How to Rekindle Your Pole Spark: Capacity, Goals, Novelty, and Lowering Demands

Written By Randi Fentress

Dr. Rosy Boa of Slink Through Strength discusses why long-term pole dancers may lose motivation and how to rebuild a sustainable relationship with pole. She flags that dreading hobbies and anhedonia can be a symptom of depression and encourages seeking mental health support if that’s present. Otherwise, she recommends: assessing overall life capacity and scaling pole to fit current energy (including taking breaks without fear of major strength loss), clarifying what you currently want from pole using a “best possible self” meditation or journaling to align training with changing goals, adding novelty through different teachers, movement styles, and music to increase play and awareness of preferences, and reducing perfectionistic demands by focusing on consistency and effort over outcomes while lowering setup friction to make showing up easier.

Links and resources:

Citations:

Carrillo, A., Rubio-Aparicio, M., Molinari, G., Enrique, Á., Sánchez-Meca, J., & Banos, R. M. (2019). Effects of the best possible self intervention: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PloS one, 14(9), e0222386.

De Kleine, E., & Van der Lubbe, R. H. (2011). Decreased load on general motor preparation and visual-working memory while preparing familiar as compared to unfamiliar movement sequences. Brain and Cognition, 75(2), 126-134. 

Encarnação, I. G., Viana, R. B., Soares, S. R., Freitas, E. D., de Lira, C. A., & Ferreira-Junior, J. B. (2022). Effects of detraining on muscle strength and hypertrophy induced by resistance training: A systematic review. Muscles, 1(1), 1-15.

Flett, G. L., & Hewitt, P. L. (2014). “The perils of perfectionism in sports” revisited: Toward a broader understanding of the pressure to be perfect and its impact on athletes and dancers. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 45(4), 395-407.

Hall, H. K., & Hill, A. P. (2012). Perfectionism, dysfunctional achievement striving and burnout in aspiring athletes: The motivational implications for performing artists. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 3(2), 216-228.

Heekerens, J. B., & Eid, M. (2021). Inducing positive affect and positive future expectations using the best-possible-self intervention: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16(3), 322–347. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1716052

King, L. A. (2001). The health benefits of writing about life goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 798–807.

Chapters:

00:00 Pole Spark Fizzles

00:25 About Me And Membership

01:55 Long Term Pole Relationship

03:10 Mental Health Red Flag

03:48 Check Your Capacity

07:46 Take Breaks Without Fear

08:42 Best Possible Self Goals

11:34 Add Novelty And Play

15:28 Reduce Demands And Friction

18:38 Recap And Next Steps

20:20 Closing And Free Resources


Transcript:

  If you do pole for long enough, you are likely to run into this problem where it just stops being as fun, right? You feel like kinda your spark has fizzled out. You're having a hard time getting going. Like, you need to really convince yourself to go to pole class.

And today, I'm gonna talk about some reasons why this might happen, uh, and also some things that I'd, I'd recommend, as a way to sort of rekindle that spark.

If you don't know me, hi, I'm Dr. Rosy Boa. That Is a research doctorate, not a medical doctorate. I am not that kind of doctor. None of this is medical advice,

And I run Slink Through Strength hopefully best known for Science of Slink, which is my home pole membership for people who enjoy nerding out, uh, and also really want to find really delicious feeling freestyle movement and develop their own signature pole movement style and spend time playing and make time to move and have fun and enjoy being in your body.

Uh, with that said, shout out to my members. Uh, you're the wind beneath my wings and, uh, I'm looking forward to dancing with you again very, very soon.

Course, not this week, because this week is one of our two yearly rest weeks where I don't teach live. Uh, and members, uh, make sure to check your emails, because I have sent you that code for a free private. So all my members this month, uh, and if you join this month, you will also be included in this, uh, are getting a free private with me to just work on whatever it is you wanna work on, right?

If that's a trick you're trying to nail, we can definitely work on that. Uh, if you wanna talk about how pole can be a more supportive part of your life, we can absolutely talk about that. If you just wanna chit-chat, perfectly fine. But I really wanna create space for y'all to have a little bit more personalized support, uh, and also get a chance to see some of y'all who, who don't come to classes live all that often live, so we can get some chit-chat.

So looking forward to that. Looking forward to chatting with y'all. Uh, again, if you, if you join the membership you'll be included in this. Uh, and if you don't, that's also fine. You can hang out, listen to the podcast, come to my community flows. Uh, still lovely to have you joining us.

But, uh, given that this is a rest week, I think this is a really nice time to talk about something that a lot of people struggle with. And I'm gonna go so far as to say I think everyone is gonna hit this point in their pole journey if you stick around long enough, where that sort of like, limerence, "Oh, I love pole so much. It's all I can think about. I'm really getting into it." Uh, that sort of like first love blush has faded a little bit. Uh, how do we create a sustainable long-term relationship with pole where this movement can help support us into our life, into our years?

Um, and I am constantly thinking about... And maybe that's just 'cause I have a morbid bitch. I'm constantly thinking about end of life, right, and, like, aging and how our movement life can help support us through that process.

. And I think that pole can be a really lovely movement discipline to take with us all the years of our life and, and as we get older. It's a supported apparatus, which is quite nice. Uh, it's rigid, which is really helpful.

Uh, it's a supported apparatus, which is quite nice. Uh, you know, great way to, to meet people and to hang out, to get that social life going, which as we, maybe you all don't know, uh, very important for not only just lifespan, but also health span and being able to, have a cool, fun life, uh, as we get older.

So how do we build that relationship? How do we build a, that long-term relationship?

I have four things that I'm gonna talk about today. As I go into this, the first thing I do wanna put a big red flag on, just for everybody to know, is if you are finding that you are beginning to dread your hobbies, that your fun activities don't feel fun anymore, that you're getting anhedonia, right, you're just not getting as much pleasure out of life, that is a major symptom of depression.

If that is something that you're experiencing, I would talk to a mental health professional, uh, because there could be something else going on there, and just make sure you're getting the support you need and taking care of yourself.

Uh, but if that's, if that's not what's happening, right? If, like, mental health, you're okay everything else is fine, it's just, like, pole is just, it's not quite the same as it was. You're kind of struggling to show up. What might be going on here? So the first thing I would say is look at what else is happening in your life. So I think we have... And I'm certainly guilty of this, right? I think we tend to think about different silos, right, different buckets in our life being completely independent, right?

Like, this is my, my work life, and this is, you know, the capacity that I have for here, and this is, like, my, you know, my romantic relationship, right? And that's the capacity that I have there. And this is my hobby life, and this is the capacity that I have here. And this is, like, my, my doing chores and shit, right?

This is my, like, going to the dentist, just, like, general life stuff, and that's my capacity that I have there. And I tend to fall into the trap of thinking that those are all separate buckets, right? And that I'm always gonna have the same amount of capacity in each bucket to apportion. That's not how it works.

You have one bucket. You have one big bucket that you have to fill all of these other, uh, buckets with. And when things are happening, they may take big scoops out of that bucket. They may just reduce your capacity. Managing our energy, managing our capacity is really, really important. And if we continually try to do more than we actually have capacity for, we will what? Burn out.

I know for those of y'all who have, uh, you know, chronic diseases, for those of y'all who have chronic illnesses or have disability, uh, this may be like you're gonna take a long time to recover. Um, I'm especially thinking of, of those of y'all who have post-exertional malaise. If you push yourself too hard, you will pay for it in reduced capacity over the long term, and probably to a greater reduction than the capacity you used in the first place, right? Which that sucks, man. That's rough. I, I feel for y'all if that's something that you're struggling with. See you. It is not easy.

So if we have reduced capacity, we are just not going to have as much space to do everything that we wanna do, which means some things are not gonna get done, some things are not gonna get done to the quality that we want them to be done necessarily. Uh, I know for me, something that really like piles up literally when I'm feeling really stressed is it's hard for me to fold laundry, so I just end up with like this bigger and bigger pile of clean clothes and I'll just like rummage through there and pull out, uh, pull out the clothes that I need. And if everything's fine and like I've got all my needs met and, you know, I've got extra capacity, then everything's folded and like that area's like clean. It happens sometimes.

But if I just don't have capacity, if there's so many things in my life that need to get done, and that one's not urgent or particularly important, it just doesn't get done. It gets cut off first, right? So taking time to realistically assess what your capacity is can be really, really helpful. 'Cause if you're like, "Man, I really... I want to want to do pole, but every time I'm just so exhausted," if you're trying to fill, a cup and you have one teaspoon, that cup is never gonna fill.

You're just gonna put one teaspoon in one cup, right? If that makes sense. Apologies for folks who use metric. A teaspoon is smaller than a cup, if that was not clear for... from context. Um, so looking at your capacity, looking at what you genuinely can do, And then scaling back where you need to is really important.

And yeah, absolutely it is important to move your body. Absolutely it's important to get some form of movement in your life, ideally movement that's playful, ideally movement that you enjoy, ideally movement that's a little bit challenging, uh, that helps you work into your mobility, your strength, your balance. I mean, that's why I love pole, 'cause it does all of those things, and also it's just, it's just a fun, good time. I like pole. You like pole. You're listening to this.

Uh, but if you just don't have capacity for it right now, maybe you step back, right? Maybe if you were taking class every week, you take class every other week. Maybe if your personal home training sessions are usually like 90 minutes, maybe they're 15 minutes. Maybe you just warm up. You just go to your pole space, you do whatever your warm-up is, and you leave and you're done, and that's all that you do. And that's fine. That's enough if that's what you have. So checking in with your capacity, being honest about how much energy, how much time you have, and then cutting like a little chunk of pole out that is the right size for your ability. And it might be, you know, sometimes there's just no place for pole right now, right? Uh, something really stressful in your life is happening and you're gonna have to take a couple weeks off and then come back when you've got more time.

And do not worry about taking breaks. I know that there's sort of a popular conception that if you take, like, a couple weeks off, you'll start to lose strength. In trained individuals, uh, you can take up to 32 weeks off of regular training without a, uh, noticeable decrease in one-rep max.

You may start to lose a little bit of endurance, but you can also build back endurance fairly quickly. Cardiovascular adaptation happens pretty quickly. Uh, and if you do lose strength, it's always faster to rebuild strength than it is to build it in the first point. Uh, and actually, if you take a break from training, and then you come back to training, you can catch up to the people who never stopped training pretty quickly. So give yourself a break. Do less if you need to do less, and be nice to yourself about it, uh, because if you're just tired and exhausted and stressed all the time, you're not gonna have a good time.

Okay, you're honest about your capacity. You have time, space, energy for pole and it's still just like it, it doesn't feel quite right. You're not quite getting out of it what you wanna be getting out of it. Uh, so I think something that can be really helpful here, especially if you're someone who gets like really frustrated, uh, is what's called a best possible self meditation. And obviously there'll be more information and citations in the description. Uh, but basically this is a, a meditation practice where you sit down and you imagine the best possible outcome, right? If everything went right, if everything was as good as it could possibly be, what would that look like?

And the sort of acute benefits of this are that in the short term it improves positive affect, so mood, it makes you feel nice, uh, and also optimism. It makes you feel more hopeful about the future, which can both be really helpful. Uh, but I also find it very helpful for figuring out what do I want, right?

What do I want in my goals? What do I want to be, to be moving towards? Um, so for example, when I, when I did this recently I used to compete in pole quite regularly. It was something I was interested in. Uh, but I'm thinking about like, okay, my best possible self, my best possible pole life, what does it look like?

Competitions just aren't in it. It's just not something I'm interested in doing anymore. I'm just part- past that part in my life and now I'm thinking, "Okay, like what does my best possible pole life look like?" My freestyle feels amazing. My freestyle feels powerful and fun and I, I really feel like I'm trying new things and exploring and that's really what my best possible pole life looks like, right, it has this freestyle at the center and then all of these other things around it, right?

Pole technique, so I have more options, my conditioning, my flexibility, so again, I have more options. Uh, balance, all of this supporting just like a really fun freestyle practice and for me that is my best possible life. So when I'm thinking about how I wanna spend my time, how I wanna spend, frankly, my training budget, my money, uh, I'm going to do it in a way that help me support this thing that I want. If I sit down and I think about it, what do I really want? What would the ideal be? How can I work towards that? And I don't expect it to show up tomorrow or even in 5 or 10 years, or maybe ever, right?

But that's the thing that I'm interested in. That's the thing that I want to work towards. And if I'd asked myself this question, you know, 10 years ago, my answer would've been very different, uh, and I would've been working towards different things. So as my, my goals change, so do the ways that I apportion my energy, the things that I prioritize.

Uh, and I really recommend if it's just not feeling great, if I was still training as if I was trying to compete, I would probably not be having as fun of a time as I am right now with my pole practice, right? If I were really just focusing 100% technically, that's just not what's as fun for me these days.

And there was a point in my pole life where, like, that was really what as I was into. I was really training tricks, really, like, pushing myself in that direction, and that's just not where I am anymore. And if I hadn't have changed my practice to align with what I actually want, I'd probably feel pretty frustrated right now.

So taking some time, sitting down you can use this best possible self, or you can just do journaling about it. You can just think about it. What would your ideal pole practice look like for you right now in your life? And what are some ways that you can adjust your practice to help support you?

And so if you've done that and you're like, "Yeah, the things I'm doing in my pole life are really... I have capacity for them. They're sort of moving in the direction that I want, but still there's just like... i, it just doesn't feel as juicy, as interesting, as playful, as fun as I want it to," that's why I would recommend adding some novelty, adding some new things, adding some play.

Uh, so a big thing you can do here is different movement, right? So I train pretty much exclusively online, uh, but I try to, like, incorporate movement from a lot of different teachers. I train with a lot of different folks online, uh, 'cause I like trying out different people's movement. I like just trying different classes. So I'd recommend that, right? Uh, I mean, if you've never taken one of my classes, I got a free sample class on, uh, on my website. Just try it out. See if it's for you. See if you like it. And if you try it out and you're like, "Ooh, that was not fun for me," then you've learned something, right?

I think when we're experimenting with our movement, when we're experimenting with things, when we're trying different classes, trying working with different people, I think that there can be a little bit of a tendency to be like, "Oh, I'm looking for like my perfect match and the thing that is absolutely ideal for me."

And something that I believe is that you can learn from everybody, right? There, there is something that someone can teach you. If you are a pole student, and I mean, I'm a pole teacher, but I'm still a pole student, right? I hope we all are, right? We're all still learning. Uh, and I can learn something from every single pole teacher, even if the thing that I learn from that teacher is like, oh, their style, you know, the thing that they're focusing on is just not a great fit for me. It just not, doesn't really work for my goals right now. But I wouldn't know that unless I tried it out, right?

And trying this novelty, trying new movement, trying different teachers Can be really potent. You're getting some novelty in there, right? You're trying new things. You're building new neural pathways and sort of getting into that neuroplasticity, uh, and expanding your possibilities. Moving in ways that you haven't previously is fantastic for your brain. Uh, and obviously it's good for your body to have more options, to have more things that you've tried, uh, to have more things that you've played with. Uh, something else that can be a, a nice way to add novelty and play is to try dancing to different music.

Uh, so those of y'all who take my classes, you know that every month for my techno classes, I have new playlists every month. For my freestyle classes, we have a new playlist every single class because I want you to try dancing to a lot of different types of music, a lot of different genres, speeds, tempos, you know, instrumental, vocals.

Again, those of y'all who've taken class with me know that it's a, it's an eclectic mix, let me put it that way. I'll put a link to the playlist down in the des- description below just in case you wanna, like, And feel free to use those to inform your own movement.

Try them out, right? See, maybe you'll find a song that you really like. Maybe you'll find a song that you really hate, and you probably would never have danced to on your own. And if you dance to a song and what you learn is, "God, that sucks. Not for me," fantastic. You've learned something, right? And I would even recommend digging into it more deeply and being like, "Okay, what was it about this song that wasn't for me?

Did I not like the quality of the vocals? Was it too fast? Was it too slow? Is there an instrument in there that just, like, uh, I don't enjoy moving to for whatever reason?"

Changing things is a great way to stop, slow down, notice your preferences, notice what you're enjoying, notice what you're not enjoying, and really tune into your experience and really bring your attention to your perception.

Uh, because we can train our perceptual systems just as we can train our body, and it's really important as dancers that we learn how to feel and notice how we're feeling, and we learn how to get feedback from our body, from our visual system, from our auditory system, from everything working together to help us be more present and more aware and more alive in our bodies, right? Uh, it's also gonna make it easier for you to learn novel movements if you do that, so. All works together.

Okay, so you've addressed your capacity. You do have capacity. Uh, you've thought about what your goals are. You're working towards those. You've added some novelties and play, some newness and freshness.

Uh, it's still feeling like kinda hard to get on the pole still. I would recommend try reducing your demands that you're making on yourself. I know a lot of us are perfectionists. A lot of us have this vision about how we want things to be, and we only feel like a success if we meet that vision.

And oh, that's weird, we never meet the vision because perfectionism possible. Hmm. If you haven't listened to my if you haven't listened to the podcast episode on perfectionism, I would recommend checking it out. Uh, some of the main findings from perfectionism is it doesn't make you a better dancer. It just makes you a more unhappy dancer. With that in mind, shifting our goals, shifting the, uh, demands that we put on ourselves can make it easier to show up. A big thing that I really recommend is if you're thinking about goals, focus on showing up, focus on consistency, focus on effort rather than outcomes, right?

So, uh, I'm gonna stretch twice a week. Fantastic goal. Fine with that. I'm gonna get my splits by this time next month. I wouldn't recommend that as a goal, uh, because you may or may not get there even with consistent effort, right? There's so many things that can affect whether or not you're able to find a certain movement in your body at a certain point in time.

So focusing on consistency of effort and rewarding that rather than specific outcomes that may only partially be under your control is gonna help you feel better and show up more consistently. And as we know, well, hopefully you know if you've listened to the podcast for a while, consistency is the single most important thing in terms of movement that helps us take care of our bodies, that helps us, uh, feel good in our movement and be able to continue to do it in the long term.

Something that you can genuinely do repeatedly and often is going to be the most powerful thing you can do for your body far more than pushing yourself as hard as possible. That's part of the reason why I tend to focus on, uh, low to moderate intensity movement instead of high intensity movement, uh, because high intensity movement just generally feels less good, and people are generally, and again it's based on the research, less consistent when they are going to do really, really high intensity movement.

And also see if you can reduce, like, the structural friction, right? So a big thing for me is I like to, like, dress up and do my makeup and put on shoes and get my area all set up when I'm home poling. Like, that's fun for me. It is rare that I have the time and energy to do that. So giving myself permission to be like, "I'm just gonna roll into the pole room in the clothes that I have on currently," right?

Like, maybe in my PJs. Uh, and I'm just going to do five minutes of movement. I'm not gonna clean up all the cat toys. Uh, I might, like, sweep the five feet around the pole, but I'm not gonna sweep the whole room, right? Reducing the friction, reducing the, like, before I do X, I have to do Y, as much as possible, making that as small as possible, to make it easier to actually show up and find the movement can be really helpful. Because what you might be avoiding is the demand of the things that are coming along with the pole time instead of the pole time itself.

Or if you have, you know, a pole that you take up and put down, maybe you just spend some floor time. Maybe you're just working on floor work. Maybe you don't even bring out the pole, right?

And it might be that once you start moving, you're like, "Okay, yeah, I have a little bit more capacity. I wanna do a little bit more." Fantastic if that happens. And if it doesn't happen, that's also fine, because you showed up, you did a little movement, you felt nice, and you're working on that consistency, which again, the most important thing.

So if you're really feeling like your pole spark is just, like, not there anymore, uh, and you've checked in with your mental health and you're, you're pretty sure it's not depression, and you're supported there, fantastic. Assessing your capacity as it fluctuates, where pole fits into your life is also gonna fluctuate. Perfectly fine, perfectly normal. We all have different seasons of life. Uh, the poles don't run away. It'll still be there for you when you have more capacity. Uh, checking in with what your goals are and that what you are doing is actually aligned with what you want out of your practice. Uh, again, what I want is freestyle that feels amazing right now, and if I was training as if what I wanted was to compete at a high level, I would not be feeling fulfilled. I'd be feeling frustrated and kind of resentful. Uh, so making sure that what you want and what you are doing are aligned really important. Uh, adding some novelty and play, working with different movement, working with different teachers, trying different music, uh, really adding new things to your practice to see what you like, to see what you don't like, uh, and to give yourself new inputs, very, very helpful, very powerful. I'd recommend it. Uh, and then also just reducing demands. Seeing if you can't make it easier for yourself to show up so you can show up consistently, because consistency is the most important thing.

So hopefully this has been a helpful episode for you if you are in a stage where you're struggling with pole or it's just not feeling quite as fun. And again, totally normal. If you do pole for long enough, this is going to happen to you, and these are some strategies that you can try to make sure that if you want to keep pole in your life, you can in a way that is supportive and enjoyable. 'Cause this is what it's about, right? Like, if you're a hobbyist poler, this is your fun hobby that you do for fun. It should be fun. It should be enjoyable, and if it's consistently not enjoyable, then that's an issue, and if nothing in your life is enjoyable, again, talk to a mental health professional. There's something else going on there.

Thanks so much for joining me today. If you wanna check out that free sample class, I got that linked down there in the bio. I also have community flow classes, which are free live classes about once a month, uh, and usually the best way to learn about those is to get on my email list. so if that's something you're interested in I'd recommend doing that. And I'll put the link to get on my list in the, the down there below as well.

But that's enough prattling from me. I hope some of these strategies are helpful for you. I hope that you are finding a rich, fulfilling, juicy, wonderful pole life, uh, that is a wonderful complement to the rest of the things that are going on for you and you're taking care of yourself.

And I will talk to you soon. Bye.

Randi Fentress
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