What do I want to learn more about after taking IRC? What don’t I want to learn more about is more like it. I’m finding myself diving down paths of research on muscle activation, asking my massage therapist, who does sports activation massage, to help me find the muscles that aren’t triggering so that I can find and explore different forms of strength based exercises to help prevent injury for myself and others. However, my focal point for this paper is one that my students continue to ask me in my beginner/intermediate class and that’s “How do I find flow with beginner inverts”. For some this may come naturally and if I wanted for something to come more naturally I’d be writing about anatomy and muscle groups, so here I am challenging myself to explore deeper into the flow of inverts.
Where did I start? First I assessed the common pathways and behaviors that my members took upon setting up for their inverts: circular, intentional, concentrated, questioning, yet mindful. Also by watching my own combos, past workshop videos, and pole peers, professionals around the world.
What did I find? That it’s important to find a path that goes with the flow of energy, that’s level appropriate, and is based on the strength that is there in the beginning. As this strength, muscle awareness, activation, and variety of inversions grow, so does the exploration of how to enter the inverts safely. Perhaps more than one anchor point is used to assist or a controlled sweep of some sort as well.
My beginner classes often start in circular pathways from a walk, spin, transition all while tying in a trick or climb. So I began watching videos of beginner pole flow like:
Kiley Aerial Fitness
In this video I notice the circular pathways and reverse to kneeling lunge, which at that point was the lightbulb moment of “insert lunge invert here” and then the Juliet and standing lunge and “insert tuck to invert here”. None of this movement is new to me and I often teach similar combos so being able to see this and to know exactly where the inverts would go with the flow.
Side note upon researching: it’s apparent why so many members have asked this question in my level 2 class because many beginner combos on YouTube don’t involve inverts and if they do it’s either here is a basic invert or a combo that is our level 3. So I’m finding myself going through combo and flow videos seeing where I would insert an invert and making notes of what moves came before the vision of the invert and after.
Sammy Picone
beginning -33 seconds only.
I remember doing this combination as a beginner pole student and Sammy makes it look amazing. Sammy is great with musicality and taking time to extend the movements by slowing down the pace, using length by stretching up and away with their extremities. Their lines are beautiful and it makes what is considered basic to the next level. I love the leading leg sweep, extension and follow through with the body ending with the head. It brings so much variety vs squat, dip and quickly go into a back hook which I often see in class. A great spot for a waist hold would be after the back hook or standing invert after the fan kick and you could even toss in a floor shoulder mount prep in towards the end.
Where do I go from here? Well since flow also includes coming out of the invert there are options of slowing things down, tucking into the pole or tilting back when controlled. There are options of circular movement, linear lines : wavy legs or fan kicking out of it to a lunge, and movements of letting go then coming back into the pole, leading with the head, and bringing the movement down or taking it up the pole depending on the students level. At the beginning of the series I always ask members to give me the name of a “music genre, song or artist that makes you want to dance” and “if anyone, what poler do you follow that inspires you?” Also as I get to be a part of their journey it’ll be fun to see what movement pathway they prefer and as always I’ll continue to remind them that taking videos is encouraged, because using what I have learned in IRC has already changed so much in their inversions that the flow is already developing and some are yet aware of it!