The Pole Dance Performer

Resources mentioned:
🎯 The Flow Codes (free 4-video series):

https://www.poledancefoundations.com/FlowCodes

---

You did the responsible thing. You signed up for an adult ballet, jazz, or contemporary class to build the foundation under your pole dancing. And you walked out feeling like the slowest person in the room.

In this episode I break down the curse of knowledge. It is the reason instructors who grew up dancing skip the basics and leave you filling in blanks nobody gave you. I call out my own industry too. Pole teachers do it as well. Then I decode four elements of stage presence people call magic and show you the mechanics underneath: circles, pivots, angles, and pit-stops.

What you'll learn:

• Why the curse of knowledge is not about your talent
• Why pole teachers skip the same vocabulary dance teachers do
• Why "just feel it" is the same curse wearing a different costume
• The four decoded elements behind stage presence: circles, pivots, angles, pit-stops
• Why progress is foundations plus the right teacher, not talent
• How to stop auditing your body and start auditing your training

Note: Pole dance was created by skrippers and sex workers. Full stop. They built this art form from the ground up, the studios, the moves, the culture, all of it. I would not be here without them. I honor that history and I stand in solidarity with sex workers and their rights. Always.

Resources mentioned:

💃 Pole Dance Foundations Membership: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.poledancefoundations.com/polefromhome

💃 See EVERYTHING: https://www.poledancefoundations.com/everything

You have the tricks. Inversions, a layback, a couple of drops that make people gasp at open pole. So why does a full song still feel clunky? Trick, awkward pause, walk, trick.

Sergia breaks down the difference between your trick vocabulary and your grounded movement, and why the second one is what actually makes a routine read as dancing. It is also your safety net for the moment your brain blanks on stage.

Note: Pole dance was created by skrippers and sex workers. Full stop. They built this art form from the ground up — the studios, the moves, the culture, all of it. I would not be here without them. I honor that history and I stand in solidarity with sex workers and their rights. Always.

Resources mentioned:

🎟️ Free Pole Performer Summit (Sept 23-26): ⁠⁠https://www.poledancefoundations.com/PolePerformerSummit⁠⁠

💃 Pole Dance Foundations Membership: ⁠⁠https://www.poledancefoundations.com/polefromhome

Watch any pole studio and you'll see it. Beginners look like the strongest people in the room, veins popping, muscling through every move. The advanced dancers in the corner look like they're floating through the same moves. That's not because they got stronger. It's because they stopped paying full price for their movement.

The gap between a beginner and an advanced dancer isn't strength. It's efficiency, and efficiency is a skill you can learn. In this episode I break down two foundational concepts, Orbiting on static pole and perpendicular pressure, that explain why some dancers work so hard for so little and others get the same movement for a fraction of the cost. I also get into why this matters beyond survival, because every bit of effort you save through efficiency is effort you get to spend on your face, your intention, and your performance.

What You'll Learn:

• Why beginners work so hard while advanced dancers look like they're floating through the same moves
• The tetherball secret behind Orbiting on static pole, and how fear kills your own spin
• Why perpendicular pressure, not squeezing, is what actually holds you on the pole
• Why level one, where you can't go upside down, turns out to be the hardest level of all
• The lie your brain tells you when someone else looks like they're not trying, and why it's wrong
• How efficiency saves your energy for artistry, not just for tricks
• Why your hardest, least efficient tricks are a cost your performance has to pay




---




Note: Pole dance was created by skrippers and sex workers. Full stop. They built this art form from the ground up — the studios, the moves, the culture, all of it. I would not be here without them. I honor that history and I stand in solidarity with sex workers and their rights. Always.

Resources mentioned:

🎟️ Free Pole Performer Summit (Sept 23-26): ⁠https://www.poledancefoundations.com/PolePerformerSummit⁠

💃 Pole Dance Foundations Membership: ⁠https://www.poledancefoundations.com/polefromhome

You Don't Lack Strength. You Lack a Diagnosis.

There's a move you keep cutting from your routines. You drilled it for weeks, then swapped it out ten days before your show and told yourself the choreography flowed better without it. It didn't. This episode is about why that move is still stuck, and it's not the reason you think.

Every dancer has a nemesis move, the one that gets cut right before it counts. Most of us respond by drilling harder, watching more tutorials, and deciding we don't have what it takes. I built the Three-Steps-Back Test to prove that's the wrong diagnosis almost every time. In this episode I break down why "get stronger" has become the default answer to every stuck move, and when the real gap sits three steps back in a foundation nobody checked.

What You'll Learn:

• Why drilling a stuck move harder almost never fixes it, and what to do instead
• The Three-Steps-Back Test I use with my own students to find the real problem in under ten minutes
• Why "you need to get stronger" has become pole's catch-all diagnosis, and when it's the wrong one
• How to tell a technique gap from a strength gap
• Why a foundation nobody checked months ago shrinks your choreography vocabulary today
• What expert eyes catch that a tutorial never can
• The real reason your routines keep feeling the same

Resources mentioned:

🎟️ Free Pole Performer Summit (Sept 23-26): https://www.poledancefoundations.com/PolePerformerSummit

💃 Pole Dance Foundations Membership: https://www.poledancefoundations.com/polefromhome

Why Your Saved Tutorials Never Make It to the Stage:

You have 400 saved pole tutorials on Instagram. You watch them on your lunch break. You drill them at open pole. So why does none of it connect when a full song comes on?

In this episode I introduce you to Winging It Wanda, the pole dancer who builds her whole education out of 60 second tutorials and ends up with a pile of trick morsels instead of a dance. I break down why demonstration is not instruction, what is actually happening under the waterline of every trick you have ever watched online, and why an audience does not applaud positions, they feel moments.

What you'll learn:

• Why 400 saved tutorials can leave you more stuck, not less

• The real reason your tricks won't connect into a routine, even when you can do all of them

• Who Winging It Wanda is and whether you have some of her in you

• The difference between demonstration and instruction, and why it matters more than you think

• What is actually happening "under the waterline" of every pole trick you've ever watched

• Why an audience feels moments, not positions

• The one mindset shift that changes how you approach learning a new move

• Why drilling the same trick for months might be the wrong move entirely

skrippers solidarity 🔥

LINKS MENTIONED:

Free Masterclass: Compelling Pole Routines ⁠⁠⁠⁠poledancefoundations.com/compellingroutines⁠⁠⁠⁠

Free Training: The Choreography Code ⁠⁠⁠⁠poledancefoundations.com/poleartistmentorship⁠⁠⁠⁠

Create Your Routine with Sergia 1:1⁠⁠⁠⁠ poledancefoundations.com/routinemap⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Sergia: @sergialouise on Instagram

LINKS MENTIONED:

Free Masterclass: Compelling Pole Routines ⁠⁠⁠⁠poledancefoundations.com/compellingroutines⁠⁠⁠⁠

Free Training: The Choreography Code ⁠⁠⁠⁠poledancefoundations.com/poleartistmentorship⁠⁠⁠⁠

Create Your Routine with Sergia 1:1⁠⁠⁠⁠ poledancefoundations.com/routinemap⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Sergia: @sergialouise on Instagram

LINKS MENTIONED:

Free Masterclass: Compelling Pole Routines ⁠⁠⁠poledancefoundations.com/compellingroutines⁠⁠⁠

Free Training: The Choreography Code ⁠⁠⁠poledancefoundations.com/poleartistmentorship⁠⁠⁠

Create Your Routine with Sergia 1:1⁠⁠⁠ poledancefoundations.com/routinemap⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Follow Sergia: @sergialouise on Instagram

LINKS MENTIONED:

Free Masterclass: Compelling Pole Routines ⁠⁠poledancefoundations.com/compellingroutines⁠⁠

Free Training: The Choreography Code ⁠⁠poledancefoundations.com/poleartistmentorship⁠⁠

Create Your Routine with Sergia 1:1⁠⁠ poledancefoundations.com/routinemap⁠⁠

⁠⁠Follow Sergia: @sergialouise on Instagram

LINKS MENTIONED:

Free Masterclass: Compelling Pole Routines ⁠poledancefoundations.com/compellingroutines⁠

Free Training: The Choreography Code ⁠poledancefoundations.com/poleartistmentorship⁠

Create Your Routine with Sergia 1:1⁠ poledancefoundations.com/routinemap⁠

⁠Follow Sergia: @sergialouise on Instagram

---

The Routine Starts Before the Music Does.

This is the final episode of the Stage Presence Series, and I saved my favorite for last.

Most dancers treat their entrance as the walk to the pole before the real thing starts. And the bow? Something to get through after it ends. Both of those assumptions are costing you.

Your audience starts forming an opinion the second you step into the light. Before the first note plays. Before your first move. And that opinion? It shapes how they receive everything that follows. If you walk out without intention, you've already made a choice. You've just made it accidentally.

The same is true for the bow. What your character does after the last note fades is still part of the performance. Don't let the routine bleed out awkwardly.

Today I get specific on how to choreograph both, how to stay in character from wing to wing, and why the moments everyone forgets are often the ones that hit hardest.