How you see progress in pole

...and how I see progress as your instructor.

I want to highlight a topic that I get from my students a lot, and it’s something very essential for how you see yourself as a learning student, how you encourage yourself and feel confidence within.

These comments I hear way too often:
- I am not as good as the others in class
- I didn’t learn anything today
- It takes so long for me to progress
- Others get the moves much faster than me

Many students set their standards too high, and ask their bodies to perform too much and too soon. They see progression as the number of tricks they mastered, believing that if they don’t nail the trick, they have not progressed in their training. I am here to tell you that’s far from the truth, and your brain deserves more motivating thoughts.

Progress is not always visible, not always an “AHA moment”, and sometimes you have no idé that you just made a BIG step in your journey. Progress is not only being able to nail a trick - a huge part of it is what happens within your brain, the mental aspects. It's about understanding movement and how your body responds, feeling safe, trusting yourself, boundaries, nervous system, healing, being pain free, safe execution, developing confidence and so on.

After nearly a decade of teaching beginners, here are some examples of what I consider real progress:

- Understanding how to hold the pole in a new grip position

- Being able to execute a hold just one more second than before

- Feeling less scared than before

- Engaging the correct muscle group in a move

- Remembering 3 cues simultaneously, when before where only 2

- Realize the correct placement or direction of your body

- Finally trusting your instructor to not drop you during spotting

- Feeling more energized and motivated after class

Everything you do, that takes you a tiny step forward either physically or mentally, is progression. If you try anything that is new to your body, you should have LOW expectations - you can have hopes, and ambition, but never expect your body to perform something it has not yet been taught.

And I can promise you this, everyone has their own struggles. You might not see them, it might not be mentioned out loud - the same way your struggles might not be visible for others. The same goes with progression, just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean that you don’t progress.

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Next time you leave class thinking “I didn’t learn anything” - write down 3 things that improved. Even if they feel small. Especially if they feel small.