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16: Training the Non-Traditional Athlete with Rosalyn Mayse, AKA Roz the Diva
230 Plays3 years ago
Welcome to Episode 16 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel is joined by multidisciplinary movement teacher, Rosalyn Mayse aka Roz the Diva. Laurel talks with Roz about how she went from always being picked last in gym class to building a successful career as both a personal triner and a pole dance instructor, and the often exclusionary industries both pole dancing and strength training occupy. Throughout, Roz shares stories of how she built a successful career (in her words) as a, “dark skin, semi-bald, overweight, outspoken woman running around NYC half naked.” Roz shares her humor and wisdom around what inclusivity actually looks like, as someone who understands firsthand what it feels like to be excluded.
Here’s more of what Roz and Laurel discussed:
- The different yet complementary fitness cultures of pole-dancing and strength-training
- The positive impression it made on Roz when she got to see female athletes that looked like her
- The benefits of an artistic focus in a movement practice
- How pole dancing helped Roz overcome guilt and shame about her body and exercise agency, self-exploration, and self-expression
- The fact that people in bigger bodies have to be stronger to overcome more body weight than slender people
- How Roz defines the term athlete. Spoiler: more broadly than the mainstream
- How Roz connects with clients who are skeptical about exercise after negative mainstream exercise experiences
- What the general public thinks pole-dancing and strength training are vs reality
Reference links:
Dangerous Curves New York Times Documentary about Roz
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Movement Logic podcast with yoga teacher and strength coach Laurel Beaversdorf and physical therapist, Dr. Sarah Court. With over 30 years combined experience in the yoga, movement, and physical therapy worlds, we believe in strong opinions loosely held, which means we're not hyping outdated movement concepts. Instead, we're here with up to date and cutting edge tools, evidence, and ideas to help you as a mover and a teacher.
Meet Roz the Diva
00:00:40
Speaker
Welcome to episode 16 of the Movement Logic Podcast. I'm Laurel Beaversdorf and I'm here with a very special guest, Rosalind Mays, also known as Roz the Diva. Roz is a New York City-based pole instructor and fitness trainer. Her niche is working with people new to exercise and training, what she terms non-traditional athletes.
00:01:01
Speaker
which include plus size individuals and people with disabilities. Roz is someone I've been really excited to interview for a long time. I consider Roz to be my very first celebrity interview. She has a very inspiring story that includes plot twists like her audition for America's Got Talent and a nasty run in with Howard Stern, losing multiple jobs because of photos and videos of her pole dancing performances online.
Roz's Achievements
00:01:27
Speaker
and her experience making a name for herself in pole dancing and personal training as she writes on her site as a dark skinned, semi-balled, overweight, outspoken woman who runs around NYC half naked. Roz has been featured in the New York Times in a stunning documentary called Dangerous Curves. We'll link that in the show notes. And she launched the world's first plus size pole competition.
00:01:53
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast, Roz.
Building a Brand with Jacqueline
00:01:56
Speaker
You know, I know I wrote half that bio, but more delivery though. I was like, oh, I can't wait to talk to Roz. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's me. Yeah. Your website is on point. Oh, thank you so much. Your website is on point. Like if you want to know who Roz is, go to her website. That is a very well done website.
00:02:20
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much. Yes, Jacqueline is my brand website guru slash business therapist slash. Oh my gosh, I love you, Jacqueline. Thank you.
00:02:33
Speaker
Right on, maybe we'll link Jacqueline in the show notes as well. You're cool.
Beginning in Pole Dancing
00:02:38
Speaker
Well, Roz, you are a fellow multidisciplinary movement teacher and practitioner, so I'm really super excited to talk to you today. You teach a variety of movement and exercise modalities ranging from strength training to pole dancing, and I'd love to hear how you got started with both.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yep, so I started pole dancing. I'm almost at 15 years now, which is ancient in the pole world. It's not the oldest, but it's up there.
00:03:12
Speaker
It's up there. And I started doing it because it was a class at the gym that I was going to. And it had the word dance in the title. I love to dance. I have a Beyonce complex. Sure. Let's give this a try Friday night. I don't have anything else to do. And it turns out it was the hardest thing I had ever done with my body. And especially as somebody who was one of the bigger ones in class. And I was struggle-busting, hardcore.
00:03:41
Speaker
Because when you start pole dancing, everybody is super trash. And what's that mean? What do you mean, super trash? It means that you are terrible.
00:03:55
Speaker
You're making it sound so tempting to try out. I feel like personally challenged in the best way. Yeah, so everybody looks crazy when you start. And it is hard, but when I tell you it is the best time failing I have ever had at the gym, just hands down, I can't think of a more fun way to be a disaster and to be super trash.
00:04:21
Speaker
And when you have a good playlist and you've got good peeps around you, it doesn't matter what you look like. So that's how I got started polling. And I was love at first sight. So I have been polling consistently, mostly consistently, like I said, for almost 15 years now.
Transition to Strength Training
00:04:42
Speaker
And I started strength training
00:04:46
Speaker
I guess maybe like 5 years ago or so. OK, 5 or 6 years ago and that actually came out of my love of personal training. So the timeline was started pole dancing. And then I started teaching pole in. I started pole dancing in 20 2007 and then I started teaching pole in 2011.
00:05:13
Speaker
And then I started teaching other modalities like conditioning classes around 2013 maybe. No, no, no, I think it was 2015. And what was so crazy about it is pole dancing is really
00:05:37
Speaker
specific in form. And I was really fortunate to have very good instructors. So for like the importance of form is just always there like do not sacrifice form for anything. And so what I discovered when I started lifting lifting weights is it is the same principles. You do not sacrifice your form in lifting heavy weights, unless you want to destroy your back.
00:06:07
Speaker
Right. And your knees as well. So I really liked that there were, you know, like, I want to know what muscles I'm using. I want to know what order to use my muscles in. And, you know, I like the detailed aspect of that.
00:06:24
Speaker
And so once I started lifting, it was like, oh, this feels like a natural progression from pole. I also liked lifting because in a lot of ways it seemed like the opposite of pole. Oh, interesting.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, because it was more like traditional gym stuff. It was, you know, I'm a raging feminist, but there's so much estrogen one person. It's a nice way to break up like the female, the female dominance of pole, which I love.
00:07:02
Speaker
But now we've got not, I mean, it is male dominated, but like, screw the dudes. I think it's changing. You mean strength training? Yeah, strength training. Exactly. Strength training is changing. And I think the last really important piece that got me into strength training
00:07:18
Speaker
was that for the first time in my life, I saw female athletes who were my size. Right on. And for your listeners out there, I'm about 5'5", and right now I'm 270. And I'm 37 years old. And I was an overweight teenager. And once puberty hit, that's when my weight really packed on.
00:07:44
Speaker
And so I had never, I participated in sports for almost my whole life, but I had never seen female athletes that looked like me. The only athletes I saw were really small. And so when I started lifting and then I started discovering lifting on Instagram, oh my gosh, it was like a treasure trove.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, where have these women been my whole damn life. Yeah, I think Instagram is good for that kind of exposing you. Yeah, to what else is out there. That is, I have a couple of follow up questions just based on a couple of things that you mentioned. So you mentioned that
00:08:20
Speaker
pole dancing is very technique focused, but strength training is also very technique focused. And I see there being definitely, you know, an efficiency kind of component to that as well as, you know, a safety component to that. But what strikes me as being very different about pole dancing, also very intriguing. And in some ways kind of similar to how I started off, which was teaching yoga,
00:08:45
Speaker
is there's this aesthetic artistic component to pole, which brings in the skill training, but through like a very different lens than strength training. Whereas I don't see strength training as performative in terms of art. I see it performative in terms of maybe competition, but pole dancing is a dance. It is an art form. It is particularly sexy.
00:09:09
Speaker
And so can you speak at all to the benefit of that aspect of pole dancing, bringing in the artistry of pole dancing, and what that was like for you when you first started practicing pole, and then what it's like for your pole students? Like this idea that we're working out, we're definitely building capacities, including I would say probably plenty of strength, plenty of flexibility, tons of core strength, right?
00:09:35
Speaker
But then there's this aesthetic component of a dance. And can you speak at all to that?
00:09:43
Speaker
Absolutely.
Healing Through Pole Dancing
00:09:44
Speaker
So one thing that's so dope about pole dancing is that on the days when I want to be a video vixen and a sex pot, I can do that. If there are days where I want to be an 80s robot, I can do that. If I want to be a ballerina one day, if I want to be sad emo girl crying on the floor next to the pole, I can do that. So there's so many ways to be a pole dancer.
00:10:12
Speaker
which I think is so great. Now for me, one of the biggest ironies of my life as somebody who has got a whole lot of body image issues, which I do.
00:10:26
Speaker
you would not expect a sport that you purposely stay mostly naked in to be something that I would want to participate in, especially if I wasn't particularly excited and I have a lot of guilt and shame around my size of my body. Like why would somebody do something? And also why would they choose a sport that in ways is overtly sexual sometimes? Sometimes.
00:10:53
Speaker
But what I found is the sexuality piece is a big difference when you're being objectified versus when you are choosing to put yourself in a particular situation and when other people are cheering you on when you make a choice for yourself.
00:11:11
Speaker
Right on. And, you know, this is what I wish more people understood about my sport of pole dancing is because they, there's an assumption that we're doing this for other people's delight. And that we're doing this because we've got daddy issues or we're doing this because
00:11:32
Speaker
were over-sexualized and this is, you know, this is the unfortunate result of American pop culture going off the rails. But nothing could be farther than the truth. This is, pole dancing is about choices. And I have been naked in public and on stage many times probably far more than what my parents would like me to be.
00:12:00
Speaker
they have not seen those videos. But when I did it, it was a choice that I made. I was in an environment where I was lucky to have that choice. And I was in control of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to show.
00:12:20
Speaker
And that actually has been a huge catalyst in helping me start to heal the broken relationship that I have with my body. And is it nerve wracking? Absolutely. Are there other ways that I maybe could have started the healing process? I mean, probably, but that ways aren't as awesome.
00:12:47
Speaker
And I think a lot of my students will have similar stories in regards to the sexuality piece that's tied to pole dancing, is that they get to explore part of themselves that they either didn't know existed or that they didn't know they were allowed to celebrate.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yes. And we do so in an environment that could not be more positive, could not be more welcoming, and could not be healthier for you to explore all facets of yourself.
00:13:26
Speaker
right on, right on. I have so many memories from my past as an actor. I went to acting school and was a performer and how the character, like you said, you can show up to pole dancing in whatever state you're in and embody those emotions and embody that internal world within yourself.
00:13:49
Speaker
as a way to work through it as a way to express yourself as yourself and to perform right and there's just something so cathartic and i would agree healing about that nature of dance which i feel is an a small aspect of yoga it can become a little bit more of an aspect of yoga but i think that is largely missing from other modalities like strength training for example where
00:14:19
Speaker
It's a little bit all business. We're coming to really focus on getting that strength stimulus. We're maybe listening to some great music and we're maybe chatting with our friends, but there isn't this artistic expression that
Redefining 'Athlete' and Inclusivity
00:14:35
Speaker
accompanies it. Something that strikes me as being so powerful about a modality like pole dancing is that extra element of human expression.
00:14:45
Speaker
that is that you're invited into and especially powerful that women
00:14:51
Speaker
especially today, unfortunately, are able to express with total agency their own sexuality to do with their bodies as they like and as they enjoy and for it to be a positive experience and for it to be, as you said, something that is actually quite personally fulfilling and potentially healing as well.
00:15:18
Speaker
Thank you for sharing that and I wanted to ask you because I have never done pole dancing although I do follow people like yourself on social media who are doing it. It strikes me as being as a yoga teacher a fantastic complement to yoga and I actually have a few yoga friends who do pole dancing. There is some legitimate strength required for pole dancing and then there is the
00:15:48
Speaker
artistry, the flexibility potentially required for pole dancing. And then there's the other side of what you're doing, which is actually training people to get stronger. You yourself, I watch you on Instagram, are on the road to a 300 pound deadlift. Is that right? Yes, I hope so. We're getting very close to you, which is very inspiring. Do you see strength training and pole dancing being complimentary?
00:16:13
Speaker
in that way, that one kind of helped the other. Oh, absolutely. It seems like a match made in heaven. You know what? It feels really good. And believe it or not, there's actually a lot of pole dancing meatheads like me out there. And I think... Interesting, yeah. Yeah, you know, we're drawn to that strength aspect. And, you know, particularly with pole dancing,
00:16:40
Speaker
Um, there are, there's every gender you can imagine. There's every body size and type you can imagine, but you know, unfortunately still the people that are heralded are the smaller pole dancers. The more slender pole dancers are those who could do the fanciest tricks.
00:17:00
Speaker
Um, and, but what, and I'm not, I'm not any of those people whatsoever. You're good. You are a performer. Thank you. Yes. And that's the part you make it look really fun. Yeah. That's the part that I love so much. And one thing that I realized poll helped me to realize my strength, um, in that when I was learned, when I would learn some tricks.
00:17:27
Speaker
I noticed it might take my slender friends three or four months, let's say, to get a particular trick. But for me, it would take me two years to get that same trick. And I used to think, I used to be so sad about that because I thought, well, this is because you're overweight, you're not strong enough, it's your fault.
00:17:48
Speaker
And it's, but now because I've had almost 15 years to look worth of data to look back on, I realize it's not that I wasn't as strong as my other friends, but it was, I needed my muscles to have a greater capacity for work because they had more body weight to move than my smaller counterparts.
00:18:14
Speaker
And once I realized that, and this is what I get to tell my students, everyone just kind of takes a deep sigh of relief because you realize that we're talking about science and physics and not just guilt and shame and emotion. Right on. And how this relates to strength training I think is similar is because I realized, well, when I started strength training, that my size could be an advantage.
00:18:42
Speaker
And I never ever in a million years thought that my size would be an advantage in any sport unless it was like sumo wrestling. And even then, you know, I was thinking about that in a very joking, sarcastic, facetious kind of way.
00:18:58
Speaker
But once I figured out how to use my size to my advantage, then it opened up so much with strength training. And the same with pull, I'm able to progress with strength training a little faster than I'm able to progress with pole dancing, which is always nice for the ego, thank God.
00:19:23
Speaker
But it's a nice compliment for one another. And I think it's also, it's fun. Like pole makes you brave. And this is another thing, you know, we discussed my lack of clothes on stage at times. You know, that's one kind of former bravery, but then you look at other gym stuff and you're like, you know what? I used to be really scared of those weights because I didn't know how to use them. And they all I see with a big giant dude to the gym using them.
00:19:52
Speaker
But if I can pull, if I can hang off a pole and not die, I could probably figure these weights out too. And so that's a lot of how my other gym work besides string training came about is because I tried pole and I was like, all right, I think I can, I might be able to do some more, some other stuff, stuff that I thought was boring or stuff that I thought was like, oh God, this is so basic, this is boring, but now I love it.
00:20:19
Speaker
So I
Mission for Body Inclusivity
00:20:20
Speaker
hope that answered your question. I was probably an answer all over the place. No, it totally does. And what I'm kind of this theme that I hear kind of coming through with you describing these seemingly opposite, almost dual modalities where one is dominated by more of a feminine energy and the other one strength training, more of a masculine energy and how they're, you know, they're
00:20:45
Speaker
you know, strength training maybe plays more to your sort of natural strengths of of being just a naturally strong person in a strong body. But then pole dancing kind of because it seemed more challenging to you, it gave you bravery to kind of set out
00:21:03
Speaker
and do things that maybe not a lot of people who look like you were doing. And so it seems as though the capacities you're building in both are very different but also complementary. The cultures that kind of tend to surround both are very different but also complementary. And you seem to strike me as just being this wonderful bridge as an individual
00:21:27
Speaker
that's able to really help people understand and see those connections between maybe these modalities i'd love to hear if you work with people who who have embraced both alongside you like maybe some of your students i know you mentioned that there there are quite a few meatheads and pole but um but also as somebody who's able to help people
00:21:47
Speaker
make connections within themselves like i am a person who can pull dance and i am a person who can strength train and there's something i think so compelling about your story and who you are.
00:22:02
Speaker
and how you show up that is just this amazing, incredible bridge and kind of blowing open these industries that are somewhat exclusive or these, you know, fitness modalities are somewhat exclusive. Like they exclude people. They tend to exclude people who look like you. And you're like, wait a second.
00:22:28
Speaker
I don't think so. This is for me and therefore because it's for me and I'm going to show you it's for me, it's for you too. You use the phrase, I first encountered this phrase when stalking you on Instagram.
00:22:43
Speaker
And then going to your website is non-traditional athlete. And I love this phrase non-traditional athlete. I kind of have a hang up with the word athlete myself. I was an athlete and then I kind of got
00:22:58
Speaker
sort of tired of athletics and I'm actually currently kind of tired of how much money is invested in athletics for research purposes and how it's really quite male dominated and most of the money is kind of looking at male athletes and most of the money in sports is kind of invested in male athletic programs. It wasn't in my high school when I played sports and I'm wondering where does this
00:23:24
Speaker
What does the word athlete mean to you? Obviously, non-traditional athlete makes sense in the context of what you've shared with us. What does the word athlete mean to you? I would love to hear kind of more philosophically where you're coming from when you use that word athlete.
00:23:41
Speaker
Hey guys, it's Sarah. Laurel and I really hope you're enjoying the new Movement Logic podcast. We are having such a good time. We both really love sharing ideas with each other and getting sparked by things that the other person has learned. Our goal for the show was to help you feel the same way so that you can feel excited and inspired by what you're learning and even maybe take some of these ideas
Addressing Fitness Trauma
00:24:03
Speaker
into your teaching. That would be
00:24:04
Speaker
That would be amazing if that's what happened, I'd be so happy. Because I know, oh my god, we both know what it feels like to be uninspired, to be stuck in a rut, desperately trying to come up with new ideas so you take another training and it just ends up you fall back into your old
00:24:21
Speaker
habits, the things you already know how to do because it's too hard to change who you are as a teacher. We've all been there. The whole reason why we created the movement logic tutorials was so that you can enhance what you're already good at instead of trying to be some other different kind of a teacher. Every movement logic tutorial contains so much to help you do that. Hours and hours of anatomy, kinesiology, myth busting. Myth busting is maybe my favorite part of the whole thing.
00:24:48
Speaker
But most importantly, dozens of exercises that help you with strength or flexibility or functional movement, whatever you and your clients want to do in their life. Because we're so grateful that you are listening to our podcast, we have a podcast exclusive
00:25:06
Speaker
discount. To say thank you for supporting our efforts with your years, what you can do is you enter the coupon code podcast at checkout to receive 10% off of your entire purchase. You heard that right. You go to movementlogictutorials.com, take a little scroll through all of our different tutorials, stick some of them in your cart, the ones that you're like,
00:25:26
Speaker
pelvic floor, shoulders, and then enter the code podcast at checkout and you'll receive 10% off your entire purchase because we appreciate you. So thank you and go forth and save. So to me, if you have oxygen in your lungs, you're an athlete.
00:25:50
Speaker
There's nothing else that's required of you. And if you're still not sure, there's a quick little quiz you can give yourself. Are you hungry and tired all the time? You're an athlete. Do you hate warming up? You're an athlete. I hate warming up. Listen, I only do it because I have to do it with my students, but otherwise...
00:26:15
Speaker
You know, and then finally, like, do you spend too much money on leggings and sneakers? Yes, you're an athlete. Done deal. You know, I think people complicate that word athlete way too much. They assume that you have to be in the NBA before you say you're a basketball player, or that you have to be Serena Williams before you say you're allowed to play tennis.
00:26:38
Speaker
Like, no, if you are, if you like participating in movement, this movement period, you're an athlete, done deal. And there are so many ways to be an athlete. And this, I really feel this way because, you know, my parents instilled a crazy sense of inclusivity in me. You know, my parents, shout out to mom, dad, my sister, Lindsay and Grammy,
00:27:07
Speaker
We were the house where the friends would come to. If we had big slumber parties, my mom would cook for the whole neighborhood. My dad's out leading the Olympics in our backyard. And it was always like no person gets left behind. That was the attitude with my family. And so I've carried that over into my career.
00:27:32
Speaker
And it's important to me that people know that they belong. There's a place. And if there is not an explicit place for you, we're going to make a place for you. Because I know the feeling and particularly the pain that comes with exclusion and feeling like you're not good enough. And particularly in sports, feeling like you're too big, feeling like you're a burden,
00:27:59
Speaker
and not an asset to your team or the people around you.
00:28:03
Speaker
and feeling like, okay, I hope my coach pulls me off the field as quickly as possible so that way I don't mess it up for everybody else. And I know the profound loneliness that comes with that. And I'm hell bent on making sure that people who take class with me or work with me in any way, that they don't have that feeling. And if they do, damn sure it's not gonna be because of me.
00:28:30
Speaker
And I think people need to give themselves a lot more credit for the movements that they do. I think if you are a gardener, you are an athlete. Right on. If you are folding laundry, you are an athlete. And I genuinely believe that. I'm not just saying that just because it sounds pretty, but they're squatting.
00:28:57
Speaker
There's walking, there's lifting, there's hinging. There are fine motor skills that go into all of those things. I think probably the hardest sport in the world is parenthood. And you're even half kids. I'm glad you recognize it though. Oh my goodness gracious. I actually a couple of weeks ago, I finished a course about training pregnant athletes
00:29:28
Speaker
And one, a focus of the course is postpartum. So after people give birth, the activities of daily life, or ADLs as they're called, it's picking up the baby off the floor, sweeping the floor, washing the bottles, like you,
00:29:48
Speaker
you know, you maintaining a safe and a clean environment for your baby, you physically having to haul a 12 pound turkey around for like the first two years of its life. And then 35 now 35. We're not 35 years old. Exactly. And you know, you also have, you also having to maintain a level, a certain level of
00:30:14
Speaker
fitness of flexibility and certainly of stamina. I'm very little sleep. I'm like zero sleep. And on top of that, it is a thankless job that not enough people recognize it is the hardest job in the world to do. And so when I meet parents who are like,
00:30:42
Speaker
Oh gosh, I'm just, my body is a wreck. I'm crazy. I feel so bad. I haven't lost this pregnancy weight. Are you kidding me? You are an absolute warrior, warrior for what your body has been able to endure and for what you've done for your family. So the more that we start to expand the idea of what is exercise, what is a sport,
00:31:10
Speaker
And what activities, when we take down the rankings of what activities are more important than the other ones, then you start to see, oh snap, everybody is an athlete in their own way.
00:31:25
Speaker
Right on, right on. Do you do you tend to come across I teach a lot of yoga teachers, yoga practitioners who had bad, particularly bad experiences in physical education class when they were younger in school where they.
00:31:40
Speaker
were picked last where they just weren't athletic co-host of this podcast. Sarah says she doesn't like catching things or running. They don't consider themselves athletes. Do you find that you have to go through kind of a process of convincing someone there's an athlete? You just talk to them as if they already are or do you, I mean, do you have any, any, any people who come to you are like, I'm not an athlete. There's no way I'm an athlete. And how do you, how do you help them see that they're training for
00:32:07
Speaker
the athletics of their life how do you how do you work with people in that way who who have had a particularly negative experience with exercise sport. So you basically describe my entire my entire client roster.
00:32:23
Speaker
I figured with the private clients that I work with, almost everybody is either in recovery or is has recently recovered or wants to start recovering from some sort of fitness and body based trauma.
00:32:40
Speaker
I'm talking little tea trauma right here. So not just like the terrible one-time awful things that happen, you know, not trauma in that sense, although there's plenty of it, but it's things, you know, it's little nitpicky microaggressions that perhaps their family members or their parents growing up constantly reminded them that their bodies were broken and reminded them that you're different, but in a bad way. I myself, you know,
00:33:10
Speaker
I was picked last every single time in gym and although I wasn't made fun of for my size or mocked for my weight, it didn't matter because I felt, even if it wasn't true at the time, I felt enormously huge compared to my slender white friends and
00:33:35
Speaker
It doesn't, and at that point, it doesn't matter what other people had tried to tell me because I had cemented in my head already that because of your size, you're not gonna add as much value to athletics as other girls. And also you're not gonna be attracted to boys, attractive to boys because of your size.
00:33:59
Speaker
And once I once that was in my head, I'm still as a 37 year old woman now. I'm still working through both of those things. And so many of my clients have
00:34:14
Speaker
similar stories to that, you know, they've got, I was very fortunate because my parents are amazing. But other people's parents were less than amazing in regards to the lessons that they taught them about their bodies and about movement.
00:34:31
Speaker
And it is just, it's heartbreaking to be quite honest. You know, I had a client once that, and this was a great milestone, but it was bittersweet because they told me to like, hey Roz, guess what? I walked all the way up to my fourth floor apartment without stopping. And I was like, that's awesome. Because yeah, and also shout out to everybody in New York City or another expensive place that nobody can afford.
00:35:01
Speaker
four or five flights of stairs and the subway stairs and Jesus and the elevator breaks in your office building. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, so I was like, Oh, that's, that's awesome. But that wasn't the huge accomplishment. The accomplishment was, as this client told me, is that when they would get winded as a young child, it reminded, or when did we get winded as an adult? It reminded them that their family used
00:35:31
Speaker
as a punishment when they were a young child. So that feeling of getting out of breath typically had brought up a lot of shame, a lot of pain, and just like really sad, lonely memories. But now as an adult, this person, when they've gotten out of breath or a little bit,
00:35:57
Speaker
They can at least make some room for positivity. Yeah, that's associated with athletics because we were doing things that they enjoyed doing things that they liked doing and because they had a greater sense of control. It wasn't nearly.
00:36:16
Speaker
as ugly as before when they were forced to do something that they didn't like for negative reasons. There's that theme of agency again, right? Where now it's their choice that they're doing this.
00:36:33
Speaker
Do you employ certain approaches strategies to working with folks who are dealing with this little tea trauma in other words do you do you find yourself spending more time talking with them about their story listening do you spend.
00:36:49
Speaker
Time really just focusing on the movement and showing them what they're capable of how do you how do you talk to your clients what would you say you could like maybe give us a little bit of a feel for the approach you take you're working with somebody maybe brand new who's a little bit you know turned off for very good reasons by exercise where do you start.
00:37:11
Speaker
Sure. So I usually start by asking my clients, my new clients, in your wildest athletic dreams, what do you want to do? And, you know, some people might be like, I want to go skydiving, you'd think you would be like, I want to, you know, jump off a cliff into the ocean or something. But most people's wildest athletic dreams is doing a pull up.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yes, that was my wildest headlining dream a couple of years ago. Me too! Yeah! Like, I'm on team pull-up 2023. Nice. Boom.
00:37:44
Speaker
So there's that. So I ask people what their ideal, what is their idea of athleticism? And what can their body, what can they see themselves doing later on when they kind of get to that level of athleticism that they're not able to achieve now?
00:38:05
Speaker
So that's one of the first questions that I ask. I also, I give clients an option. I'll say like, hey, let's do this movement. And they know that they have ultimate veto power. So if they're like, Roz, I hate doing that. I don't want to do it.
00:38:22
Speaker
Then guess what? We're not doing it. We don't have to. Nobody is going to have to do movements that they genuinely don't like. Me, myself, I'm physically capable of doing jumping jacks, but I absolutely hate nothing more in this world than jumping jacks. My boobs are too big to be flopping around purposely.
00:38:42
Speaker
get my best sports bras. So right on do it, but that that's what's going to make the gym miserable as you make me do jumping jacks and also mountain climbers. Those can rock and fly. My clients veto power.
00:39:00
Speaker
Um, also now before we just ultimately veto a movement, I do ask why they don't like something. Okay. And more often than not, it's not because they hate a movement.
00:39:17
Speaker
and that's why they don't like it because they genuinely don't like it but because when they've done it it's been so uncomfortable and it's been physically they haven't been able to figure out how to do it correctly or really nobody showed them how to do it correctly so when they've so they've got these negative experiences that they've been doing
00:39:39
Speaker
And then sometimes I'll say, all right, well, would you like to, if we can make this comfortable for you, do you want to give it a shot?
00:39:48
Speaker
And about more than half the time they say, yeah. And so we'll tweak some things. We'll change some things here or there. Sometimes it's a big change. Most of the time it's kind of a small change. And suddenly a movement that they thought they hated is now pretty tolerable. And it's simply because we've got to make the movements work for the athletes and not have the athletes
00:40:16
Speaker
chasing a movement. I love that so much. And it seems like those are almost like the blueberries on the trail so that they can find their way to this
00:40:32
Speaker
greater state of felt agency and that they feel like they're moving toward this in this direction of capable. They feel like they're moving in this direction of competency. And there's something so just straight up fulfilling and life changing.
00:40:52
Speaker
identity changing about finding something that you thought you couldn't do, that you would never do, that you hate to do, and recognizing that it wasn't you that was the problem. It was the way it was introduced. And when a teacher like you comes around and is like, well, wait a second, let's actually, you know what, you know, you can try it this way. It is the smallest things, the smallest things in the world, the smallest, not a pull up, something much, much more kind of rudimentary, maybe.
00:41:22
Speaker
can become this catalyst for increased interest and increased enthusiasm for more, right? So I love the way that you begin with the positive, you begin with the dream, you begin with the goal.
00:41:39
Speaker
And then you give veto power, right? So we're just constantly making this experience positive, making it positive. And hopefully rewriting the old programming that was unfortunately installed earlier on that I think so many folks unfortunately
00:42:01
Speaker
that's been a part of their history. And yeah, I just really appreciate you sharing that. I think it's one of the most important things for folks to hear who listen to this podcast is that we have to make it attractive. We have to make it fun. And yes,
00:42:17
Speaker
Things are so, so much more important a lot of the times than the nitty gritty, nitpicky rules slash, you know, the way that the exercise looks, the way that it has to be. Folks get really caught up, I think, in these rules that oftentimes come with certain, you know, branded trademark techniques to doing things and you kind of miss
00:42:42
Speaker
the forest for those trees, the forest being, this actually has to be fun and something that people want to do. And I feel like you lead with that priority so well. You make me want to pole dance.
00:42:58
Speaker
You know, I agree, like, especially when you're working with adults, why on earth wanted an adult with a job, a family, and they're hungry and tired? Now you tell them, go to the gym to do stuff you don't like. This is an extracurricular. This is supposed to be fun. I pride myself on the different lies that my students have given to their bosses as to why they need to leave work early.
00:43:27
Speaker
come and hang out but you know think about that we always we try to make stuff fun for little kids and we do that for a reason yeah because what it's fun for them it's fun for everybody it's a requirement exactly it's got to be a requirement and why can't we do the same thing with adults adults who have fun and there's many ways to have fun there are
00:43:54
Speaker
There are some people who really genuinely enjoy that drill sergeant esque kind of coach and somebody who's going to give that tough love and he's going to be you know it's like varsity football tryouts. That's not me.
00:44:10
Speaker
Thank goodness. You know, and I will tell people, and I've had clients that I've worked with where I'm like, you know, you need somebody who's a little more disciplined. You need somebody who is going to, who's a little, you know, less nonsense than I am. And that's okay. Yeah.
00:44:28
Speaker
so okay that you're not going to rock with every sport. You're not going to rock with every coach. And that doesn't mean that you failed. It just means that that's not the right thing for you to do. And the more that we can teach people how to give themselves slack and empathy, that's how you're going to have a long-term lifelong athlete.
00:44:53
Speaker
and not just someone who takes your six weeks worth of classes and you never see them again. Right on. Yeah, I think a lot about this ideal of consistency. Everyone I think in their mind has this idea of what consistency looks like, which is the same amount on the same days every week.
00:45:15
Speaker
And when I look back on my slow build to becoming a personal trainer and starting to strength train regularly and make that a part of my life, it was not consistent. If you looked at it week by week, it was not consistent. Sometimes if you looked at it month by month, it was not consistent. But if you zoomed out and looked at a whole year,
00:45:38
Speaker
And then the next year and the next year you saw in those macro intervals the consistency building and so this stuff takes time. And you know one of the things I hear you kind of leading with here is like letting people be imperfect, letting them be who they are, letting them come to it when they're ready and not putting all of these
00:46:04
Speaker
these barriers, these standards, these ideals on top of what they may already be dealing with in their life, maybe their parents, maybe they had a bad experience with exercise in their past. And so you create, from my perspective, this really welcoming entry point for folks who would otherwise have a hard time finding that welcome, and even finding that entry point.
00:46:29
Speaker
So it's just super inspiring to hear you share this perspective. I have two more questions for you. Sure. One is you hear from your students, you hear from maybe fellow teachers as well who are offering similar offerings to you, like what the general public thinks of pole dancing. What is their idea of pole dancing?
00:46:57
Speaker
And what is pole dancing actually? Like I'd like to do a little compare contrast of like the folks listening to this podcast who aren't as familiar with pole dancing, who might have some preconceived notions of pole dancing. What do folks think it is? Right. And then what actually is it? And then we could do the same thing with strength training. From your perspective, what do folks think strength training is? And then what actually is it?
Perceptions vs. Reality in Fitness
00:47:22
Speaker
Sure, so I think people, you know, the tides are turning and people are a lot more accepting of pole dancing now than they were 15 years ago, when we were all keeping it a secret on the internet. We're becoming less puritanical, perhaps. Exactly, exactly. And so I think people assume that a pole dancer is somebody who secretly wants to be a stripper, but they don't want to tell anybody, and they just want to dabble in that world, and then they want to get out.
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah, and they have daddy issues. Exactly. They've got daddy issues. But what pole dancing is, it is vertical gymnastics. Yes. When you look at it from the most technical point of view, and even if you were to go to a strip club with professional dancers, and for those people who dance, they are gymnasts. Yes.
00:48:15
Speaker
And full stop right there. If you look at what people do, we are still doing bicep curls. We are still lifting our body weight off the floor without a harness. We're still holding on to the bars with just our legs and sometimes just one leg at a time. The grip strength and the adductor strength, the inner thigh strength. Yeah, is banana charts.
00:48:39
Speaker
Absolutely. So when people start to like debate in question as pole dancing is sport, that's not a question to me. That's not a debate. I wish somebody, nobody who does pole says, you know what, now this wasn't really an athletics. That doesn't make any sense. Pole is vertical gymnastics.
00:49:02
Speaker
It's also, I would say too, because I'm into yoga, but yoga can be very kind of sagittal planes, straight lines, 90 degree angles. So can strength training. Pole dancing is super multi-planar. Oh, yes. Super swirly, circular. It just looks so good. It looks hard, but it also looks like it feels good a lot of the time. Like this undulating movements. Yes.
00:49:29
Speaker
I mean, you hit the nail on the head with that one. It's just plain fun. It's like, you know, there, there gets to be a point where I could, you know, I think I could probably go on. I know I can go on with all of the light detailed point by point. This is why pole dancing is a sport. This is why it's cool. This is what, but at the end of the day, I do it because it's rad.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah. Because you have a good time doing it. And I've made a lot of friends and I've traveled the world doing pole. So that's, you know, that's that. And then, you know, going back to your other question about what people think strength training is versus what it actually is. People think strength training is drinking 900 protein shakes a day and eating raw eggs. So you can look at the school bus.
00:50:21
Speaker
they think it's bodybuilding right exactly they think of body they think of the rock and shout out to the rock because who doesn't want to think about him fine self but what string training actually is is having a lot of protein because we're hungry yeah and it's also me wearing some cute converse sneakers
00:50:43
Speaker
while I wait for my other shoes to arrive, my lifting shoes. Ooh, you got lifting shoes. Yeah, I need to get some actually. Yeah. And strength training is literally, it's just, hey, let's just lift heavy stuff and put it down. And the satisfaction that you get when you're able to lift these things is amazing. Even if it's a light weight. It is amazing.
00:51:10
Speaker
It just, I mean, if I'm lifting five pounds or if I'm lifting 275 pounds, I still get a feeling like I'm accomplishing something and that, you know, really, truly what they don't want to tell you is strength training is about getting ready for the zombie apocalypse.
00:51:29
Speaker
Now, 100% and picking your 35 pound three year old up, but actually it's for the zombie apocalypse. Exactly. OK, because there's going to be some people like the runners. They're the ones who are just going to run circles around. They're going to outrun the zombies. I am not built to outright a zombie. I am built to pick up one of the zombies and throw it into the pile of the other zombies. And then I'm going to walk briskly up to the castle gates.
00:51:58
Speaker
And I'm going to hold that thousand pound castle gate up by myself. That's my role in the zombie apocalypse. In training for that athletic event. Exactly. And, you know, that's.
00:52:14
Speaker
That's what I'm shooting for. And it's, I kind of see it like somebody who's restoring an old car. Like, you know, you're not going to restore a car quickly. It's going to take a couple of years because you have to get the parts. You've got to tinker with the parts. You've got to rebuild the engine. But if you ask anybody who's restored an old car, they've loved the process.
00:52:37
Speaker
And it's not about getting the car just to work, but it's about knowing, like, after work, you can come home in just just five minutes, just a few minutes to tinker on that car. And that might change their whole day. It does. That's how I see the process of strengthening. That's why I like it, because it's like tinkering with this really cool old car that we're restoring and just making it a just progressing it a little bit every day, every week.
00:53:06
Speaker
until you have a new car. Yeah. And I find that the mood benefits I get from strength training, like you said, it doesn't take much time. You know, I could maybe do a couple exercises in 10 minutes and leave that session feeling
00:53:20
Speaker
100% better in terms of my emotional state, in terms of my energetic state than I did before I started. And that was pretty profound discovery for me as somebody who started really kind of as a devoted student of movement with yoga, which would also leave me feeling really different
00:53:37
Speaker
But something that I think a lot of folks discover who start strength training is that although you feel different after strength training, the benefits to your mood, your overall personal energy are maybe just as great, if not greater. And I find it's just a wonderful actual reset. I don't think folks often think of strength training as a reset, but I can feel like a total reset to my day after just doing a couple of exercises. It's pretty incredible.
00:54:03
Speaker
Gosh, I can't, I could sit here and talk to you forever. I didn't have my other clients. Like right now, part of me is almost picking myself like, man, I've got a whole other hour worth of stuff to talk about, but I also know.
00:54:16
Speaker
I could listen to you talk forever, Roz, because you just have a way with words and a way with stories. And I know I've never been a student of yours, but I will be someday. I know you are an incredible world class teacher. And I'm going to encourage everyone listening to this podcast to check out Roz's website, RoztheDiva.com and go find her and learn from
Alanis Morissette Concert Excitement
00:54:41
Speaker
her.
00:54:41
Speaker
Whether it is you have some really cool sounding offerings on your site, but whether it's strength training or poll related with the other things that you're teaching, you are clearly doing phenomenal work in the movement world. And so I just want to.
00:54:58
Speaker
Say thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing with us your story and your approach to teaching to teaching movement. I have one more question for you and then I'm going to close this off. So Roz, what are you really excited about right now? Can be anything related to anything. What are you really excited about right now?
00:55:21
Speaker
So right now in 24 hours, I will be headed to Hamedale, New Jersey because I'm going to see a lot of more sets for the 25th anniversary jacket, little pill, why union concert? Not my union because it's just her, but the 25th anniversary tour, this will be my third attempt trying to see this. Cause the first time COVID hit shut everything down. Second time.
00:55:49
Speaker
I couldn't make the makeup date because I was out running a hurricane cause I was down south. And so now this is my third time, a lot of cash later. I cannot describe to you, I will be scream, sing, crying, laughing, howling in the audience when you ought to know comes on and I can hardly contain myself.
00:56:13
Speaker
I am super jelly because that was one of my very first CDs when I was just coming of age all on its Morissette, Jagged Little Pill. Well, enjoy that. That is going to be epic. And yes, I got to find my way into a concert at some point. It's been way too long. All right. Well,
00:56:36
Speaker
One more, one more thing. Where can people learn from you, Roz? I know I mentioned your website. Is there anywhere else you'd like to send people to find you? Yeah, please stop me on Instagram. I'm Roz, R-O-Z, the diva on Instagram. You can find me on TikTok, on Patreon. Everything is under Roz the diva. So come hang out any which way you want.
00:56:59
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you so much, Roz. Thank you. All right. Well, I feel like this has been a really interesting conversation. A note to you listeners, you can check out our show notes for links to references that we mentioned in this podcast. You can also visit the Movement Logic website where you can get on our mailing list to be in the know about sales on our tutorials.
00:57:19
Speaker
And you can watch the video version of this episode if you want to see Roz and I talking face to face on the good old Zoom. Thanks so much for joining us on the Movement Logic podcast. Finally, it helps us out a lot. If you like this episode, please do subscribe, rate and review it in iTunes. We would be super appreciative of you if you did that. Join us again next week for more Movement Logic and more strong opinions loosely held.
00:57:49
Speaker
Thank you so much. This is great.