Practicing Pole Dance As Tinkering? Dealing with Disregulation & Feeling Rushed

Emotional regulation, neurodivergence and overdoing aren’t first thoughts when you think about practicing pole dance.

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Chapter Markers

  • 0:52 – The Rush
  • 3:39 – The Lightbulb Moment
  • 7:43 – Practice as Tinkering
  • 15:18 – Conscious Awareness
  • 22:28 – The Stool
  • 26:57 – Emotional Regulation
  • 32:57 – Sensing vs Experiencing?

Prologue

For years now I’ve been cookin’ up and imagining this idea around installing a “museum” of dancers who interpret a concept. This idea evolved from a live experience of dance performances to a collection of how people are processing after or before the fact. I can’t remember when I settled on the mutation into a symposium, but last year was when I began to structure what a virtual installation of the idea may look.

It’s coming together currently as the Wasp’s Nest (https://performancetempel.com/rear-end/) (click the link to get info for the symposium event). Leading up to the first digital get together this spring (date to be announced soon) I’m finding myself preparing by choppin’ it up with my girlfriends. Us just talking on the phone. It’s helping me to distill but also not be so nit-picky about this ‘symposium’ word that is traditionally used in academic scholarship settings. What I don’t want is status elitism projecting onto the vision. The vision is birthed of a down to earth god-complexity. An oxymoron in itself, that is a counter to all the spiritual and intellectual bypassing I observe with activities like art and dance. Take a listen and use the comments to expand thoughts or revelations that you experience while hearing.

Chat Notes

An Interpretation of Practice

In Part 1 (0:00 – 39:24) Ashley and Rachel jump in headfirst, in continuation of a previous conversation, discussing her interpretation of practice. Rachel sets the stage as a “Tinkerella & Tinkertoes”, names given to her by her mother, reminding us of how much our childhood grows with us into our adulthood still.

Emotional regulation, neurodivergence and overdoing it become a beat that is followed into how Rachel addresses stimuli and rituals in her practice while simultaneously calling Ashley out for overdoing it. Ashley shares a recent example of when stimulus input is nonexistent and how easy it is to overdo it when there is no sense-feeling happening.