The #1 advice I’d give my younger self (and every pole beginner)

I often get emails that go like this:
„Hi! I’m a pole beginner, so I struggle with everything at the moment. Any advice is appreciated.“

I really feel everyone who’s just getting started with pole dancing. But also for more advanced polers, it always feels like there are so many things to work on: conditioning, flexibility, strength tricks, flow, dance. There’s never enough time for everything.

When I think about what advice I would give to my younger self, even more things come to my mind:

• Don’t compare yourself to others
• Train both sides
• Listen to your body and take rest days
• Stretch regularly
• …

It’s an endless list.

But from my experience as a pole dance teacher, I find that one thing always gets overlooked. And in my opinion it’s the key for what pole dancers constantly complain about later:
„I stare at the pole and I have no ideas.”
„I know 100 moves and I can’t create a simple routine.“

I’ve met so many strong and flexible pole dancers, who can execute perfectly beautiful poses, but can not put them in motion. The reason – they’ve always been taught just single tricks. Now they feel stuck. And I’m telling you, it’s really frustrating for someone who has come that far, after years of training.

So, my personal advice is:
Start putting things together as soon as possible and make it a habit. Don’t expect that your body and your brain will be able to figure it out later by themselves. You have to teach them first what’s possible and how to make these connections.

This starts on a very basic level. No more excuses that you don’t know „enough tricks“. Just pick 3 simple moves that you know well and try to come up with transitions in between. This is the part where you can spend time… Sometimes a long time. In my choreographies I’d sometimes spend 10min on one transition, until it feels good. If a transition doesn’t feel natural in my dance routine later, I’ll come back to it and adjust it again.

To get you started right away, here’s a super simple pole routine that I teach to first time pole students in my „Intro to Pole“ classes. It’s a beautiful choreography that you can dance with just a few basic moves.

Now, you can dance this routine exactly like it is in the video, or you can just take its transitions and use them to combine some of your own favorite moves into a simple routine.

But what I would really encourage you to do is to explore new transitions and combinations on your own.

Same goes for more advanced aerial moves. For every new trick that you learn, try different ways to get in and out of it, as well as other moves to combine it with. Put it in a dance context to build motion memory.

What pole advice would you give to your younger self? Let me know in the comments.