Pole fitness as injury rehab

@polebird and I are trying to build an aerial community here on Steemit so this is my first #aerialists post. Although pole dance is mostly portrayed on social media as something done by the young and gorgeous in tiny outfits and killer heels, there are a number of folk out there like me who are bent on growing old disgracefully. People still giggle at me when I tell them I do pole dancing because pole hasn't yet shed its stripper stereotype and I am the last person they could imagine shaking my butt in high heels. I don't shake my butt in heels - there's such a thing as pole fitness - but I have nothing against those who can rock the 8-inch heels thing.

I'm almost 49 years old and I started poling when I was 44. I have always been very strong and enjoy doing things that most people consider extreme. Whether it's biking, martial arts or pole, I enjoy the challenge of physical activity that demands 100% focus. Most of the time, my mind is off elsewhere and I am very accident-prone and so demanding activities keep me grounded. Being accident-prone has taken its toll on my body and I learned over time that keeping strong and active keeps me relatively pain-free. With my damaged joints, I can't comfortably be a couch-potato. Many years ago, I took up yoga to strengthen and loosen my shoulders. It helped with that but my hips didn't like the constant stretching and stress on the joints. Pole dancing turned out to be the answer to that and I became stronger and more flexible and got away from the chronic hip and lower-back pain that yoga caused. I met my first pole teacher when I was doing aerial yoga at her studio although it wasn't long before I learned that "if it doesn't hurt, it isn't aerial" and that any time you learn something new, you are likely to end up with huge bruises. Not from falling, but from the effort of staying on the pole.

2017 was a difficult year, I took a tumble badly in a martial arts class and landed on the point of the shoulder and separated the ligament which connects the collar-bone to the scapula. That particular injury is called shoulder separation and one little ligament caused so much pain and discomfort I couldn't sleep at night. I was unable to lift my arm and I experienced an ocular migraine for the first time in my life which was rather frightening. What the xrays showed was even more disturbing: the separation was not major but the stability of the right glenohumeral joint was severely compromised and I was going to need plenty of rehab.

The arm was put in a sling, I wasn't allowed to drive and life became very difficult because wearing a sling becomes so uncomfortable that you barely notice the actual injury any more. There is also the time spent wondering whether anything will ever be the same again and the frustration of being stuck at home and reliant on others for every little thing.

I got through that and started rehab 2 months after the accident. My arm had become so weak and painful that I could barely lift it and I had to do lots of painful stretching and strengthening exercises using a theraband. Gradually, the pain subsided and function improved and after a month, I was given more complex exercises and told that I could go back to pole classes. It was painful in the beginning and I felt pretty useless but I continued with the rehab and over months, the pain has become less although it is still there and there are things which I still can't do but the ligaments are slowly being able to take more load because it is only stress that will get them stronger again. As any hand-balancer will tell you, separated shoulders don't like handstands.

The rehab has improved my shoulder function to the point where I can do things that I wasn't capable of previously and I'll be posting some progress pictures soon. The plan for this year is to be able to do Iron-X, the pole equivalent of flags