Struggling with your flow?
I’m pretty sure that you’ve experienced the following before:
You’ve done your warmup, you move to the pole…
AND NOTHING
You can’t think of anything. You know so many pole moves, but nothing comes to mind.
You put on a music and start with some spins to get into flow…
BUT STILL NOTHING
Your mind goes blank after a couple of spins. And then you start thinking…
You either look at the pole and think what to do next.
Or you walk around the pole until you can recall another move.
Or you just repeat the same moves over and over again.
Why do you have to think constantly what to do next?
And why nothing comes to mind, when you know so many moves?
Two reasons:
- When you’re focusing only on specific moves, you’re limiting yourself to moves that you can only remember.
- Your brain gets overwhelmed by too many options.
In this video I’m explaining what’s going on in your brain and I’m showing specific exercises you can do when you’re standing in front of the pole and your mind goes blank.
These pole exercises will help you get out of your head and dance fluidly in the present moment:
When nothing comes to mind…
1) LIMIT YOUR OPTIONS – Choose 3 moves and create a combo/choreo
Explore transitions and different ways of combining moves. This exercise might not necessarily help you think less, but it can help you, when your mind goes blank.
When you want to free your mind and your body…
2) FREESTYLE – 1 FOCUS vs. 100 MOVES
Instead of thinking about 100 moves that you could possibly do, focus just on one thing at a time.
a) Focus on one part of your body (head, chest, arms, feet, …)
Pick one part of your body and explore how you can use its full range of motion. This will help you start dancing with your entire body.
b) Focus on a quality of movement
For example, move as slow as possible and continue each move as long as possible, until it naturally melts into something else. No cutting short!
Play with reaching out and away from the pole.
Play with making every movement much bigger and more exaggerated than usual. Take a risk!
c) Explore variations of 1 move
Make it bigger or smaller, lower or higher, slower or faster.
Can you change the contact points slightly? How does this affect “the big picture”?
Explore different ways of getting in and out of it.
d) Focus on the music
…and matching your movement to different songs. Which style feels easier and more natural to you?
e) Don’t stop moving!
Challenge yourself to keep moving all the time. When you’re feeling the urge to stop, slow down instead. Stopping should be only intentional.
It’s easy to end up rushing and cutting moves short in this exercise. Again, slow it down if you catch yourself rushing.
There’s no restriction about how much time you should spend on these exercises. But I recommend at least 5min. The longer, the better. And the more your mind becomes free and and your movement flowing.
For me, personally, the magic starts after at least 3min of dancing. The first minute usually feels out of place. But hey, no reason to give up. Wait for the magic. 🙂
For more ideas and inspiration I recommend the freestyle challenges by “Finding Your Freestyle”.
Are you new to dancing? The first step you can do today to get comfortable with it, is to start dancing your warmups. You can get my 15min long Flow Warmup FOR FREE. It will feel like you’re not even trying. 😉
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