Transcript
In a basic pole routine, it’s important to have a nice, balanced mix of spins, tricks, climbs and transitions. If you’re creating your own routine, one thing you can do is freestyle to music that you like, relying on the skills that you already know. Perhaps even some of the skills you’ve seen in these videos and see what your body naturally does when you come out of these movements.
So for example, starting with something nice and easy like a basic illusion, I would get three steps into it. Let’s see what my body naturally does coming out of my illusion. I step, right-left, right-bowing away my nice half-moon shape that I create my X. Pivot-face the pole, left hand goes under the right. My left leg loops around.
I don’t even have to leave the floor for this to be impressive. I keep my right foot on the floor, pivoting on that right foot. I step down on my left foot. My right leg naturally wants to come up and then I know from here, I can add some artistry, and then perhaps going to Wendy Traskos’ full turn, knuckle-roll, stepping out of it and go into what feels natural to you.
For someone else if they go into an illusion, their body, their inclination may be to do something else. So freestyle and see what works for you. Step right, left, right, pole away X. Pivot, baseball grip, nice and high, shoulders down. Pivot on the ball of that right foot. Left foot loops around, I step down. I might want to step behind myself, pop my left foot, step out left and stroke my right leg.
So do what your body naturally flows into doing next versus necessarily, forcing yourself to go into something that feels unnatural. Something else important when you’re doing a basic pole routine, is to not just race up to the top of the pole and race to come down. Think about a pretty static pose you can do at the top of the pole, before you come down, such as a bow, an arch, body waves versus looking like you ran up there to hit a buzzer, like you’re going to win a prize and coming straight down.
Give me something at the top of the pole that makes it looks like you went up there for a reason.
Same thing with floor work. Some of our spins take us to the floor. You don’t want to just want to get down to the floor and race to come back up again. Even some of the things you do standing, you can do on the floor if you end up on the floor.
So let’s say I take something down to my knees. Even something as simple as a head roll, doing a little peekaboo open/close of my legs before I come up to standing, makes it look like there was an intent and purpose in going down to the floor, andd it ends up in a nice, cohesive routine that ends like more of a story versus some segmented moves just kind of clumped together.
