Pole Dance Teaching: The Patience

• As a pole dance instructor...

Apart from the technique, I often teach my students the development as well as the application of crucial mental skills. Furthermore, the capacity to connect the body and the mind by listening to themselves, identifying fears, reconsidering pain and defining limits.

Even if the very first step is to lead them to become conscious of their body functioning, I rapidly escalate addressing their mind.

And the main notion remains patience. Patience in understanding, patience in doing, patience through the development process and patience in getting results.

Finally, patience to move to the next steps, because there will always be a next step.

• We Want Everything... Now!

In this society on the go, where everything must be immediate and perfect, we tend to lose the sense of reality, which requires time, commitment, and evolution. Everything feels close at hand and easy to do. Once starting to practice, the brutal reality kicks in and lays the people low, discouraging them from keeping up. Only a few people are conscious about the benefits and the mind-opening patience can bring to a life's path. They mistakenly compare themselves to other individuals, often disliking their appearance and feeling eternally unsatisfied with their capacities. They perceive their success as a final point, up above, unreachable, avoiding making their way out to go beyond this vision. This way of thinking is extremely detrimental as it affects every goal, wish and dream realisation. They may end up quitting, thinking this is not for them, and somewhere in their mind, the inability takes place, influencing their choices and decisions.

• Patience is now or never!

The patience remains uncomfortable until the day it becomes a marker of evolution, growth and success. This mental skill isn't only the art of waiting, but through time, it becomes the art of being aware that things will happen. It's firstly a notion we use to keep calm, to reassure the ego and make the waiting tolerable. Rapidly, this spread through the mind, and the perceptions began to change. The time tends to stretch, the trust starts to grow, and the enthusiasm to accomplish each step builds the willpower. Patience is never over; it becomes an ally, a measure of the future, the certainty of accomplishing everything. Patience is a letting go of the desire to control; the only achievement over patience is consistency, adaptation and adjustment.

In this way, nothing can discourage the motivation and weaken the will. Nothing can misrepresent reality; despite that we ignore the way, its challenges and its surprises, we can always trust the patience to give us the energy to keep on going.

 In other words, the patience may feel like suffering, and it does if we don't dare to step to the other side of the mirror. It holds various delicate notions about life and about ourselves, imposing a heavy weight on our shoulders, limiting our power and shaping our beliefs. Yet, if we decide to develop this capacity, it becomes a quality and then a fully-fledged mindset.

• Pole dancing is a self-development activity

The pole dancing practice is extremely demanding and intense. Its harshness is forcing, in a way or another, to align ourselves with patience. Nothing can be faked, nothing is easy, and there is no result or success without time and consistency. It slowly develops the capacity to appreciate the learning process, the ability to absorb failure and accepting the body's capacities and limits. The bright side of patience is the joy that every little success brings, the refinement of each detail, and the simultaneous evolution of the body and mind.

There is much more to say, but I will finish here, talking about my experience; I became patient thanks to pole dancing, and this allowed me to be able to transmit my knowledge with patience. It gave me the possibility to overcome life's challenges, uncomfortable situations and much more, knowing deep inside of me that everything will happen, one day or another...

Be patient ;)

See you soon!

Sophie Atlan