The first step in my journey, getting real with where I am at with how my body looks, how it physically feels, and how I emotionally feel about life on the inside.

I find the most of the time (at least for me) when I fall off the wagon so to speak and find myself abandoning activities that I KNOW bring me joy.  It’s usually because I have allowed something or someone to get me distracted.

Underneath that concept, I had to dig deep down inside myself and ask “why am I not doing what I know I want to do?”  Whatever block came up in my consciousness; I faced it, accepted it no matter how ugly it was, and changed.

If you don’t resolve the underlying reasons you are distracted away from spending time enjoying yourself in your very own pole dancing workout, then you will just end up repeating history.  Emotional roots run deep and you must face them if you want real recovery and a significant change for yourself.

Next, I needed to get geared up to feel good and comfortable on my road back.

I ordered a size large dance shorts for the first time in my life and honestly, I’m happy about it and I know I wouldn’t have said that before.

I also created a very nice and clean dancing space for myself that is inspirational to me.  Surroundings have energy and can motivate you.  I hang pictures of myself dancing and it reminds me I can do these things.  The memories reconnect me to a good time and I find myself naturally wanting to dance more.

Then, I organized my weekly pole dancing workout plan.

This was a challenge and I didn’t stick to it the first week; however, I did stick to most of it.  A good workout plan will evolve; it’s not a rigid schedule.  It takes time to really know your life, habits, and then squeeze in that workout at the most opportune time.

I get bored easy and hate regular gym exercises so I made things too rigid and complicated to start. I had to back up and simplify things because I don’t have that much time to workout, let alone analyze a complicated routine every single morning.

I wanted a quick yet powerful workout that I can feel working in my body, to break a sweat, feel sexy, and get on with my day.

Part of my plan was to be more organized and regular about my clean eating habits.  I didn’t get to this, I got too busy with the other things in life, but when I did eat, I tried to stick to my lean proteins, low glycemic carbs diet as well as drink more water.

I will share more about my exact weekly workouts and dietary habits in following videos and articles over the next several weeks and months.

Generally speaking here is what I did in Week 1 ( the focus was more on my exercise routine and not on the eating part of the plan):

• Day 1: I did specific leg exercises that create the long lean lines of a dancer.  Much of the time I feel out of balance pole dancing because it’s such an upper body dominant workout.  I want my legs to look just as good as my arms and right now…. .well they could use some work.  I used a lot of the leg strengthening exercises in my Home Pole Dancing Workout For Everyday Women.
• Day 2:  I was fricking sore!!  I realized my own workouts can be really hard when you’re out of shape!  Ugh!  But you have to keep moving to work the lactic acid out of your muscles so I did a new ab routine I created for my upcoming PoleBody workout series.  You can find an ab exercise dance routine like it here.  I also went for a walk and stretched.
• Day 3:  Arm work.  I worked my upper body by practicing some pole moves and an upcoming pole dance routine.  There are individual and specific exercises to strengthen the upper body for pole dancing but I didn’t do those on Day 3, just opted for something different.
• Day 4: Rested
• Day 5: I did glute work to really lift the buttocks and round out the lower body.
• Day 6:  Is today and today I decided it’s a fun dance day and time to use my dance for joy and fun!!  I work so hard during the week!  First, I got online, found a new song I had never heard before and decided to freestyle dance to it and continue the trend from last weeks video and article.

It is important to pick a song that you can connect to, it will help drive you to just let go and dance.   Emotional states change from moment to moment and day to day, so don’t be afraid to change the song entirely from workout to workout.

Music is a wonderful emotional booster, motivator, and inspiration provoker.

After my warm up, I recorded my Day 6 Workout Fun Freestyle Dance:

If you get a chance to video record yourself dancing, you will learn a lot and I highly recommend it for any dancer.  You just see yourself in different ways after you do it.

Here is what I learned after the recording was done:

• Right-side dominant, I need to be using the left side more to keep things balanced.
• Let Go emotionally, enjoy my music, and stop worrying about the camera!  Letting go is freeing and just what I need right now to recover.

I stretched after my freestyle pole dancing the exact same way I always do in my current pole dancing workout routines.

I feel like a million bucks…… and I’m moved to working on improving and keeping my splits.

I will be back next week with more on better eating habits and workout details.