I’ll hold my hands up and admit that over the past few years I have been neglecting flow and dance when it came to my pole practice. Yes I have attended many a dance, floorwork and basework workshop, but when it came to what I attempted at practice sessions I was hell bent on training strength moves. Who even wants to work on some delicious, slinky, movement and feel like an ethereal being when you can stress yourself out for an hour wobbling around in the shoddiest elbow grip Ayesha known to humanity? Well apparently me.
In recent months my strength obsession has somewhat dwindled and I am really fucking missing just letting go and dancing. After attending one of Marilena’s spinny pole flow workshops at the Filthy Weekender earlier this month and giving all the You Filthy Floor Fucker competitors a very worthwhile stalk, my pining for all things flow and dance related has unsurprisingly increased. I was fortunate enough to attend the Pole Party at the Filthy Weekender too with one of my favourites Emma, who is an expert at all things floorwork and was able to impart some fab floorwork wisdom, including how to fake one of my all time favourite floor moves the straddle bang.
I have however acknowledged that I’m only human, not in possession of Bernard’s watch and it’s impossible for me to train everything all at once. Am I missing dancing? Hell yes. But am I beating myself up over neglecting it in recent months? Hell no.
Disclosure: The link above is an affiliate link, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn commission if you click through and make a purchase.
At present, I am choreographing a performance for Scarlet Show, in October, which not only am I fucking buzzing for, but this also means I need to pull my fingers out of my arse and choreograph some cracking low flow and floorwork. If I attempted an entire five minute performance (yes, my song is five minutes long, thoughts and prayers are accepted at this trying time) which consisted of aerial trick combos only I would have a heart attack. Furthermore, the song I’m dancing too is gloriously textured when it comes to tempo changes, so I wouldn’t be doing it justice if I crafted a trick on a stick performance for it’s duration.
Baring this in mind, I treated myself a few weeks ago to a two hour practice session that was dedicated entirely to the floorwork and flow for my performance. Whilst I initially felt a little rusty, I quickly began to enjoy the session. I bloody loved the creative challenge of playing around with the theme of the song and exploring what movements and pathways felt good for me both physically and mentally. In recent years, my creative side has been stifled by the regularness of life (props to anyone who gets that reference), but I’m slowly learning how to tune into it again.
I did however forget just how knackering flow and floorwork are to train. I foolishly thought that as I wasn’t inverting once during the entire practice it would be less of a physical beasting than normal. Pah! Holy shit the pain afterwards was unreal! I was aching like a mad cunt for the rest of the day and have vowed to myself never to underestimate training flow again. Some gentle stretching that afternoon was definitely required in order to fix my battered body, which coincided nicely with my floorwork training, as the main reason I am on my perpetual flexibility quest is to expand my range of movement and get into some cool as hell, bendy floor moves.
The flow and floorwork mission will be continuing until at least October, but I’ll endeavour as best as I can to make it as much a part of my pole training as aerial work. As hippy dippy as this sounds, letting go and dancing is a fantastic way of connecting with yourself and can even make someone like me, who’s brain likes to operate at 100mph on a good day, feel mindful and grounded.
Are you an avid flow and floorwork dancer or does it slip off your radar from time to time too? Let us know in the comments 😊
Disclosure: The link above is an affiliate link, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn commission if you click through and make a purchase.
Chrome Chronicles 