You’ve lost a pole trick… now what?

In this episode Dr. Rosy Boa discusses regression in pole dancing—plateaus, losing tricks, and fluctuating capacity—as a normal outcome of changing life circumstances like stress, finances, injury, caregiving, and disability, including impacts from COVID. She argues pole should not be prioritized over basic needs and warns against tying self-worth to specific tricks, which can create shame and identity crises when abilities change. As a coaching approach, she recommends building the skill of “noticing”: tuning into proprioception and interoception, identifying what feels physically pleasurable, and cultivating aesthetic appreciation beyond technical perfection. She suggests practicing by watching peer-level dancers and identifying non-technical qualities (expression, musicality, lines, novelty) to develop a softer lens that can be turned inward, supporting motivation, enjoyment, and longevity in pole.

Citations: 

Loureiro F, Ringold SM, Aziz-Zadeh L. Interoception in Autism: A Narrative Review of Behavioral and Neurobiological Data. Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2024 May 3;17:1841-1853. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S410605. PMID: 38716258; PMCID: PMC11075678. 

(Movement/exercise is effective in supporting joint health, especially in patients who already have osteoarthritis)  Nayab S, Bilal Elahi M. The Impact of Exercise Interventions on Pain, Function, and Quality of Life in Patients With Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Cureus. 2024 Nov 25;16(11):e74464. doi: 10.7759/cureus.74464. PMID: 39726491; PMCID: PMC11669877. 

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome and Setup

00:53 Why We Regress

01:29 Life Shifts and Capacity

03:30 Losing Tricks Is Normal

04:41 Identity Beyond Tricks

06:44 Noticing What Feels Good

09:14 Intrinsic Motivation in Practice

11:39 Appreciating Others Differently

13:47 Exercise to Train Your Eye

16:55 Beauty in Every Stage

20:10 Softness and Self Kindness

20:39 Wrap Up and Shout Outs

Transcript: 

 Hello and welcome to Science of Slink,  with me, your host, Dr. Rosy Boa, uh, not a medical doctor.

And today I wanna talk about something that is very important and a source of a lot of frustration for a lot of folks. I keep having the same conversations with, with folks, you know, students or other pole dancers, whatever.

Uh, and I think it's worthwhile to bring that conversation and discussion to the podcast, uh, and I'll say, this is not me authoritatively being like, this is the way things are. It is just gonna be my thoughts, my observations. And I would love for this to be a continuing conversation. I'm pretty sure that most places where the podcast is posted, you'll, you'll be able to, uh, to reply in comments and I should get notification.

But you can also email me info@slinkthroughstrength.com or uh, on Instagram slink_through_strength. Uh, I don't check my messages that often. Sorry about it. So if you're coming from TikTok, try Instagram or, or email. So if you wanna keep the conversation going, more than happy to talk about it.

But I wanna talk today about regressing. I wanna talk about losing tricks. I wanna talk about what happens when our capacity has been growing and expanding in a certain way, and then it stops doing that and, is reduced. How do we deal with this, right?

This is not a, oh, you've fallen off the bandwagon, how to get, here's how it's to get back on. You know, check out my, my workout program. Uh, we'll, we'll whip you into Shape Bootcamp style. That's absolutely not what I'm doing here today. If that's what you need, uh, please to find it elsewhere. Uh, there's lots and lots of great resources for you, but.

What I'm talking about is when the place that pole has in your life shifts as it inevitably will. Right. We are living creatures. We are constantly in flux. We are in a world that's undergoing a lot of change. Uh, a lot of people's financial capacity has changed recently. A lot of people's just sort general stress levels have changed. You know, we had COVID, which was a mass disabling event. A lot of folks have acquired new disabilities as part of that. Um, a lot of people are now caregivers who weren't previously, right. There's so much going on. That means that as a population, we have reduced capacity for our fun hobbies.

Which just is the way it's right. And I, I mean, obviously I do what I do. I still think it is worthwhile to make time for your fun, enjoyable hobbies. Especially if it helps you build community, if it has a social component. 'cause it's so, so important for your, your wellbeing and your, uh, just like being happy is a human right.

We're social, we're not eusocial, we're not bees, but we're social. We're like wolves, right? You, you need a social community. And also in terms of physical activity, right? It's good for your body, you know, that I'm not gonna harp on it but. I think it can also be, uh, a source of shame, a source of self-criticism.

When in the past as you've been, you know, growing in pole, you have been praised and you have gotten positive attention for achievements, for learning new movements, for getting stronger, for getting more flexible. And at some point that's gonna stop happening.

Either you'll plateau, you're just not gonna have any more time to train. You know, you might get injured, you might regress for that reason. There just might be other stuff in your life, right? Like maybe you have a kid now and your schedule is just less flexible and you have less time and you have other demands. And listen, I love pole. It's really important to me. Don't prioritize it over, you know, your dependents. Don't prioritize it over, you know, fucking putting food on the table. It's, it is valuable and it's important and it's good, but it should not be your number one value and priority. And if it is that's a problem. I'm saying this is a pole teacher, right?

So you know, things change. And you are no longer getting new achievements and maybe you are starting to lose things, right? Something you worked very hard for and that made you feel very accomplished to do, you can no longer do right? Like you've lost a trick.

And this is something I I wanna be very frank. If you do pole long enough, this will happen to you. Even if you are continuing to increase your physical capacity, you're getting stronger, you're getting more flexible, there are so many different directions that we can be exploring in our physicality.

There are so many different pole movements that have so many different requirements of our body that unless you are evenly training everything you've ever learned and nobody does that, and you also, you shouldn't be trying to do that, you'll get fluctuations, right? So maybe you're training your splits more and movements that require that sort of mobility, like maybe your Jade are starting to feel better, but you're not training, let's.

Say your shoulder mount conditioning strength quite as much. And so your shoulder mounts just feel a little bit heavier. Your split moves feel a little bit better, and maybe later in a different training season, those will fluctuate and change in a different way.

So losing things is not necessarily indicative of an overall lessening of capacity. And even if it is, it's okay. That is normal. Life changes, things change and. Besides that, I would really encourage you if you are someone whose sense of worth, whose sense of value, whose sense of pride in pole comes from being able to do specific movements, I would strongly encourage you to try to deconstruct that before you lose those movements.

Because it's gonna ha not to be macabre, but it's gonna happen at some point, right? Unless you know, you meet an untimely end, and I hope you don't, you know, as you age, your capacity's gonna change. Uh, and eventually you're not gonna have a very large pole vocabulary if you're still doing pole, which I'm not saying don't, right?

I don't think there's an upper age limit on pole, but, uh, there probably is an upper age limit on, let's say fonji, uh, not seeing a ton of folks in their nineties doing fonji. And if you're like, I am who I am as a person because I can do a fonji, I can't do a fonji. I have no intention of doing a fonji.

I'm never gonna train it, but I'm just picking a movement. Uh, and you lose that. You are going to have an identity crisis, and it's gonna feel. Bad in addition to whatever it is that caused you to lose the trick. 'cause generally, hopefully what I'm be getting at it, it's clear generally we lose things when we have other stressors, especially if we're using a lot of stuff sort of unilaterally

And adding to whatever stressor are in your life, this sort of self crimination, tearing yourself down that sort of loss of identity of I'm a person who does X trick just adds unnecessary pain on top of that. You don't need to do that to yourself, right? So I think it can be really helpful and really valuable regardless of where you are in your pole journey to, spend some time to deconstruct the idea that a pole is good because they can do certain movements because they tick certain tick boxes, uh, or that you are good or valuable because of that.

So how do we deal with this, right? And it's hard, right? It is a genuinely hard process. And if you're going through it now, especially if you're going through it after you've lost something if you have a therapist, definitely talk about this with your therapist.

I think, uh, they are, they're more well equipped to, to deal with the sort of, uh, psychological support of this. I am really more talking about, like, as an instructor, my, my recommendations as a pole coach.

So the first thing I would do is, develop the skill, develop the habit of noticing what you enjoy about your movement. Uh, and if you've taken my freestyle classes you've probably heard me talk about developing the skill of noticing. And I mean by that, several different things, right? So one, I mean, developing your proprioception your physical sense of where your body is in space.

I mean tuning in to the subtle sensations from your body, your interception. Are you feeling stretch? Where? Are you feeling work? Where? Do you want to feel stretcher work? Where? Um, and this draws a lot on interception, which is your sense of the inside of your body. Um, and just an aside here for neuro divergent folks, especially if you're autistic, this skill is just gonna take longer for you to learn, just sort of based on population level studies.

Uh, you can learn it. Perceptual learning is possible at any life stage. It's just gonna take a little longer for you than it will for an holistic person. So just on average, your mileage may vary. We'll pin on that.

And also I want you to develop and. Aesthetic sense and aesthetic appreciation.

Uh, even hedonistic appreciation, right? Notice what is pleasurable in your dance, and this is the skill that has served me so, so, so, so well. As my ability fluctuates, as my capacity fluctuates, as I lose tricks that I worked really hard for, and then I can't do them anymore. Uh, there's a while actually, right after I, I opened the studio and I just couldn't shoulder mount anymore and I worked so hard for shoulder mount for so long and I did eventually get it back, but while I didn't have it I was actively working on finding what I was enjoying in my dance and finding that pleasure and leaning into it so that I had a reason to keep coming back. Because if you set yourself up for training session after training session working on the same trick and failing and failing and failing, likely to get overuse injuries, but also that's really demoralizing. I would say that there's a very small percentage of people who find repeated failure without success, especially doing something physically uncomfortable to be inherently motivating. Most people are not gonna be motivated by that, right?

Focusing instead of trying to find that feeling of achievement, I got it. I did it. Ha ha. Which feels great, and I don't think it's bad to find and enjoy that, but I think it's also important to bring bring our attention to other parts of our dance and notice other things and find other things that bring you enjoyment.

So I mentioned that, that sense of sort of hedonic enjoyment, what feels good. Something in your dance, particularly your freestyle, should be physically pleasurable and physically enjoyable. This is a sweeping generalization but moving your body is good for your body, right?

Even just on a mechanical level, if you're moving your synovial joints you're lubricating those joints. That's great for joint longevity. Um, we all know, you know, cardio is good for your heart, blah, blah, blah. Freestyle counts as cardio. By the way. You will not catch me on a treadmill. Uh, but I'll definitely freestyle for 20 minutes and be like, haha, did it. So there should be something enjoyable in their movement. If everything's painful, if everything is uncomfortable, I would see a physical therapist. I would bring it up with your coach. You were, you're doing something wrong, right?

Uh, there should be parts of your movement practice that are inherently motivating, intrinsically motivating, because they feel good. And learning to notice what feels good and learning to develop that muscle of, Hey, this feels good. I'm allowed to do more of it and I'm going to do more of it, is such an important thing for your longevity in pole for feeling good for being nice to yourself or finding enjoyment.

And also for helping you get through those parts of your life where you are more stressed. You need the physical activity, you need the socialization, you need a nice thing in your day when shit shit's fucking rough out here. I know I'm not the only person who goes to pole in part to feel better mentally and physically. So I need to be able to find something that. Makes me feel better mentally and physically in pole, besides just like pushing myself doing a bunch of shit that sucks and hoping I get some endorphins at the end of it. And like I said, uh, I think a small portion of people do find that inherently motivating.

And if that is you, fantastic. For me at least, that's just not, that's not what gets me out of bed in the morning. Right. So building that skill of noticing, building, your physical ability to notice, but also, the habit of being like, this feels good.

I'm liking this. This is fun. A while ago I started a habit of when I was enjoying myself, like hanging out with friends or something I would say out loud, this is really nice. I'm enjoying this, I'm having a nice time. And it really helped me notice that and cherish and savor those moments. So, if you wanna do that, feel free. I found it very helpful. You might as well.

So that's noticing within yourself, and again, this is something that I do a lot with, uh, my students. If you take a freestyle pass with me, you've, you've heard me yatter on about this.

The other thing is noticing in other people, right? And I think part of what can make. Losing a trick feels so challenging so bad is that we admire other people's technical achievements. We admire other people's moves. We like, uh, you know, that photo of someone who gets like they're Ayesha with the angles. Great, fantastic. The Superman they've been working towards, uh, a flat jade, right? There are things that we have been. Told through repetition, through, uh, community support as a community that we should value and enjoy and celebrate. And I'm not saying we should not celebrate them. I wanna be very, very clear.

I do think they're not the only things we're celebrating. So the other part of the noticing skill I really encourage you to work on is enjoying other people's movement removed from that filter of technical, excellence, perfection. Those of you who have, uh, unfortunately gotten ballet brained at some point in the past, this may be a harder sell for you.

Uh, it may be very challenging for you to address that inner critic who is also. App praising people for things that you have decided that you value and not noticing other things about their movement that are, you know, perhaps inspiring and, you know, you're taking that same lens and right. If that movement is beautiful because you know their jade is flat. And your jade isn't flat, does that mean that your movement isn't beautiful? Right. I think that that's the double-edged sword, uh, and you'll see this a lot in comments, right? When someone's like, oh, you know, first pole class, and someone in the comments was like, you didn't even point both your toes for that.

Uh, and I think that if the metric that you have been given and the model of appreciation that has been performed for you is did this person do a checklist of specific things, which is very much the way some people coach and teach pole. Um, and I think for other people that is very motivating. I'm not saying it's inherently wrong, I am saying it sets you up for in the future when you can't tick those tick boxes, you're gonna get this feeling of, oh, I've done this wrong. Oh, I'm bad. And you're gonna internalize that shame and maybe some guilt, uh, and it's gonna make pole stop feeling good.

So how do we deal with this? We notice different things. Uh, so a great exercise for this is to find a pole dancer who I would say you consider to be at your technical level, who you consider to be a peer, or who you would consider to be slightly less good than you technically, right?

They're, they're working on tricks that you feel like you've mastered, uh, or did master and then lost, and watch their videos with an eye for what you can appreciate. Maybe, uh, it helps to like pause a bunch and freeze frame and be like, oh yeah, that shape is really lovely.

Right? Oh yeah. It's not a flat Jade but it's got maybe there's a, a curve to it that's really lovely. Or, uh, there's sort of a, a, a bend of the knees that really draws the eye along a specific line. Uh, or it's just interesting. It's just something you've never seen before and uh, what they're bringing is novelty and intrigue.

And, watch their videos and maybe for each minute long video notice three things that you really liked that weren't technical. Right that were about a type of expression, maybe musicality. They're like, oh wow, they really like embodied this part of the lyrics. I can really see that in their dance.

Or maybe I really like the way the sort of the light caught across, you know, their face as they were dancing at this particular point in the music. Or I could hear them breathing and their breathing was sort of syncing with the music, like it was its own instrument, right.

I genuinely believe that there is something that, that. Any dance? Any dance, yes even that one that you're thinking about, has something in it that is valuable that you can learn to appreciate, that you can develop your eye for, right? Just like you can learn to tell apart, you know, lots of different colors, right? Or you can, you know, get really good at wine tasting or you can get really good at like identifying notes in perfume. That same skillset can teach you to find the beauty in other people's dance.

And once you have that, once you can find the beauty in other people's dances, you can take that same skill and turn it on yourself, right? You can take that lens of appreciation, you can take that lens of discernment, of enjoyment, and you can bring it to yourself. And again, this is detatced from technical excellence. This is detatched from, did they get the move? Did they hit their spot? Whatever this is. What is it about? This particular moment of embodiment, of expression, of enjoyment that I can also derive enjoyment from, right?

We are a performing art. You never have to do pole for anyone. Well, I mean, if you're working at the club, you do kind of have to do pole for people, but I'm talking to hobbiests. Hobbiests! You never have to do pole for anyone. This may be just your private thing that is only ever just for you and no one ever sees, and that is perfectly fine.

Uh, and maybe you never film yourself. You never have any visual reflection of your dance at all. You never use a mirror also perfectly fine. And for you, if that's you, I would say focus more on the physical feelings. But if you enjoy that visual aspect, if you enjoy watching other people's dance, focus on finding those moments of visual appreciation of things that you, you genuinely like.

And I, again, in my heart of hearts, I believe, and if you're like, "but Rosy, I'm such a baby pole dancer. I'm so clumsy. I'm not graceful at all. I'm not doing anything cool or interesting", eh, wrong. I love watching people who are really early on in their pole journey. I love the sort of like the freshness of the relationship.

Uh, I love the sense of exploration, uh, especially for like really mature freestylers. It's kind of rare to see them at their edge, right? Because they have expanded their capacity and they've got lots of space to play in. If you are newer, if you're coming back, if you have that sort of reintroduction that reconnection with an old flame. There's so much beauty and there's so much joy to be had from watching other people's dance and your own dance with genuine enjoyment, with genuine delight that this person, uh, and it might be you, you might be the person has taken time from their day to embrace expression and creativity in this truly ephemeral art form. Even if you, you know, you take the world's best video, you get the world's best picture. You're never gonna recreate that moment again. Right? It's, it's sandcastles. It's all disappearing as it's built. And embracing that and noticing as you're moving through a beautiful moment, oh God, this is beautiful. Is such. It's such a gift for yourself, and it's a huge gift for your future self when you know your capacity changes, things shift in your life and you're like, eh, I really felt good about myself for doing X, and now I can't do X anymore. You do not have to feel bad about yourself. You can be like, you know what? I can't do X anymore, and that is just. The flat truth. Uh, maybe at some point I'll have capacity to work towards doing X again, maybe X will come back in my body. Maybe it never will, right? It really, it doesn't matter one way or the other because there is still space for you to find exploration and enjoyment, even in simple things, even in easy things.

If you're not watching, I'm doing air quotes here. Simple in quotes, easy in quotes, uh, even in things that are not, big or interesting or pretty. Again, all these quotes quote quotes, there is still beauty in expression. There's beauty in vulnerability, and I would encourage you to look for it in others so that you can see it in yourself, and you can turn that same soft, loving lens that you have honed on you.

All right. And I think it will genuinely, genuinely, genuinely help you when stressors in your life come up. 'cause they fucking will. Tell me about, about it. Do tell me about it. If you're, if you're one of my students and you've, you know, shit's gotten stressful, let me know. Uh, it'll help me to, to know where you are and, and what you need support with.

Um. But also, when you lose tricks, you will have something else. There will be something richer and deeper and with more longevity than just I could do, you know, the latest hottest Instagram trick. And if you know that's what's fun for you and that's what you enjoy, that is perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with it. But having the second skillset, this skillset of appreciation, the skillset of noticing this ability to be like, that feels good. I want more of that. And then doing more of that will really help you find dance, find enjoyment, find fulfillment, find support and joy, especially when shit gets going into the future and as things change around you. So I would really, really encourage you to work on those skills. Be nice to yourself. Shit's hard. Shit's hard for everybody. It's like it's a rough time, right? We can all acknowledge that.

But that doesn't mean that you have to be rough on yourself. You can be soft with yourself. You can, find. Joy in your own movement, and I hope that you do, and I hope that it is a source of sucker and sweetness and delight in a world that could use more of all those things.

All right, that's what I got today. Off my soapbox, uh, again, more based on my experience than a specific research, although some of the stuff that I did mention is, uh, uh, is research findings.

So. Yeah. Hope you're doing well. Uh, and perhaps I will slink with you soon. Oh and I almots forgot to do this. Shout out my numbers, man. Y'all hearts to you. Y'all are making time to show up for yourself and, and take care of your bodies and move, and hopefully you're finding this joy. Hopefully you're building this skill of enjoyment for yourself and for other people.

Uh, and I'm proud of y'all. I'm proud of y'all. All right, I'll talk to you later. Bye.