As movement coaches, it’s important that we continue to learn and challenge ourselves with new and different types of movement. It gives us fresh perspective and a new lens to look through when we are addressing a client’s movement and it also gives us more insight into other styles and forms of expression.

To learn and challenge yourself is not only exciting, but it’s invigorating and thought provoking, so the idea was for us all at ONI to try a new activity every month as a team.

As coaches, we should always teach the basics first. The fundamentals of movement are about learning and practising body positioning, with control and stability in mind. Most of our clients start and stay in this realm for a while and we are there with them along this journey. This however, means that our own assessment of movement and even our own training can feel a bit stagnant if we don’t challenge ourselves regularly.

This time we tried Pole with coach Mish (who is an amazing Pole Athlete). The fundamentals of movement and position carry over of course, but the specifics were so interesting to see, analyse, and learn as coaches and movement enthusiasts.

It was challenging proprioceptively (to feel where our body was positioned) in many of the moves. A lot of the movements, like inversions or even holding ourselves with our skin gripping the pole, were very interesting as we were forming open and closed chains with different parts of our bodies than we were used to. It also highlighted weaknesses in parts of all of our bodies, a common weakness being flexibility in the hips and lower abdominal strength.

The world of movement truly is infinite and it is always fascinating just how much you can learn. Very excited about next months activity, which is bouldering!

Mish Go

Mish won the Wellington Heat - Open Category of NZAPP 2017 (New Zealand Amateur Pole Performer), the Open Division of the Pole Inferno Competition 2018, and is also competing this Friday (16th Nov) in Pole Legends (the top national pole competition).

“It was really fun and found everyone was very enthusiastic and open minded about pole. Everyone was very strong already, so it was just a matter of getting used to a new apparatus and maybe working on flexibility and mobility specific for pole! On the whole, I hope everyone had fun and got something out of it.” - Mish

Author: Laurent Pang

Pole Coach: Michelle Go

ONI Personal Training | Massage Therapy | Nutrition Coaching