How to track your pole progress without posting it to Instagram
Most of us film everything. The first time your feet left the floor, the spin you finally held, the invert you swore you'd never do. Then the clip sits in the camera roll between screenshots and dinner photos, and three months later you can't find it.
Posting it doesn't feel right either. A wobbly first attempt isn't something you want strangers watching. The group chat from your beginner class was lovely for a while, but half of it moved studios and nobody posts anymore.
What helps is a record you can actually find, and a few people you trust to see it.
Film the same thing the same way
Progress hides in clips you can't compare. A spin filmed from the side in March and from the front in June tells you almost nothing.
- Pick two or three moves you're working toward and film them every few weeks.
- Same angle, same distance, same side of the pole if you can.
- Film the whole attempt, including the setup and the landing. That's where the change shows first.
Write one line after every class
The clip shows what it looked like. The note tells you what it felt like, which is the part you forget.
- What you worked on
- What felt different from last time
- Anything that hurt, and where
One line is enough. "Held the climb for the first time, left wrist sore" will mean more to you in six months than a perfect clip.
Tag it so you can find it
Use the same few words every time: the move, the body part, the goal. "Invert", "climb", "flexibility", "left side". When you want to see every invert attempt since spring, you'll have them in one place instead of scrolling for an hour.
Look back once a month
Once a month, put your newest clip next to one from three months ago and watch them back to back.
Pole is slow, and it's easy to feel stuck when you only ever see this week. Side by side, you'll see things you'd stopped noticing: your grip, how cleanly you come out of a move, that you're not scared of it anymore. Some of it won't show on camera at all, which is what the notes are for.
Choose a small audience
Some progress you'll want to share, just with fewer people. Your classmates were there for the climb, so they get it.
Pick a few of them and share the clips you're proud of. A couple of classmates who know how hard that climb was will say something that means more than a pile of likes.
Where Sssion fits
This is what we made Sssion to help with. Your profile is a practice journal: every entry can carry a clip, a note and tags, and you can keep an entry just for you. When you want to share, it goes only to the people you've approved. Your classmates can find you by name or @username, and you choose who sees what.
If you're also dealing with the creator side of Instagram, we wrote about what's actually happening with shadowbans.
If you only do one thing, film a move you're working on this week and look at it again next month.