In Zen training the teacher would ask absurd questions that would confound the student. If the student can’t answer it right away without hesitation, it means he still has not gotten it.

Pole training can be like this. First you just imitate, do your best. Then after a while you start to ask, hold on, is this how I am supposed to do it.

Your first urge is to ask but you best learn when you don’t ask and examine the movement again, rethink it, remember what it is you are supposed to do, and what it is for. Then you start to experiment to see if you can improve on it. Hint – that’s one of the purpose of high repetition training.

If you can’t, you go back to doing it the way you were told, not necessarily the way you understand it, not necessarily the way you thought you saw it done but the way you would do it within your present accumulated experience of doing the technique.

At first you think oh, this is hopeless I am never going to get it. But no, not true, you need to be persistent. Practice, reflect, practice again, then dissect based on not just what you do, what you feel. You think you know your movements but you don’t, at least not until you have practiced enough. Even then, its only the beginning of knowing yourself. You still don’t know the pole yet.

The more you practice, the more you reflect, the more you get corrected, the more you begin to know yourself. You can’t make progress by thinking you got it after a short period of practice. You have to be prepared to build it up, refine it, if necessary tear it down, and build it again, again and again. It is a never ending process. When you thought you know it, then you encounter something new, different, and realize that you don’t really know it.

We think ah, the movement is so complicated but really it should be simple, direct, efficient. If you can’t do it in a blink without having to think about it, then you have not practiced enough. When you learn and practice, you think. When you apply, you just do it.

Seeing a picture helps, seeing a video is even better but nothing beats practicing over and over. Practice until you have doubts, then practice until the doubts go away, and keep on practicing. The more you practice, the more doubts will emerge and each doubt cleared up will bring you to another level, closer to the answer.

Then when you reach the destination you might think is this it? Its that simple? Really?

Yes, really.