This weekend was supposed to be the Pole Championship Series final at the Arnold Fitness Classic. Pole athletes from all over the world had prepared routines and booked flights to Columbus, Ohio to compete in the Superbowl of Pole. But as of Tuesday, the organizers for the Arnold cancelled the event because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Understandably, reactions ran hot. I saw social media posts from profound sadness to outright fury. It could not have been an easy decision to make, and the organizers did not take it lightly. With so many competitors and spectators coming together, there is a ton of potential to spread a very easily transmissible virus.

We could debate the virtues of cancelling an event set to attract nearly 250,000 people from across the globe in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak, but no matter if you believe it was the right or wrong decision, it still sucks for the athletes. And for Lindsey Kimura, who organizes PCS and invests countless hours of her time in creating one of the best-run competitions in the world. I want to give people a glimpse of what goes into creating that 3-minute routine you see at a competition, and why this change to PCS is so devastating.

Time

The first investment we make into creating a routine is our time. Personally, preparing for PCS 2019 last year, I started working on new tricks as soon as I got the official invite, eight months before the event. I drilled deadlifts, static rotations, grip switches in handspring, and new transitions. I stepped far outside my comfort zone and reached for tricks I had never thought I’d be able to achieve. And that’s not to mention all the tricks I sunk time into but ended up cutting or never mastering.

While each athlete has their own regimen for competition prep, when I am in active training mode I end up dropping about 10-12 hours per week into pole and contortion training. For the first several months, I keep up with my usual flexibility and pole classes but add on private training and choreography sessions with my amazing coach (love you, Brittany!). Writing a routine takes hours of research into the theme and other dance styles and tricks that go along with it.

As I get closer to the competition, I will add rehearsal time on my own in the studio and at home as well. About two months before the event, I no longer take any group classes other than flexibility, and concentrate only on rehearsal and perfecting the routine. Once the routine is finalized (my rule is no major changes less than a month or two before the competition), I drill it upwards of thirty times.

Personally, as a glutton for punishment, I also edit my own music and sew my own costumes. So even beyond training and rehearsing, I’m working on these routines pretty constantly in any time I have outside my full-time job. My long-suffering husband got really good at playing single dad over the past few years.

Money

All polers know our hobby is not cheap. Especially for those of us who are not instructors and have to pay for studio memberships, and those of us who are not career dancers and don’t have any sponsorships or other income to pad out our investment into our sport. Every private training session costs money. Private practice time means renting out the studio for a fee. Materials for the costume can really add up. Because let’s be honest, any rhinestone other than Swarovski is just not worth buying.

Part of the reason I usually only do one competition per year is that I end up spending anywhere from $600-800 counting private training, studio rental, costume fabric and crystals, entrance fees, photo and video from the event, massages, chiropractic treatments, etc. I am very fortunate that my husband is (again) very supportive and up until this year we could kind of sneak by with those expenses.

This is also why I have never travelled for any competition except PCS. I am very lucky that one of my favorite competitions, Florida Pole Fitness Championship, happens right here where I live. But for athletes who travel, you can tack on airfare and hotel rooms, car rentals or rideshares, and time off work. Competing and traveling to participate in pole events is expensive.

Energy

Obviously, all that training also takes energy. We work hard to build our muscular strength and endurance, and we work ourselves hard. Especially for those of us “senior polers” (which, by the way, ew, can we rename that division, please?) and masters, it is very hard on our bodies and our joints. We walk around in a constant state of soreness, bruised like peaches, with some kind of mild injury that we’re choosing to ignore or call a “tweak” rather than what it really is.

But even beyond the physical strain, preparing for a competition can be mentally exhausting. As someone with pretty severe stage fright, I lived in a state of high anxiety for about four months before PCS. To be fair, that was the biggest competition I’ve ever done and I felt like I was completely out of my depth. At home, my emotional state definitely took a toll. I was short-tempered and prone to random bouts of panic. The routine was all I could talk about. I belly-ached to my friends and family about whether I should get rid of this move, do I have enough strength techniques, what if nobody understands the theme?

I would be in the middle of cleaning someone’s teeth at my day job and my mind would suddenly jump to a vivid image of me missing my grip switch on stage and crashing down onto my head in front of the judges and an entire international audience. Even now, thinking about it, my palms are sweating, my fingers are going numb, and my stomach is getting queasy. At work, my hands shook constantly for weeks on end. As Brittany can attest, the weekend of the competition, I had to randomly stop wherever we were and bend over and put my head between my knees to keep from barfing all over the floor. She was probably completely over me by competition day.

The Payoff

All of that work, time, money, and for what? Three minutes. Three minutes and one chance to get it right for the judges. That’s it. Is it really worth it?

Yes. Oh my god, yes. It is amazingly worth it. When I get my video back, I look at all the amazing things I forced myself to learn. I look at how strong and flexible I have become. I look at myself in my mid thirties after having a kid and I am doing flips and hanging by one knee upside down twelve feet in the air with my butt almost touching my head. I see a fucking superhero.

The second I walk up on that stage, those months of anxiety suddenly break in the crashing of a tremendous wave and my body goes Super Saiyan. I am literally flying. Yes, my hands are still shaking while I stand there under the lights waiting for my music to start, but I feel like a finely tuned killing machine. It is the most amazing high I have ever experienced.

And when I walk off the stage, even as my mind is going over all the little shuffles and mistakes that probably only Brittany and I will ever notice, all I can say is, “that felt good.” All that anxiety suddenly drops away and I feel… good. I feel solid, and strong. And if, by chance, I happen to place, that is a sweet fucking cherry on top. We all try to guess where we placed, standing there on stage, waiting for the emcee to announce the winners. I usually have myself somewhere around the middle of the pack. So if Joe (doesn’t she emcee every event now, as a rule?), after her usual prolonged buildup and dragging the thing out as long as she can to torture us, if she says my name? It is the most surreal experience in the world.

Competitions take a lot out of us, but they give us so much more. As I think back on the past six years of competitive pole and what it has done for my life, I cannot really put into words how deeply I appreciate all those opportunities to perform, to push myself, to show up on that stage.

When I saw the announcement about the Arnold being cancelled and PCS being rescheduled, even though I was not one of the athletes performing this year, it felt like a gut punch. All those hours, all that investment, and to have the release of that built up energy and anxiety suddenly drop out from under me? I would be devastated. Many of the athletes are probably going through the whole grief cycle right now; anger, sadness, denial, the whole thing.

I don’t think I can offer any words that will really take that sting away, except to say that you are stronger and better now than you would have been. The training is the biggest payoff of doing these events. You have a routine, and you will be able to use it in the future. Your muscles will carry the memory of that routine for years.

Your day will come, and you will be fucking amazing.