Susan Papp Mlodzienski I discovered yesterday that the reason these didn't feel secure is I was accidentally doing them all on my non-dominant side bc I don't butterfly and I don't usually do both sides of anything 🙈🙈🙈but I thought about it and I prefer Ayesha on the opposite side and butterfly was much more secure on that side as well 😬so probably strengthening this side is in order 😭

Stephanie Tallant I love that I was either just as tired, so I didn't notice or that I'm such a Steph Stan I don't question you at all and I was just going to make it international and safe 😂

For the forearm ones though I did have to keep my chest superrrrrr close to the pole bc I agree they feel unstable

I think to get more stable you need to "caterpillar" (that's what we call it at my studio) before doing the butterfly. Which is basically pushing the bottom arm and pulling the top arm so that your body makes a 90 degree angle before changing to any butterfly position (pic below).

THE SHADE STEPHHHH 😭😭😭but also so accurate 😂 I probably needed to put grip on my legs because I agree I didn't seem very solid which I think led to the slink down the pole to try and not die. Will reattempt and attempt the other ones with added grip

Clarification, It's easier to ✨hold✨the Janeiro on spin. getting into it from brass monkey is like being in a tornado, but the spin does push your back onto the pole naturally which makes taking the top arm off easier. So if you already can balance with both legs off the pole like I was stuck at, then spin might help take the arm off. But I hate spin too 🙈

Game changer for me was Stephanie Tallant telling me to not actually rest my legs on my arm at all and now I think of it more like an illusion that my arm is holding up my leg but really my back and butt are doing all the work. Once I stopped resting my bottom leg on my arm I was able to hold myself up without going straight down and it looks like you're doing something similar. It also looks like you're pushing the bottom leg down instead of pushing it back towards the pole and up. I find I have the best set up when the bottom leg is parallel with the floor when I'm trying to take the top leg off so gravity doesn't pull me down (pic of leg parallel to floor). Steph also showed me some floor exercise that really mirrors the engagement you need to be in Janeiro especially if you do it around the pole (idk if she had a video)

I'm going to have to do it in 2 posts bc it only lets me post one pic at a time lol. First tip from my teacher at my studio is you need to push your hips back to clear both hips from the pole when taking that first leg off. It looks like you're trying to push your second hip past the pole while taking the second leg off and that's really difficult to do. In the pic you see both my hips have already cleared the pole.

This is a perfect description of the "what I can when I can" pole method that I live by 😂there's some upper back/shoulder videos where you get to lay in the floor most of the time that I also trick myself into doing. I also sometimes passively watch a video and Steph tells me to do something in the video and I feel pressured to do what she says as another method 🙈😂