What’s Your Pole Dancing Story?
People love stories. We read them, we listen to them, we watch them, and we all tell them.
“It was a popcorn spin to chopper and it was a time when I was training consistently so felt strong and got the move in the class… but like nailed it to the point I could do it super slow and pause to pose 🙂”
- Helen C.
You tell stories too.
Most of your stories will never make it outside of your mind, but you will tell them anyway. You are a story teller about your life and experiences. Your stories range from biographical epics spanning decades, to single throwaway sentences.
Your stories are unique to you, and they are seriously powerful.
And Your Pole Story isn’t just a Story.
The great thing about stories is that they are so much more than just the story. Your story shapes your identity, changing how you see yourself and the world around you. Your stories influence your responses to adversity, to big emotions, and to the struggles that come with your pole training.
But stories can get us into trouble.
Now, there’s no such thing as a bad story (unless you count Red Notice, that film did not do it for me 😂), but instead there are helpful and unhelpful stories.
“This was the first time I nailed a no handed genie!”
Helpful stories help us feel better, act in line with our values, and create more positive outcomes in our lives. 😊
Unhelpful stories can set unrealistic expectations, limit what we think we can achieve, and just make us feel a bit crappy. 😩
Unhelpful stories are usually helpful stories with a few plot holes.
Stories of all lengths contain plot holes. They might be omissions, generalisations, or misinterpretations. These plot holes can change the entire meaning of your story, and your pole story isn’t immune to story-telling-errors!
We can create plot holes in a story that is one sentence long.
For many of us, achieving our first invert is a BIG deal. It can be a rocky road (especially if pole is your first foray into exercise as an adult) and that road has a BIG story to tell. Sometimes it tells such a big story in such a small package that we don’t even notice that it is a story!
Let me show you what I mean with a story you might have told…
I can’t invert, and I won’t ever be able to. I am a bad pole dancer.
This is a story I’ve seen all too often. It’s just two sentences, but it has scene setting, a plot, and even character development… and it has three major plot holes…
“The song I danced to was about overcoming the impossible. The way I applied it to my experiences is that I did overcome challenges that felt impossible and I was grateful to many people in my life, including myself and the side of me that doesn’t give up”
- Christina
#1 All or Nothing Thinking
“I can’t invert” is home to our first plot hole (or thinking error).
All or nothing thinking is the world of pass-fail thinking, it’s perfect or it’s rubbish. I can or I can’t.
“I can’t invert” in this context is emotionally charged. You can see how this poor pole dancer is feeling as they tell their story. They haven’t left space for nuance as they tell their invert story and it hurts.
But we can help our protagonist tell a different story by managing the error behind the plot hole…
Managing All or Nothing Thinking
To help our protagonist, we need to break out of yes-no thinking and into yes-no-maybe-almost-mostly-one-day thinking. In this case, we can add one word to change the entire scene...
I can’t invert yet.
Now our pole dancer is moving forwards in their story, it’s a process. It’s a fluid state. It’s changeable, and they are capable of changing it. Our story feels a whole lot more hopeful already!
#2 Fortune Telling
“….and I won’t ever be able to” should come with a spoiler alert. Our protagonist is on a one way road and there are no other options.
“This was my first performance and that’s the most naked I had been in public and in front of an audience before and felt super exposed. After my choreo, I was totally at ease walking around with my butt hanging out. I was just so happy and felt so much adrenaline and was smiling the entire weekend after!”
- Erin
If this was our whole story, we’d all be able to guess the ending early on in the movie adaptation, it’s not the most diverse plot line… But this isn’t a movie adaptation, and none of us can predict the future!
I’m sure you can think of a thousand different ways this story could go, and we can’t bet on any of them being more likely than any other… so how can we help our protagonist here? By managing the thinking error behind the plot hole!
Managing Fortune Telling
While we can’t offer a concrete conclusion for our protagonist, we can continue our story of hope and possibility:
… and I will keep practicing.
Suddenly, the skies clear and the sun comes out. Our star is taking action, they have options! We still don’t know when they will achieve their invert, but we know they are still moving towards it.
They are still in the game, and there’s plenty of room for a captivating plot twist 😋
#3 Mislabelling
“We had a list of pole moves to get photos of, but that’s not what I remember from this photoshoot, it was the people I was poling with that made it super special… and I think getting The Pole PT in a headlock is a pole goal checked off” 😂
- Me (Seonaidh!)
Think of your favourite hero in your favourite story. I’ll bet they are complex. They have their motivations, they are understandable, they are likeable… but sometimes they might do something that’s pretty bad.
That doesn’t make them bad. They are still the good guy, right?
Our Protagonist isn’t good or bad either, instead they are complex in their own way and stating that they are a bad pole dancer… well, it doesn’t give much room for the audience to make their own judgement.
“I am a bad pole dancer” is assigning a label to an entire person based on one action or circumstance - it doesn’t sound very fair, does it? So how can we tell a better story for our Protagonist?
By managing the thinking error behind the plot hole… you get it! 👇
Managing Mislabelling
Assigning a label means making a judgement, so let’s not make a judgement on our Protagonist and instead focus on their behaviour. Instead of what they are, let’s tell a story about what they do:
I am still learning.
Our new story could be the first part of a trilogy, right!? Let’s put it all together into our helpful story…
I can’t invert yet, and I will keep practicing. I am still learning.
Taking a risk and opening up my Pole Studio has taught me so much about myself that I couldn't imagine I would have the opportunity to learn anywhere else. It also has opened up so many opportunities for me to meet so many amazing people from all walks of life. Each class feels like a celebration of folks coming together to cheer one another on in their successes as well as encourage when others are struggling. It's so good to see people being good to people. I'm so happy I took the risk!
That is a world away from the rather unhelpful story full of plot holes (“I can’t invert, and I won’t ever be able to. I am a bad pole dancer.”). Our new story feels more hopeful, freeing, and kind to our protagonist. It has a soundtrack in major key, a noble four-legged sidekick, and a happy ending.
And the best bit? Our Protagonist’s situation hasn’t changed one bit, we are just telling a new story.
So what are the plot holes in your pole story? Can you tell a new story that helps you? Let me know in the comments!
