Pole and aerial instructors – this one’s for you. The start of the year can be such a busy time for our studios, and on top of that, the doom and gloom of the shorter days of winter can make it so difficult to find motivation to do anything apart from lying on the sofa with a bowl of your favourite snacks (which is a totally valid use of your time, by the way). So when we do finally manage to find some time in our schedule to get to the studio, it’s important that we strike a balance between training for ourselves as well as dedicating our time to teaching.
As teachers, often when we allow some time in our schedule to head to the studio, it can be pretty easy for our diary to snowball from a few hours of clear space to a jam- packed schedule of lesson planning, private lessons, studio prep and admin. After all, we teach because we love it and we want to make time for our students, and as pole and aerial is also our job, if there’s an opportunity for some work, it’s something we will usually always consider. So how do we navigate striking a balance in our busy schedules to not only accommodate our paid opportunities and instructor admin/planning/literally everything else time, and actually meaningfully training for ourselves?
First of all, let’s talk about why it’s important to train for ourselves. Well, the main reason in my opinion is because ultimately, it’s important to maintain our own passion for pole and aerial. Our job as instructors is to ensure our students are safe and happy, and also, to inspire. Inspiration doesn’t just come from ‘wow, look at that amazing trick they can do’, it can also be found within a genuine passion for the artform. In order to be a living, breathing testament to all the positive things to be found within pole and aerial, it is vital that our enthusiasm keeps burning bright.
Another reason it’s key to train for ourselves is to look after ourselves. Look, we know how it is – you do the warm up granted, but then the rest of the class you spend walking around, helping students, spotting the occasional person and the only time you spend on the pole is for a quick demo. I hate to say it, but that isn’t training, and it’s certainly not the best way to treat your body (although I know we don’t always have a choice). If we had a student who was operating on the same ‘on the pole once every fifteen minutes’ pattern, we would probably chat to them about ensuring they keep their body warmed up throughout – but we more-than-likely wouldn’t, or can’t really, consider that ourselves (insert the upside down smiling emoji here).
Finally, another excellent reason why we as instructors need to train for ourselves is simply because we can’t, and shouldn’t have to pour from an empty cup. We are all only human, and we have such a passion for this job that it becomes so easy to dedicate all our time to teaching because we adore it, and our students. But ultimately, the way to be our very best selves as instructors is to ensure that our own love for pole and aerial is fulfilled whilst we are also providing that for our students. And really, the very best way to do that is ensuring that we actually get to do some pole and aerial in our free time as well.
So, how do we make sure that we strike that balance between training for ourselves and working as a pole and aerial instructor?
Book Onto a Class – and when I say this, I don’t just mean, book onto a class that you can maybe cancel if you need to teach that day instead. Carve out some time in your schedule to really, properly be a student. This could be booking onto a workshop, or a weekender, or even a private lesson with another instructor you admire. Try to make an event of this time for learning, and try not to spend the whole time with your instructor hat on. Allow yourself to fully immerse yourself into being a student. Think about things that you have always wanted to train that maybe have been put onto the backburner without even realising it. Make this time for your lesson completely non-negotiable – whenever it is, put a big old red marker pen ring around it and underline the time and date a bunch of times. Treat that lesson as though it’s an appointment you’ve waited for months for and absolutely cannot move.
Actually Plan Your Training – as instructors, we spend a lot of time lesson planning, and organising our diary to fit in our classes and other commitments. But do you actually factor in any time to train for yourself as well? I often think back to my Granny – she always used to say, ‘if it’s not in my diary, it’s not going to happen’. I think this mantra is a pretty solid one to live by – even if we want to do something, but we haven’t allocated time within our schedule to do it, is it really going to happen? Probably not.
Of course, it isn’t always possible when we are at the studio for everything to fall exactly as it should. After all, sometimes a private lesson could run over, or another instructor may fall ill and we need to cover for them, or we even just are feeling a little tired that day and would rather use the gaps in our schedule to have a nice cup of tea – and that is totally valid. But a sure-fire way for any gap in our schedule to get unintentionally filled with non-training time is by not even blocking it out in the first place. Make sure that if you unintentionally have a space in your diary which you spot and think ‘ooh, that would be good for a bit of training’, write it in there.
One for You, One for Me – another thing that can sometimes happen as instructors is we wind up training things that we need to teach, rather than things we actually want to train. How many times have training sessions been lost to lesson planning, rather than exploring new tricks for ourselves? Treat your training session like you would any other lesson plan, and consider adopting the ‘one for you, one for me’ ideology. It’s a pretty simple premise. For every one thing you train because you need it for teaching, you train another that is simply because you want to do it.
I know this might seem pretty obvious, but we all know how time can fly when we are training, and we all also know how easy it is to go down a rabbit hole when we aren’t following any kind of schedule in our session. Try to get into the habit of not only writing down exactly what it is you want or need to train that day, but also structuring this in a way that you are ensuring that the stuff you want to give a try for your own enjoyment isn’t just tacked onto the end with a question mark over it, give those tricks or transitions pride of place in your session.
Link Up with Other Instructors – odds are, if you’re feeling like you’re struggling to strike a balance between being an instructor and your own training, you won’t be alone in that feeling. Or at least, every instructor around you will have felt that way themselves at one point or another too. So reach out and talk about it. Find solace in the other pole and aerial professionals around you, whether that be directly at your studio or further afield on social media. Sometimes all it can take is speaking to like- minded individuals about how you are feeling to really get to the root of your emotions on the subject.
Another nice thing you can do with the other instructors in your life is to allocate time to train with them. Sometimes, as a self-employed person especially, it can feel as though you have to do everything on your own – but when it comes to training, you really don’t. Training dates are a great way to keep your passion for pole and aerial lit whilst also getting some much needed time on the equipment. You can share skills, and you can support each other, and also it can just generally be a bit more fun to train with others around you instead of on your own.
So there you have it, four of my suggestions to give a go in order to re-find that balance in your training and teaching life again. Ultimately, there is no perfect answer, and some of these suggestions may not work for you, but really the main takeaway I have for you is this. If you don’t make time for it, it won’t happen. So if you want to re-find that balance, you’ve got to get creative with how you can manage your time. And honestly, it’s okay if at the moment that is completely outside of your capabilities – life isn’t perfect and easy, and sometimes it’s just too busy to schedule in training for leisure. Just remember, no matter what, that the reason you teach pole and aerial is because you love it, and you love teaching, and all of this is worth it in the end!