and that more exploratory side of dance.

The music that I bring to class is really, really important for creating that experience. And I take that responsibility very seriously. And also I try really hard to bring in a variety of different artists, a variety of different music styles, a variety of different languages. I'm not down with linguistic hegemony.

I know that I'm speaking to you in English. I, I appreciate. And want to make space for other languages as well in, in our dance space. And I do that very intentionally. So a lot of work on that. I think probably in a couple months I'll hit a thousand, which is very exciting. Big milestone.

Teaching Hours and Student Milestones

I've also taught over 550 hours of classes just for, just for the studio. I've taught a lot more than that over, you know, my careers. 'cause I taught pole in person for a while and then I was teaching for other studios and. Also I've taught like university courses and when I worked in a knitting store, I taught knitting classes.

So I've done a lot of teaching in my life, in, in various various forms and various situations, but just in the studio, 550 hours, which is quite a lot. So not in not a small amount of classes. And that doesn't include the, like, the extra bonus stuff that I've, I've like filmed for, for my members.

So like y'all, you know, in your membership area there's like this extra like workshops and like specific like tutorials and stuff. Those, that doesn't count those. It's just like sitting down and, and doing a live class. And also we just hit this month 1000 unique students coming to the studio and trying it out.

So yeah, if you've taken, taken class with me at any point in the last three years, you're, you're one of those 1008 actually. So, cheers. I will say that doesn't actually include membership folks who never took a drop in class specifically. So I, it is a little bit of an under count. But still I am I'm very humbled and grateful that a thousand of y'all have been like, eh, I'll give it a shot. Hey, I'll see if I like it. A lot of y'all have.

And also the podcast. This, I believe this one is the 68th episode, which is wild to me. That is, that is a lot for a podcast. Most podcasts don't make it past, like, what I think, 10 episodes. So being able to, you know, have capacity to sit around and nerd out with y'all and have this, this channel of sharing and, and chit chat and you know, diving into research and talking to researchers.

I've got some fantastic researcher interviews coming up that I am so excited for. I think y'all are gonna love these. Really, really looking forward to them. And I've really been enjoying having the space to, to connect and talk, and it's something that I really, again, I really enjoy. I hope you also enjoy listening.

Presumably you wouldn't listen to this extremely self-indulgent episode if you weren't at least a little invested.

So a little bit about like why I founded the studio, a little bit about some of the stats associated with what's, what's happened since. 

Changes and Learnings in Business Approach

But I also wanna talk about some of the things I've changed in the past and then also some of the things that I'm interested in changing in the future.

And some, some thoughts that I've had because I know running a small business is very. Challenging. And I, like I knew business stuff was hard 'cause, right? Like, I, I've worked in corporate for, you know, a number of years. But especially in a very small business, you don't get like a ton of feedback.

And when I send out surveys and y'all respond to them, I very much appreciate that as. So, so, so helpful. But like, why does someone not choose to sign up for a class with me? I don't know. Right? Like, maybe you think my voice is annoying, which is you're, you're right. And like, perfectly fine. And I'm not upset about that. Maybe the time isn't right. Maybe the class subject isn't right. Maybe you don't have a pole and the only classes that work for you are like the freestyle flow where you don't have to do the pole, but the times for those don't work. Right. Maybe you don't have the finances right now. And it's, it's one of those things where like, I don't have insight into why people choose not to come take class with me.

And I only sometimes have insight into why people do choose to come take class with me if they choose to share that with me. And if you have chosen to share that with me, it's very helpful. Thank you. But I get a lot of just sort of like no signal and you just kind of have to like. Guess what to do next and what people are gonna be excited by.

And sometimes you'll ask people and you'll be like, Hey, is this something you're interested in? And people will be like, yes, I'm very interested in that. And then you do the workshop and nobody comes and you're like. Okay. Again, is it like, did I not communicate well what I was doing? Were the people who were interested free were the people who said they were interested, maybe weren't that interested.

And it's just, it's very challenging, right? You don't have as much information as you'd like. And as a result, I started doing a lot of things that I don't do anymore. And I started doing things I didn't use to do. And I think a big one is when I first started out, I was like, it's only gonna be live classes. There will not be any recordings. It'll all be live.

Being able to give people live feedback, and being able to, again, enjoy your dance, I like watching y'all dance if you do come live, is something that's very special to me and as a student, it's something that I really value in class.

When I take online classes, I really only take live classes sometimes I'll be like, I'll definitely do the recording. I don't do the recording. I really only show up if another person is there live. And that's just a me thing. That is a thing about myself that I was like, oh, this is the same for everyone else.

Absolutely not the case. Lots of people really do very well with recordings. Lots of people prefer the recordings and also if you're not available at the time that I'm teaching live, you can still take class 'cause you can take the recording. And also I've noticed it's changed my teaching a little bit because I know everyone in class is going to have access to the recording, so I can go over technical stuff a little bit faster because live folks can ask questions if they have them, and then recording folks can pause, go back, re-watch something, right?

Like take a screenshot, do whatever you need to get that information out. So. Not only do all my classes now have recordings, but also I think it's changed the way that I've taught. And I also think it just makes things more accessible in general. 'cause you can also take the same class multiple times 'cause you, you have the recording and for some folks that's just a better way to learn and that's a better fit for their learning style.

So, that that is a big change that I've made since I first started the studio and I had this like vision in my hand head of what people would like, and it turns out that's a me thing. I like that. That doesn't mean that everyone likes things, which is like, that's part of the challenge of business owning, right?

Because I'm not. I guess I am my own ideal client, right? Like I built the studio that I wanted to train at. But I am also a little bit of a weirdo and most people are not like me. And that is a lesson that I continue to learn through life. I think it's true of everyone, right? Like we're all, we're all weird in different ways.

There's, there's no such thing as like the average, normal person, right? There's, there's at least something, some distribution that we are on the tail of somewhere in our life, whatever that might be.

Another thing that I changed is when I first started, it was only live and it was only drop-in classes. I didn't offer any sort of membership. And what I found is that offering a membership is genuinely helpful because we are all busy. We all got shit to do, right? We're adults. We got full calendars. And the biggest challenge for pole dancers is really showing up consistency and having a practice where you are building strength, you are building flexibility, you are increasing your proprioception, you're building cardiovascular endurance.

You are helping to allow your body, the space and the repetition it needs to be able to gain the new skills that you're trying to gain. If you're working on skill learning, I know not everyone is but if you are, or honestly if you just wanna see the health benefits of, of movement. You gotta do it consistently.

And the easier consistency is, the more likely you are to actually show up, the better. And this is something that I have really found has been very helpful for folks because my membership is really built around making it as easy as possible to show up consistently. Once you sign up, you don't have to sign up for individual classes.

That was a sticking point I found both for myself when I did online memberships. But also for talking with other folks. Oh, I forget, but if I, if I always send you the link, if I always send you the recording, you don't have to remember. You're much more likely to actually do it. And it's just easy, right?

Again, part of what you were paying for is like, yes, my knowledge and expertise but also the structuring and having someone else sit down and do the brain work for you. So all you have to do is like clear some space, turn on your computer and follow along. And as someone who has limited brain at the end of the day, as I'm sure we all do yeah. Sometimes that's worth it. Sometimes that's all you need is just someone to tell you what to do, right?

Another thing I used to do a lot more, and I haven't as much recently, is I did a lot of like one-off workshops on different topics. And I didn't dislike them. I did enjoy them, but what I found was that I had so much information and curriculum I wanted to put into a workshop. It ended up being a little bit longer. Usually they were 90 minutes. And the challenge with that is that generally people's attention starts to wane around the one hour mark. Again, this has just been for online classes, my experiences that an hour is about right.

Much past an hour, and, you know. A, you're not sharing a pole, usually you have your own space. You have more time on the pole, so you're getting tired more quickly. And b, just like focus and attention, that's a while to stare at a screen, even if you're doing other stuff, even if you're moving your body.

I mean. You know, a a lot of us are doing things these days that maybe are not like the best for our attention. I know, I know. I'm, I'm guilty of it too. I watch a lot of short form videos and being able to have like a slightly shorter class and then also a class where I can rely on people having access to the other supporting classes.

Right. So like right now we're talking about shoulders. So when I was talking about shoulder engagement on the pole on Monday, I could refer back to what we did on Thursday with the mobility and the strengthening of our shoulders training. So I didn't have to go through all that content again 'cause I knew all my members already had access to that and could go back and refer to it if they needed to.

So being able to have that more space and being able to have it split apart and being able to have folks time to put stuff in their brain, I think is just more valuable than like a really dense workshop. I, I still do them from time to time, but I do, don't do them as much. I think a well-structured curriculum across a month is genuinely more helpful than one workshop you do once.

So a little bit about like some things I've learned, some things I've changed. Let's talk about some things that are upcoming, right? 

Upcoming Classes and Membership Options

Like what my current stuff is and what I'm doing in the future.

So one thing is currently I have one class that's during the day in the us which is a better time for EU folks. That is freestyle flow on Tuesdays that I'm actually gonna go teach right after I record this. It's at 1:00 PM Eastern. Which I think is 7:00 PM Central European time. And starting on the 17th, which is the first Thursday after this episode comes out I'm also gonna be adding a pole Pathways class at that time.

That'll also be good for Europe. And that's based on feedback from the most recent survey that I sent out. A lot of folks are like, I would love to have more times that are more classes that are good time for Europe. So I'm just adding one and members, that's just gonna be part of your membership. There's no, no change in pricing. It'll just be, let's see, two pole pathways, two freestyle flow, a flexibility, a strength. There'll be six classes a week.

The other thing that I have been thinking about is and I'm sort of working on putting into motion is Science of Slink is, like I said, six classes a week. So, and two of those classes are half hours. It's five hours of training a week if you do everything. I don't expect people to do everything.

I have it organized so that if you're doing one class a week it should still work together with everything and it's still a cost savings. But I am gonna be introducing another membership that is for folks who don't have as much time maybe don't want to invest as much. That's just going to be one class a week.

And I'm thinking of calling it Essentials of Slink and I am. I'm working on it, I'm working. I'm hoping to get everything ready and set. 'cause there's like, there's a lot of behind the scenes work, right? There's a lot of automations. I gotta write, I gotta write a sales page, I gotta write emails, I gotta do marketing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a big lift.

But it should be August, like right around back to school time. And again, this will be something where. My memberships are much cheaper on a class by class basis than my drop-in classes because I want you to have the benefit of the whole curriculum, and I know that you're gonna see more benefits if you get the whole curriculum. Even if you're just doing one class a week it will be they'll all designed to work together and you'll get that consistency, which is really the most important thing.

And this is something personally I've been seeing in my own training recently with handstands. I've been doing handstand training consistently once a week now for about a month, and I'm starting to see real improvement because I continue to show up because I continue to actually do it and not just be like, oh yeah, I should do my handstand training day, and then I just sort of don't, and then I don't see any improvement. Perhaps this is a familiar story to you. Hmm.

That's coming up. 'Cause again, feedback I got was that not everyone has, you know, 2, 3, 4 hours a week to, to spend on pole time. Lots of folks do. And they want the Science of Slink that, that sort of greater degree of availability of curriculum. But for folks who just don't or again, don't want to invest as much, I'm gonna have this, the second option.

So that's coming up. Very excited for that. I think it'll be really helpful for, for folks. And it's just, it's just a lot of work between me and me and here. And if you're interested, there will be a link to sign up for the wait list in the, in the down there.

So that's a broad discussion about sort of like logistics and business side of thing. 

Building an Online Community

But I do wanna end on what I think the most. Important thing about the studio is the thing that, like in my heart, I wanted the most and I feel so grateful to look around and be like, yeah, it happened.

There's a reason I call it an online studio and not like an online membership or something. And that's because I really wanted to have, for the folks who are interested in engaging with it, and to the degree that was feasible, this online community of movers who moved together, who got to know each other, who got to get that, that social component of having a studio, of having connections with each other because that's something that, you know I really missed. And also I think the type of person who's really into a, like sciencey, you know, exercise science, that, that sort of nerd training and also the sort of gooey artistic kind of exploratory freestyle training like that particular type of nerd I noticed tends to, like, we, we like to flock, right?

We like to like hang around and like talk about our, our interests. And perhaps our special interests and perhaps our hyper focus is and really, really get into it with other people who like the same thing as much as we do and in the same ways. And I really feel like that exists. I really feel like. Y'all are there, you're making those connections with each other and you're really growing artistically. And also, you know, just sort of like physically in terms of physical fitness. But that's, that's never my main goal, right?

When I'm teaching a class obviously I'm thinking about it again, personal trainer, it's in my brain. But my main goal is always to make time for you to have fun and enjoyment and feel good and feel better in your body. And everything that I'm doing and everything that I'm teaching is trying to help support you in that to the degree that that is possible. 'Cause I really think that, you know, movement is not just. A thing that we can do or that we have to do. Really, it's part of our, our birthright as embodied creatures. And I, I mean, embodiment there in like the cognitive sense, right? As things that have bodies moving our body and learning how to move our body and finding that deeper connection with our physical form, I think is one of the great joys of being alive.

And one that I, I have found more and more joy in over the years through my pole practice, through my freestyle practice. And I really hope to be able to continue support y'all you plural in, in your journey as well to, to the degree that that it is supportive of you, right?

So. Anyway waxing, waxing, a little rhapsodic there. Getting a little, getting a little dewy eyed. I am, I feel very grateful. I feel very honored that any of y'all that have ever come to class, that have ever, you know, liked my Instagram videos, ever listened to a podcast episode you know, I've ever made you think about something, your relationship to your body or movement or research or science or anything like that.

I am, I'm grateful you're here. I'm grateful for your attention. I'm grateful for your time. I don't take it for granted. And perhaps I will see you to, to dance with you at some point. 

Conclusion and Special Offers

And if you're listening to this on the day that it comes out which is July 11th. Our community flow class for July is at 6:30 PM on that day. So you can just sign up on the website and I'd love to come have you join us if you, if you would like and celebrate, celebrate the studio.

And if you're not for the month of July the whole month you can get 25% off any class to come help celebrate with us using the code turning three T-U-R-N-I-N-G-T-H-R-E-E.

You just put that in a, a checkout when you, when you sign up for a class. And yeah, come, come dance with us. Come move with us. Great time to come hang out in community, move your body, connect with your movement and, and have fun and enjoy, enjoy being an embodied creature to the, to the degree that you can.

So that's all I've got for you today. I gotta go teach I'm gonna edit it out, but my alarm did just sound and I will see you all very soon, I hope. And definitely keep an eye out for some of the episodes we have coming up with a couple of researchers that again, very, very excited for, and I will talk to you then.

Bye!

Randi Fentress
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