What did I do and why should anyone watch it?
I wrote a brief report about my relationship with movement over the course of the last couple years and how that has changed drastically due to FFTT. Following this training, I began to teach pole dancing with a rainbow goal of providing a framework to others to explore movement that feels good within their body, all while I continue to explore and develop my own movement style.
FFTT Final Project
Integrating Floor Flow into What Excites Me
Sam Stephens
What Excites Me (TL,DR)
Pole dancing and developing my own movement style. I want to be able to create a space where I can provide a framework to others to explore movement that feels good within their body.
How I Got Here ( Step 1: Describing the Process)
From 2017 - 2019, I would spend every hour that I could at my home studio taking every pole, low flow, and floor class that was available within my level. By learning from the same 3-4 teachers for the most part, their interests and movement patterns were heavily reflected in the stylistic choices that I made. For the most part, I was taught specifically about placement or posing as if there was one right way to do it. I would see people like Marlo, Yvonne Smink, or Olga Trifonova really paving a pathway to their movement style, but it felt like I needed to be an innovator in the industry to move in my own way, and I was just barely able to sustain my weight on the pole. Such a distant thought was tucked for so long as I mimicked movement in class and found plenty of happiness by it. It wasn’t until I was forced to continue my practice at home (thank you pandemic!) that I eventually opened up to instruction across the world. It still took more than a year for me to realize that I could learn from people that hadn’t taught me before in a studio. You may wonder, why are you not mentioning individual exploration, is that happening? Why rely on instruction? I’m so terrible at self motivation, I need a class to hold me accountable. And I like to learn from others because I enjoy being a student.
Eventually, I started seeking out movers that I liked from Instagram and signing up for their classes. Throughout this process, I knew there was a way that I liked to move, but I still wasn’t ready to make it my own. For the next 6 months or so, I took workshops and classes ranging from a Marlo spiral class (oh boy, I was not ready for those spins) to Russian hard style to graceful choreo to fundamental advanced pole classes. Throughout all that, movement is what resonated with me; like a serial test subject, I just wanted to exploreIt wasn’t until I signed up for a month-long workshop series with Drusilla Ray that I started to explore movement pathways in a way that I wanted. She created a framework with different weekly focuses and ques, exploratory freestyles, and a progression building up to a sequence that was uniquely our own. That was when something clicked in me. After nearly 7 years of acquainting myself with pole and floor as my apparatus, I’ve built up some semblance of familiarity and musicality so that I can make my own stylistic choices. I can choose my pace, transitions, limb placement, etc. That tumbled into this last year of many low flow classes and still plenty of instructor/style roulette where I found instruction that wasn’t rigid in placement, timing, or movement, but allowed me to grow in a way that felt organic. During this phase of my journey, Marlo announced this FFTT.
Am I a teacher? No.
Do I want to be? I don’t know…
Did I hop at the opportunity to learn from Marlo? Of course
Did I want to reestablish my connection to the floor? YES
The floor had been secondary to the pole for a long time, so I was excited to learn solely from the perspective of advancing my utilization of the floor.
Thoughts and Application:
(Step 2: What Felt Good (or provided a healthy challenge) in creating this project?)
I’ve started teaching beginner to upper beginner classes at a studio and privately to a friend, which has afforded me the opportunity to test out different class structures and gain feedback from students. I want to provide an introduction to an apparatus in a way that is connective, challenging, and open ended.
There are so many things to consider when you bring 12 strangers into the same room. These are some of the thoughts I’ve had and some that I’ve asked or shared:
What is your reason for moving today? Did you come for exercise? To get your body moving? To be sexy? To try something new?
If you just want to move, where did you set your expectations? This is something maybe you’ve never done before, so be patient, and be aware of the practice that I’ve put thousands of hours into. Knowing that, allow your body to just move without any nagging thought of, “oh, this isn’t cute” or “I don’t look good doing that”.
We’ll have our moments of stillness or pause during class where sexy may be our focus, but understand and slow yourself to channel your energy toward the work that your muscles and your brain are doing right now trying to suspend you upside down or sideways or on soft skin on a cold metal pole.
Be considerate of all of those things, separately and all at once.
While putting together my bio to tell more about my class, I had a mini-existential crisis. What is my reason for teaching? Do I want to stick to exercise or am I trying to provide sexy moments? How do I provide a framework that allows for individual self expression?
(Step 3. What do I think my process offers to the viewer or participant?)
Ultimately, I want to provide an introduction to a variety of skills for an apparatus. I want to provide students with instruction on proper technique and help them to build the strength to produce connective movement. I want to introduce flow of movement and a variety of concepts, grips, and skills by focusing on the way our bodies interact with objects in space, both pole and the floor, and improving the recognition of that relationship.
As a more thorough example of how I’ve structured a beginner course, I want to share one of my class plans with video links to the flows for reference. In a later section, I break down personal feedback and student feedback that I received and share recommendations and tips on what I’ve learned from this experience thus far.
My Beginner Pole Class Plan
I N V E R T P R E P C O N D I T I O N I N G
Most instructors that teach beginner level pole at my studio cannot invert or do not teach the fundamentals of inversion. I want to provide students with as many tools and exercises as possible to become familiar with the pathway in accessible positions, mainly starting on the ground. A lot of this is focused on the eccentric range of movement with a focus on body positioning and awareness (what many of us lack). This translates well to my newly recognized awareness of what each part of my body is doing while on the floor or on my apparatus that was gained during FFTT.
● Seated Hip Thrusts (lower body focus, upper body engaged)
● Squat w/ arms extended to pull-ups (upper body focus)
● On Floor in stronghold-type grip:
○ Foot Slides along pole (think popcorn butt)
○ Hip Rock Ups (pulling down with arms)
● Straddle shape to OLH (laying on ground) - pathway
C L I M B S
I like to briefly touch on more than just a standard climb because oftentimes we find that someone using their forearm affords better leg mobility in upward ascension. I like to introduce a side climb as well because of its versatility as students progress in level. This is fundamental, but it’s building the bridge to opportunities as the students progress in level. I’ve taken imagery from Marlo’s training to help provide some guidance (i.e. imagine you’re holding a $100 bill between your knees and the pole, you don’t want to lose it during the initial placement of the legs for a climb).
1. Standard climb
2. Forearm climb
3. Side climb
S K I L L S
The studio has a list of what they consider “beginner” skills. I take these skills and find progressions, i.e. a fan kick staying completely on the ground → gallop (hop from one foot to the other) → fully-fledged fan kick. The students will range from having never touched a pole before to somewhere under a year into their pole journey. I want to provide a challenge to as many people as I can by providing progressions of movement. It also shows them that a movement doesn’t have a singular pathway, and that each variation is valid in its own individual intention. I want to slowly build a framework for combinations that could be swapped, reversed, slowed, etc. like many of the games we created in FFTT.
1. Fan Kick - 3 progressions
Regular grip
Funny grip
1. Stargazer - from climb or standing
2. Pole Sit
3. Jasmine - from standing/quadripedal
I like to tie together these skills into a sequence that we can record and look back upon as we progress in our journeys. Music then helps to frame students into the mindset of connective movement rather than one shape or skill after the other. I focus on the continuity in transitioning between positions where I feel many of us often overlook. Someday, I hope to expand my cues to allow for greater variation of these pathways (levels, pace, breath, pause). I hope that the links work if you would like to see these beginner flows!
F L O W # 1 : Dip Spin → Standing Stargazer lean back → waitress grip half pirouette (back to pole) → Reverse Grab hands to back slide to the floor
F L O W # 2 : Fan Kick → Hip Swivel + Step Behind → Standing Straddle → Thread through to Jasmine
What I’ve Learned in the First 2 Months of Teaching
(Step 4. If there was ONE thing I would do differently, what is it?)
I’ve learned a lot from transitioning from being a student to being a teacher over the last couple months. My mental approach to the “fundamentals” has changed significantly, and I find myself looking more for how I can conceptualize difficult skills and bring that to digestible components, slowly introducing new grips, new shapes, new connections. I feel like it parallels the way flow concepts were broken down in Marlo’s class and slowly, repetitiously introduced without stark acknowledgement. It’s difficult with a revolving door of intro to pole clientele, but my intention is to create a space where a workout is had, introductory exploration is possible, and a framework is provided to make a sequence of what that person needs at that time. If there was just one thing that I would do differently: I would like to improve my encouragement of free movement during warm up or during any part of the class. I’m often static or focused on a specific skill, but I think I could better encourage weight transfers and wiggles and shakes and play.
(Step 5. What did I learn from this experience that I will apply to my own teaching or training?)
Here are some simple take-aways I’ve gained from feedback and interaction with students:
I’m going to have students that range from their first class ever to <1 year of pole, skill levels ranging accordingly.
Range of Motion is not equal for everyone. Always have a modification
Simple examples I didn’t expect: reaching behind the back to find the pole, a pirouette’s rotational motion on the top arm regardless of body positioning.
Progressions (or regressions) are everyone’s friend, plan accordingly.
In one of the final sessions, we talked about too many options being verbalized. I am cognizant of that and try to provide regressions where I know they will be necessary, otherwise providing an alternative once requested.
It’s good to have one move that uses gravity to take us to the floor. i.e. a mermaid spin, pretzel spin where we are slowly introducing the relationship with gravity and by exerting a varying amount of force onto the pole, we ultimately can control our descent.
This introduces vertical movement into their repertoire and is typically the most comprehensible movement for someone brand new to pole.
All skills or movement should not be strength-intensive (for beginners) - that class will dwindle quickly. Mix in transitional elements, spins, and strength-based skills.
Limit combining moves to 2-3 positions/skills.
Introduce a shape or position that builds, teaching a few of the pathways from that starting point (for example: start in a flamingo knee hook which can become a side climb, a genie, or a jasmine).
I’ve gotten the question many times, “well, where can I go from here?” as if there’s one right answer. It’s almost as if this has become my “game” of sorts. I’m not necessarily building a loop, but I’m hoping to create positional recognition for latter exploration
Use eccentric motion to build up control for the intended pattern. A lot of strength for inversion can come from creating tension in the negative to build up the strength for the desired direction.
I’d like to leave this on a thought I recently had following a post by Carmine Black. She said, “If you mirror a movement without intention/functionality, does that still mean you’re actually doing it?” There’s an entirely different appreciation and perspective once you make a movement your own. You may be “doing it” exactly how the instructor intends, but to explore within it, to wiggle, to slow down, to reverse, to deconstruct - that is where I’ve only recently gotten to after a decade of movement. It comes with a different expectation of my own body and its goals. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with prescription. But it is life-altering to experience one’s intention and a crime to myself to not search for my own intention as well. I only hope that I can disseminate the functionality of movement and continue to share my intention with those in proximity.
