Becoming A Coach
It’s been a whole ass journey and I’m still very much at the beginning of it.
In this blog, I will go into my story of getting how I got to where I am as a coach and what I’m currently learning. I may touch on some of the pole industry problems, but it is not the emphasis of this rant specifically.
Buckle up.
My pole teaching career started in a studio based in London. Before teaching, I was an infrequent student, who would attend classes sporadically. At the time, I mostly trained at home because I couldn’t afford to go to class.
To be completely honest, I didn’t see myself starting to teach pole at that time. I felt like I had too little experience of pole (dancing for 4 years at that point) combined with no formal teaching experience or training. I saw the role of an instructor as a big responsibility that I was not yet ready for.
However, at the time I became very intrigued with teaching stretch. By this point, I had been stretching regularly for a couple years, learning from various instructors, online during COVID, including Hannah Finn with her contorty skills.
When I moved back to London from uni, I tried various in-person classes around London, most of which left me feeling unsatisfied and made me question their value for money. I felt like the classes I attended could have had more effective options, better attention to detail, and better cueing. I knew I was inexperienced, but I thought maybe I could offer something that I was looking for out there myself.
I asked the pole studio owner if I could teach stretch classes because I really thought that this area was lacking in the studio for various reasons. The owner requested that I attained a qualification to teach stretch, but suggested that I could start teaching pole whilst I was working for the stretch qualification.
I thought about it for a little while. Wondered whether I could really teach pole. Am I good enough? Would people really want to learn from me? What do I teach? How do I teach it? All these questions and more ran through my mind.
However, the more I thought about it, the better the idea of having the keys to the studio sounded. This ended up outweighing most of my doubts and made me feel like it may be worth it.
So a few weeks later, with no prior experience or qualifications in teaching pole, I got two classes a week. One for spinning pole and one for heels beginner classes. Ironically, I didn’t start teaching stretch until way further down the line.
I had many questions. The studio owner ran me through some notes she had taken in a teacher training she did back in Russia several years back, and let me shadow a couple of her classes, where she demonstrated some spotting techniques and warm up points. After this, I was considered ready to teach.
Right before my first class, I was terrified. I had no idea what to teach or how to teach it to many people. I was excited to be given this opportunity, but I felt out of my depth.
Preparing my first classes was an interesting struggle. Everything I did felt weird or not good enough. I wanted to make something easy enough to get but also create a challenge. I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew was that I wanted to do good by my students.
I’ll admit that I made my first classes way too difficult. This might have been because I was always so hard on myself during my own training, and also probably mixed in with the fact I had no experience teaching other bodies to do things.
For my heels classes, I wanted to create a different atmosphere than what I had experienced when I attended the other studio classes. I got some LED lights (which I paid for) to make the room red and give a whole mood to the class. Which I think worked to some extent, but wasn’t fully thought out in other contexts.
My first choreography was to All The Time by Jeremih - argh what a mood!
With time, I learnt that things looked differently on various bodies, and what I may have thought was easy, was actually really fucking tough for people. It was a lesson that needed to be learnt. All I knew was that I wanted to make a welcoming space for all the humans who trusted their bodies with me.
The first year was riddled with imposter syndrome.
I really fucking loved teaching. I loved how it made me feel. I loved that people were enjoying the things I was creating. however, in the back of my head there was nagging feeling that I didn’t know enough or that my classes weren’t good enough.
Thinking back to it now, I figured out how to break things down and give tips and tricks to stuff I had to figure out by myself pretty quick but I was never taught or encouraged to learn more about principles of instructing/coaching movement or sports science principles. I wasn’t sure what to look out for to make certain movements work better AND provide specific exercises for individuals so they could achieve goals sustainably.
How could I even begin to delve into all this when I was only ever a student or taught myself at home?
Thankfully, I ended up filling most of my classes within a few months. I had a bunch of regular students, which made me feel better. It made me feel like I was doing something right. All these people would trust me to teach them my sequences and my choreographies. This felt different from any other job I had ever done. I felt alive doing this.
I’d get a high from those classes that felt a hit. People were learning, laughing, achieving things. Choreography classes felt awesome, a room full of people dancing and nailing the choreographies with me. Such a rush.
I later learned that this great feeling after teaching movement is a socialising aspect and natural response of humans. It’s deeply founded in trust. Random strangers (or friends) trusting what you do and copy it, it is a deep level of human connection. There is a great book about this called Joy of Movement by Kelly McGonigal.
A year and a half in, I felt more confident in my skills and my teaching methods, but I was aware that I still had much to learn about movement and how to teach different bodies.
To be honest, there is WAY more to learn than I could have ever imagined back then. This still applies today.
Before I started teaching, I had taken some online courses with Marlo Fisken. My first was her Spinal Flow Upgrade course. It was this that opened a whole new door to the way I approached movement. She was the first person who introduced a holistic kind of coaching approach. This course didn’t have much to do with the pole specifically, but it helped me build awareness of my body, which as a result motivated me to work on the essentials of body awareness and capacity building to become a better pole dancer.
Something about her style of teaching really resonated with me. I wanted to learn more. Her passion was infectious, her attention to detail was astonishing, and her approach to language for explaining movement was something I had never experienced before. As I developed as an instructor myself, I really wanted to be this kind of teacher to my students.
Fast forward a while, Marlo put up her Invert Ready Coach™ and I ran at the opportunity. I was fortunate that Marlo had a scholarship scheme and payment plan option so I could afford to take it on.
I spent literally all of my savings on this course. It is hands down the best decision I made for my coaching career.
It was in this course that I started to understand the difference between coaching and instructing. Between making people learn a sequence of tricks in a linear way, and teaching movement concepts to give students the tools to make a difference in their own bodies.
I learnt what capacity building looks like and what it takes, as well as how to identfy what may be missing when things are hard for a student. I also learnt that it’s not about reps, but the quality of the exercise at hand. I learnt to pay attention to what different bodies do and how to start motivating my humans to be inspired in their own skill development.
This course felt like the foundations of movement and coaching that I had never been exposed to before. It was truly an eye-opening and inspiring experience for me as coach.
It was tough to squeeze in between a full-time job, part-time teaching, and competition prep, and also learning with Dr Emily Rausch on “How To Not Fuck Up Your Shoulders Pole Dancing”. I definitely have a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew in life.
Did I burn myself out? yes, was it worth it? The learning, yes, the over working - NOPE. which is why I went part-time in my day job.
The weekly sessions over 4-6 months was enough to form new teaching habits.
For the first time I felt like I had the tools to answer my students questions and movement dilemas. There were a lot more “aha” moments in class. My warm ups became things that even I looked forward to.
It wasn’t an instant fix, but rather an inspiration for continious learning to be a better movement coaching provider. I loved being able to understand why certain things worked, to understand what a student may be missing and give them some tools to work through the challenges at hand.
I became a certified Invert Ready Coach, with lots of praise from Marlo.
However, this new knowledge lead to an unforeseen consequence.
I left the first studio for many reasons that I will not delve into here, but this took me to a studio where I taught new students in an advanced spinny class. I saw dramatic lack of foundational awareness and coordination from my new students in these advanced trick classes. I wasn’t sure how to navigate this situation. On the one hand I was told to teach advanced spinny trick combinations, on the other I felt like there was a need to invite some foundational work so that people wouldn’t fling themselves up into things they were clearly not yet ready for.
I was still very much figuring out how to navigate these experiences as a new coach. I wanted to introduce foundational work in a way that was fun, but also in a way that brought it back to the basics of the tricks at hand.
I received a complaint that my drop in classes focused too much on the details and would work better as workshops. I understood why that was said, and I kind of agreed. I think this made me realise that I didn’t want to teach the standard drop-in trick sequence classes anymore, I wanted to delve into the finer details and foundational work with people who wanted to learn these.
With time, I changed studios again and started teaching where there are only 2 poles and 4 students max at a time. I really liked the idea of teaching smaller classes, it felt like I could give more of my attention to my students.
I started teaching courses, which I had not yet done before. This time round I felt more prepared. I was actually quite excited to teach something specific for an x period of time. I was taught that skill acquisition takes time, and more often than not, the only way of getting something is through consistency and using the right exercises. Something I did not have in my own journey as a baby poler.
Once again I was hit with a new challenge.
I wasn’t sure how to structure courses. I gathered all that I had learnt with Marlo and started drawing up some plans. I started my courses with the really small stuff and tried to build in the foundations that we’d refer back to as the course moved throughout the weeks.
There were some what I call “hit” classes - the ones that, I as a coach, left class with a positive feeling that people had a great time and learnt something. But also some “misses” - fellow instructors/coaches, you know the ones, where you leave the class thinking “yeah … that wasn’t my best facilitation of a class”.
Ayesha’s worked pretty quick. But my pole sequence classes I found more challenging to put into a course experience.
As with anything, the more you practice, the easier things start to get. I gained the confidence in my courses and had even tried with teaching online courses. I really loved being able to have students for longer and focus on specific skills and their details, with students that wanted to learn these with me.
In February of 2024, Dr Emily Rausch announced that she will be running a course for instructors. She referenced to how the usual pole certification providers really lack information to new instructors. I fully agree.
I have undertaken one of the main “instructor training” qualifications, and was left horrified at how little it prepares new instructors.
Intrigued by Emily’s new course, I signed up. As of writing this blog, I am 7of 10 weeks in to the course. So far I have learnt lots of new anatomical information and how it relates to pole, principles of sports science to introduce into my classes so that students can learn in effective ways. I’m starting understand how to assess if a student is ready for a trick, and where to start giving them the right exercise to help them to achieve their goals.
All these things and more, I feel like are the essentials that pole instructors should go out and learn, in order to reduce the terribly high injury rates that we have in our industry.
Shortly after, Marlo had posted about this circus coaches coach called Adam Whoolley. I have full faith in Marlo’s recommendations, so I looked into the stuff he did.
As a human that loves to learn, geek out on pole and bite bigger pieces of life than I can chew. I purchased some of his previous workshops on
This opened up my world again. Marlo taught so much, but sometimes still felt like I lacked the structure of coaching and how to curate some of my classes to what I wanted them to be. These online workshops and a 1-2-1 call with Adam, opened up a world of new opportunities to bring different type of learning culture in my classes. I deleved straight into it.
I still feel like I’m at the beginning of this beautiful career-long journey.
As of writing this blog, I am learning from Adam about non-linear pedagogy coaching.
Essentially meaning teaching methods that account for individual learning differences.
I’m currently two courses with Adam, learning about how to encourage and develop motivation in students within the classroom and beyond, along with how to introduce alternative teaching methodologies to my movement classes within my spaces, in studio or online.
Yes, my students have been the guinea-pigs for my current learning and coach development process.
And to report back so far, its uncomfortable at times, but incredibly rewarding others. My students have been making a lot of positive comments about their experiences in my classes.
I’m learning and applying how to invite options of any given skill I’m teaching early on in the process of learning. How to ask for feedback and encourage inquiry in my students so they can make choices for what they want to learn and develop interest to take ownership of their own pole movement journey.
I ask a lot of questions from early on and try to get people thinking about their experiences as they learn new things with me. My classes have become a lot more loose in planning, as most rigid plans usually don’t follow what I may expect when trying to adapt to individual learning styles and levels.
I’m not perfect, but I’m definitely learning.
I’m aware that there is much to learn. All of this learning feels more like a teaching lifestyle change, that includes continuous trailing and testing, applying successfully and accepting that sometimes there will be some “miss” classes. Knowing it is through these experiences that I will develop as a coach further.
I understand that my teaching methods will not be for all humans that come my way, especially when teaching adults. People come with pre-conceived ideas of how a class “should” be run, a sequence of tricks taught in a linear fashion, 1st trick, 2nd trick, 3rd trick and a combo that looks and is only taught in one obsolete way - voilà, a combo for insta.
Nope, not my class.
In the various types of classes I teach, I try to teach some of the essential options that we have in a world of infinite possibilities. I aim to include the foundational strength and coordination building from the very get-go of the first class. I ask questions to encourage my students to reflect on their movement in the hopes to encourage motivation and dedication, whether that’s for the skill at hand or for their longer-term approach to learning pole.
I commit to not only teach the humans that come to my classes the things that they want to learn, but also to motivate them to gain the confidence, awareness, and capacity to embrace the skills they desire.
I am not perfect, I am human. In the words of Daniel Coyle - Coaching is a skills in itself, it takes deep mindful practice to master.
I will sometimes have some “miss” classes, but I know that I really fucking love being a movement coach and facilitator. I am actively pouring my attention to continuously learning to be a better coach to every single human who choose to trust me with their pole and movement journey <3
.. And that’s my not-so-short story about who I am as a coach and how I got here.
Thank you for reading this. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Feel free to comment below on your thoughts and experiences. If you are an instructor or aspiring instructor and would like some of the resources I have used over the years, have a gander at some of the resources mentioned above (links are underlined above).
See you around soon x
