Happy February everyone! I’m sorry that I’ve been MIA for the entire month of January. The beginning of this year has been a very hectic one so far – I’ve switched to a new pole studio to up my training regimen, lost a family member, and have been dealing with the possibility of looking for a new job. But, hopefully I will be getting back into the swing of consistent blogging again starting this month 🙂

This will be a pretty short post, but I just wanted to share a video recap of my pole (and handstand) practices throughout the month of January, as well as an update on my flexibility progress! As I have mentioned in a previous post, I have extremely tight hamstrings (despite having pretty good overall flexibility), but after using the Get Bent Circus Style Flexibility Training DVD to prefect my stretching techniques and stretching on a consistent basis, I have really improved my hamstring flexibility over the past 6 months. I’m very happy with my progress so far (even though my hamstrings are far from being very flexible) and I’m looking forward to continue my growth and improvement. Check out some of my “before” and “after” pictures below:

Left splits – August 2013

Left splits – January 2014

Right splits – August 2013

Right splits – January 2014. They could probably be a little bit more square but it is definitely an improvement from August!

Forward fold – August 2013

Forward fold – January 2014. Next step will be to keep my back straight (and not rounded)!

You can also see how my flexibility on the pole has gotten significantly better!

Jade – April 2013

Jade – January 2014

Besides strength gains, increased body awareness, and better overall fluidity that I’ve noticed recently in terms of pole, another huge improvement I’ve seen in the last 6 months have been my handstands! I remember never being able to hold them for more than 2 seconds, but I think my PR is up to 10 seconds now! I also did scorpion handstand for the first time ever this month, which is a pose I NEVER imagined I would be able to do so soon. It really shows that sometimes your body and mind are stronger than you think! Check out my January practice highlights below:

(If you are reading from an email, click here to check out my video!)