REVIEW: XPERT’s Pre and Postnatal Course – Lottie ‘Adore’ Sanders

Transporting myself to the early days of my pole journey, I remember the excitement of one of my pole dancer pals who revealed she was three months pregnant. She had spent the lead up to that first scan secretly revelling in her new identity as a mother-to-be, hoping that her baby could share her exhilaration and passion for pole and aerial, with a whole new world of wonder at her feet, ready to be discovered. As a fully fledged instructor now, my heart sinks at the thought of that same pole pal – or anyone else in a similar situation – having to be excluded from their weekly class ritual, losing the contact to their studio family purely because there was no one at their studio
certified and able to provide them safe classes. Heartbreak no more – cue the superhero music, XPERT are here to the rescue once again, with their Pre and Postnatal Pole and Aerial course. Read on, and learn about how I got on at this amazing face to face certification.

Upon completion of this course, my first instinct was to take a day for myself. Read a trashy novel, spend the day in bed, create a cocoon of snacks and comfort to decompress. Instead, I have found myself taking to my laptop to further immerse myself in all things pre and postnatal, and sharing my experience on this course is how I’ve felt compelled to continue.

XPERT’s Pre and Postnatal training is a difficult course, I won’t lie. The knowledge covered, and some of the themes discussed are thought provoking and can be complex. But then, this wouldn’t be an effective course without these factors. Undertaking pre and postnatal clients as a pole and aerial instructor is a serious undertaking, and in order to provide effective, safe training for all, a full spectrum of content needs to be covered. This is not to put you off – if you want to take your teaching to the next level, definitely sign on. But be sure you are ready to take the training weekend seriously – there’s a lot to take in!

The weekend began at my home studio, Pure-Studios in Hereford. As we all sat down and introduced ourselves, our trainer for the weekend, Natalie Leworthy, talked us through what to expect. The passion for this subject exuded from her as she spoke, drawing from her own experience as a mother, as well as the scientific and anatomical theory. Natalie is a level four personal trainer and practicing sports therapist specialising in pre and postnatal rehabilitation and lower back pain management – and also wrote this particular course.

As with every XPERT course, we were given our training guide for the weekend. Consisting of over one hundred pages of content, this amazing bound booklet was the perfect accompaniment to the sessions. Natalie guided us through each section, covering anatomy and physiology, prenatal focus and guidelines, the childbirth and early postnatal period, postnatal focus and guidelines and so, so much more. This all sounds like a lot – but under Natalie’s instruction, the topics were covered in great detail but with a personal, relatable and accessible approach.

I was pleasantly surprised by just how much information I had taken in as we went along – and thankful for the knowledge I already had thanks to my previous XPERT certifications. The great thing about this course was the way the content drew on the context we already had as pole and aerial instructors, and built on that in order to safely include, encourage and coach our pre and postnatal clients moving forward.

The best part of this course, for me, was just how in-depth the training was, and as a by-product of this – how passionate the course was for implementing safe and effective training standards. Just by reading the manual you got an authentic sense of just how enthusiastically this course had been curated. The energy is infectious – not only have I come away with another shiny XPERT certificate and t-shirt, my eager brain wants to learn even more. And I think that is brilliant. Studio owners and instructors: trust me, you’re going to want to get this course booked at your studio.

Please note that I was whilst I attended this course free of charge thanks to the wonderful team at XPERT, all of the opinions expressed are my own and I was tested under the same circumstances as everyone else.