Poling In Lockdown: Keep Going, You Got This.
There are two things I know to be true: lockdowns are hard and: the way we talk to ourselves matters.
Those two things might not seem completely related on the surface, but when it comes to poling in lockdown, trust me, they are.
You know when you feel on top of the world with your training, like everything your instructor is giving you is getting nailed on the first few attempts, and you’re so motivated and eager to get to the studio each week for class? I’m happy to speak for myself when I say that all of that went completely out the window for me during Queensland’s first ‘proper’ lockdown (2020), and with the air of constant uncertainty we’ve become accustomed to now, it’s been an uphill battle ever since.
Picture this: your happy place (in my case, and I know for a lot of us, it’s our beautiful Queens of Pole studio!) gets closed, you don’t (not yet anyway!) have a pole at home, and you’re just feeling generally bummed out about not being able to train with your beautiful fellow polers. What do you do?
Well, I’ll tell you what I did and I’ll tell what I wish now I would’ve done differently.
Honestly, I spiralled – motivation went out the window, my depression reared its ugly head, and that voice in the back of my mind became louder by the day telling me that we were doomed to be stuck in lockdown forever so “what’s even the point?”. And while these things are normal and valid responses to such a tricky situation, they weren’t very kind to myself – both my body and my mind.
Right from the start, I wish I would have reached out to all the amazing women I’ve come to know and love through the studio and this incredible sport, and I wish I had been open with them about
my struggles. I wish I would have implemented little tools or activities like writing down the words of affirmation I knew I needed to hear to keep me going and plastered them all over the house. I wish I had have done something, rather than nothing, because while committing to a 30-minute body weight workout each morning would’ve been ideal, doing 10 squats while I waited for the jug to boil still means something. I wish I had have stayed true to my passions and honoured the commitment I made to myself and my goals when I first stepped foot into the studio.
For those of us that have since found ourselves in this same situation time and time again, and who may be back in lockdown currently, I wish us all nothing but kindness and a safe space to feel all the feelings. But you know what really helps? Prioritising doing what we can. We may not have all of the same, amazing resources or equipment at home that our studios are able to offer us, but our pole journeys, personal gains and pole goals deserve to remain important! We don’t need weights to do squats, we don’t need a pole to put on a song we love and dance around, and we don’t need to have an entire class of people see us smash a trick for our efforts to be worth something. All we really need is the willingness to keep putting in the effort. The way we talk to ourselves matters, so shifting our internal dialogue from “what’s the point?” to “the point is to continue to move my body in a way that feels good and that honours my goals” can be so helpful.
Mindset shifts aren’t always easy, and frankly it’s naïve to think it is easy, but it’s worth it! And the studio full of all our amazing fellow pole queens will always be there waiting to embrace us with open arms again once each lockdown finishes – it’s time for you to ask yourself “how badly do I want this?” and act accordingly. We know you’ve got this, and any words of encouragement you might need are always a message away.
If any of the above has resonated with you in any way, please know that you are not alone. There is a whole community of us out there that stand with you and honour you, your struggles, and your commitment to your goals. You’re important and you deserve to treat yourself as such. Go forth and smash it because the only person standing in your way right now, is you.
