Just let it marinate - why revisiting a pole trick later may help you achieve it faster!
Dance has always been a part of my life. From putting on concerts in the lounge room when I was 7yrs old to being a passionate pole dancer now, I know that dance will always be a part of my life in some way or another. Besides learning how to point your toes (ahem, that’s still a work in progress...), dance offers infinite lessons in the studio, that are transferrable to life outside of the studio. Over my 10 or so years of jazz, hip-hop and contemporary as a teen, so many of these lessons and tips have stuck with me until today and help me in my pole dancing journey now.
My very first dance teacher taught me how to create, perfect my timing, own the stage and most importantly these days – how to hair flick and body roll!
My second dance teacher taught me many things such as technique, accepting myself and why it’s so important to persist and practice. She also established my love-hate relationship with jumping lunges, but we won’t open that can of worms.
But there is one simple piece of advice from my second dance teacher which has stuck with me for 15+ years. Her wise words were this – “just let it marinate”. In my time teaching pole, I have also used this term over the years and honestly, it works. I’ve had students stuck getting their handspring, complex chorey or pole combos, and after some sweet marinating time it appears bigger and better in the next class.
So, let’s explore the pole trick ‘marinating’ process and why coming back to it later could mean unlocking pole goals the following week!
Don’t procrastinate – just marinate!
You have just learned a new trick in class and it’s wild. You love it. You want to tame this beast and add it to every pole combo you can think of. Perhaps it’s a transition trick that would open up more magical realms of pole possibility to you faster than Sabrina the Teenage Witch can change outfits.
It’s now your turn to have a crack at it andddd... it’s way harder than it looks. You do a few attempts in class and decide to practice it on the weekend. Surely a couple of hours drilling it will be enough right? The weekend rolls around and 30 minutes into your practice of this incredible new trick and you realise that it’s still not happening. Your legs are getting tangled, your arms aren’t where they should be, the momentum isn’t quite right and you're one frustrated attempt away from having a pole tanty (AKA tantrum). You know you have the strength to do this trick but for some reason it just won’t click.
Mate, just let it marinate!!
Wrap it up and pop it in the fridge for later. Take what you’ve learned and let it rest for a day, maybe a week. Because when you’re ready to have another go, it will be more tender and even more delicious when you crack it later!
While I prefer to say ‘let it marinate’ as per those wise words instilled in me many years ago, there is actually research to back this concept.
It comes down to learning a new skill, previously learned skills and how your neurons behave after the skill is learned. In simple pole terms, do you already know a trick similar to the new trick which may help you transfer some knowledge over to the new trick? Also, what neuron connections are forming in your brain as you learn the new trick and just how strongly are they being established?
The process
There are a number of researchers who suggest that there is a process or signature in the neurons in our brain associated with motor learning and practice. They believe the learning occurs in phases:
You learn the skill initially and experience a wave of fast gains, drawing on previous experience and the acquisition of relevant skills which you can apply
This new learned skill is then consolidated in the brain over several of hours
Finally, the learning becomes slower and requires much practice and training, as you strengthen the neural links in your brain and fine-tune the movement to become more precise, leading to gradual increase in performance
Schiltz et al. (2001) and Ungerleider et al. (2002) as sited in Patel et al. (2013), suggested that during the initial phase of learning there are often increases in attentional and control areas however, the final, slow learning phase is typically associated with expansions or increases in activation in motor areas of the brain.
What does this mean for pole dancers? Well, initially when you learn a trick, you might be quick to get the gist of it and execute it somewhat awkwardly, but they crux of the trick is there – your teacher will just be crying tears of pain at your ugly lines and extension. You will be heavily focused and pay great attention to the new pole trick – what it looks like, how it feels, where you need to place your body, using a lot of brain power in the process.
Then, you will go home, sleep and your brain will start to consolidate what you have learned AKA what I term unconscious marinating! We’ll touch more on how important sleep is to the marinating process in a moment.
Finally, the last and most important step is PRACTICE (also referred to by, well me, as conscious marinating). This is where the learning slows and the focus lessens, but is so important as the neural pathways become more developed in the motor areas of your brain. How well you practice is a huge factor as this is the step where fine-tuning movement is crucial and bad pole habits can form. While the newly learned trick might be super hard, it’s not just about the quantity of hours of practice but also the quality. So point those damn toes and smile!
Image: Pole Dancing Adventures
Learning set
Learning how to solve one kind of task makes it easier to learn new tasks that are similar – a concept introduced years ago by old mate Harry Harlow, a theory also known as a “learning set”.
Harlow (1949) developed a theory which suggests that learning any task is associated with implicit learning capabilities that can generalise to other related learning situations. These days it is also commonly known as “transfer” - how easily you learn a new task because of previous experience learning another similar one.
So in the pole world, if you have learned how to outside leg hang, learning an inside leg hang should generally be easier as the movement is very similar. This is because memories associated with the first trick are opened as you learn the new, similar trick.
Your past experience with similar pole tricks might mean the marinating time will be shorter as your brain can draw on the pathways and networks it established for other tricks, sometimes even strengthening the connections. Over time, the connections become stronger until the light comes on, the penny drops and you have the ‘ah-ha’ moment!
However, make sure you are still practicing the new trick as it should be learned. Ever wondered why you go to set up for a Butterfly when you are really trying to Outside Leg Hang? Sneaky little habits from already acquired pole tricks might pop up, so stay vigilant in your practices and work hard in this phase to fine-tune the trick so it looks amazing once it becomes “second-nature” to you.
Sleep
We have all heard of getting your beauty sleep, but have you heard of getting your beast sleep? Beast Sleep (this is bro science my friends) is when your body takes what you learned in pole class and as you sleep overnight, transforms you into the beastly pole goddess you are going to be!
Okay so in real science terms, it’s a consolidation period in which your brain takes recently learned experiences from the day and consolidates them into long term memories as you sleep. In my terms, this is unconscious marinating. The part where you leave it in the fridge in the dark overnight and your brain just does magical things.
What is super cool, and why sleep might be more important that you think in the process of learning new things, is that while you sleep the neurons ‘reverse-fire’ and it is suggested that this strengthens the pathways even more! Research conducted by Bähner et al. (2011) and later by Bukalo et al. (2013), found that during sleep electrical signals spontaneously fired near the middle of an axon of a neuron, then travelled back in the direction of the cell body. In other words, the cells fired in reverse which in turn they suggest boosts learning. This is because the reverse-firing is making the connection between the cells stronger.
Beast mode = activated! And all you had to do was have a good night’s sleep.
Our top tips for learning new pole tricks
So how do you take all of this wonderful information and implement it into your pole training? Try some of the following tips to help boost your learning process:
Once you have unlocked the new trick, practice using your less-dominant side AKA (dare I say it), the OTHER side. It’s not going to look all that flash, but it will create new neural pathways in your brain, strengthening the connections.
Get the creative juices flowing! Being creative enhances the areas of your brain even while at rest and can boost introspection, memory, empathy, attention, and focus.
Dance it out boo, as this will increase dopamine (the chemical which transmits messages between nerve cells) as well as increases blood flow making your mind, body and soul happy!
Sleep! Get some good quality Z’s after class.
Open yourself to new experiences and stimuli – as we know, the more you experience the more knowledge you can draw on later in the initial learning process. Why not take a pole conditioning class which works on the foundation skills you need for tricks now or later on?
Be social – talk to your pole friends and stimulate your brain through conversation. Bonus points if you are discussing new pole tricks – mechanics, function and how to put it into an awesome combo!
Learning new tricks, dances or skills can take time, and the amount of time varies between every single person. Don’t be too harsh on yourself if you can’t quite grasp a new pole trick, combo or snippet of chorey in class as your poor brain tries to work through the information you have just bombarded it with!
Instead, kick off your Pleasers, throw the newly acquired skills you have just learned into the fridge of your mind, and let that baby marinate so you can revisit it with success later!
Image: Mischka being an A+ student onstage at Miss Pole - captured by Vertigo Photography
Did you love this blog post? Tell me why in the comments below & don’t forget to share it with your pole gang or student groups!
References:
Bähner, F. et al. Cellular correlate of assembly formation in oscillating hippocampal networks in vitro. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. August 30, 2011. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1103546108
Bukalo, O. et al. Synaptic plasticity by antidromic firing during hippocampal network oscillations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. March 26, 2013 (online). doi: 10.1073/pnas.1210735110
Harlow, H. F. (1949). The formation of learning sets. Psychological Review, 56(1), 51–65. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0062474. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/memory-medic/201208/learning-learn-re-visited
Kelly AM, Garavan H. Human functional neuroimaging of brain changes associated with practice. Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991). 2005 Aug;15(8):1089-1102. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhi005. Retrieved from http://europepmc.org/article/MED/15616134
Schiltz C, Bodart J-M, Michel C, Crommelinck M. A PET study of human skill learning: changes in brain activity related to learning an orientation discrimination task. Cortex. 2001;37:243-265. As cited in Patel R, Spreng RN, Turner GR. Functional Brain Changes Following Cognitive and Motor Skills Training: A Quantitative Meta-analysis. Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair. 2013;27(3):187-199. doi:10.1177/1545968312461718
Ungerleider, LG, Doyon, J, Karni, A. Imaging brain plasticity during motor skill learning. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2002; 78:553-564. As cited in Patel R, Spreng RN, Turner GR. Functional Brain Changes Following Cognitive and Motor Skills Training: A Quantitative Meta-analysis. Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair. 2013;27(3):187-199. doi:10.1177/1545968312461718
