The Polecologist - Kristen Nichole, PhD

In this episode, Andrea talks with Kristen Nichole, PhD, mom, and creator of Polecology, a platform for liberation through the art and psychology of sensual movement, about the importance of movement as a healing mechanism and balancing motherhood with her professional endeavors.

In this Moms Who Pole podcast, Andrea talks with other badass mothers in the aerial arts, fitness, and pole community about health and fitness, body image, and celebrating their passions while balancing motherhood, family obligations, and career life. We discuss the joy and challenges of balancing the busy lives moms lead with a love for dance, fitness, and aerial arts such as pole, lyra, acrobatic chair, and flexibility training.  

This most average mom-who-poles is fueled by copious amounts of afternoon coffee and a passion for supporting other women throughout their movement journeys.  Help me keep our space for busy moms and dance lovers alive through a small contribution here:  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MomsWhoPole

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Transcript

[0:00] Hello, my dears, and welcome to this episode of Moms Who Pole.
My name is Andrea and I am your most average mom who poles.
Today I have the privilege of speaking with Kristin Nicole. She is known on the internets as the polecologist.
You can find her on Instagram, polecologist, the polecologist PhD, as well as her methodology and movement based community called polecology. So let's listen in.
All right. Welcome. Thank you so much, Kristen, for meeting with me and talking with me today.

[0:30] Music.

[0:55] How are you doing?
I am well. Thank you so much, Andrea. Is it Andrea or Andrea?
Andrea, but I like sounding fancy too. Andrea, OK. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk.
Of course, I'm really excited that Ellie connected us because when I saw what you are doing and what your motivation is, I was so inspired to talk with you.
So tell everyone who's listening a little bit about yourself.
Yeah, sure. So I'm Kristen Nicole. I am a pole artist, a dancer, a teacher, and I'm also a community and social psychologist.

[1:35] That is so cool. And you are on Instagram as the poll college. Yes.
You said it right. Oh my goodness. You will be surprised. Like a lot of people are confused. So I've had people say the poll ologist. I've had people say poll ecology. But it's it's literally poll and psychology together. Poll and the Polk College's PhD is my Instagram handle.
I love that. So tell me a little bit about how you have blended the worlds of Pol and psychology.
Yeah, so it all started when I was in graduate school, getting my PhD.
I was super stressed out, super disembodied by the institution and the experience of really what it takes to get a PhD.

[2:27] So I found the Polk community, a friend of mine and I both got matching Groupons for our New Year's resolution, January, 2018.
And we signed up, we went and we did classes for six months and that was it.
I had the unique experience of going through all of these psychological changes that helped me to, while I was getting my PhD in psychology, it just really naturally married with my psychology.
So that's where Polkology was born because I began to see like, wow, this is a creative outlet.
That's also what we call in psychology an adaptive coping mechanism, which really just means it's a positive way to cope with stress and anxiety and all the things in your life.

[3:21] That's very interesting. So when you look at poll as an adaptive coping mechanism, I think a lot of people feel like in layman's terms that they feel like they have a more positive image of themselves and they feel more strength within them as they see the physical changes maybe from just getting stronger from climbing up the pole. That that as well. And also the experience of just choosing to go to a pole class as opposed to I'm just going to lay on the couch, and watch Netflix in a dark room and not do anything and be disconnected from my body, be disembodied. It's a positive way to cope with the things that you're going through, a creative outlet, which is so important for adults because oftentimes what we see is as we we develop as adults, there is a loss of play.
We're not going to the playgrounds like we did when we were kids.
We have, and it makes sense, right? We have responsibilities, we have families, we have to work.
And so a lot of that gets lost. And so anecdotally, what I have found with my clients is this like, oh my God, like, look, I get to play.
Like going to the Pulse Studio is akin to, for many people, going to the Pulse Studio akin to going to the playground and just having fun. And we all need that.

[4:45] Absolutely. And like you said, when you get into play, there is that adaptive response, right? So you get to experience things, be innovative, to see, be curious what your body can do. And through that, you find that better connection to yourself. That is so cool. I love that about poll. And I love that you're shining a light on it. One of the things that I noticed in your polecology page, in your community was that you highlight members and the really cool things that they're doing in other aspects of their lives and their polling. And I thought that was so neat and inspiring. I think you guys highlighted like a person who had just gotten their PhD or someone that had achieved something outside of poll, but poll is still a part of that. Yeah, because please bear with me. I'm grabbing my cell phone charger. You're fine. But yeah, so my clients are human beings. They're people that are going through things. They have their own milestones. And so a big part of polecology is we are a community. We are a community that supports people in their lives. And so if there's any milestone to celebrate, or a person needs that support, we want to provide that by.

[6:10] By just honoring them, showering them with love and praise, and supporting them with resources.

[6:20] That's fantastic. So I did see as well, you are a mom. I am a mom to a toddler. I have a four-year-old.
That must be so exhausting. Hey, right? You know, like, it's like, when you when people, find out or learn that you're a mom, you can always tell if the other person is a mom or not by how they respond. A person who is not a parent, they're going to be like, Oh, my God, so cute.
Wow, other moms are going to be like, you must be tired.
How do you do it? Are you okay? Is it coffee? Is that what's, is that the secret ingredient?
But yes, I love my daughter so much. I am exhausted, but I, I'm also like enjoy in finding so much pleasure in raising her in a very like creative way.
So we really, this also helps mom to, helps with the exhaustion is to.

[7:30] Remember that play is really important in the connection, especially when the child is so young, like just play together.
Things don't have to be so rigorous. I know when I was younger, my mom was very like rigorous with me.
Like we did like academic activities all the time when I was like four.
But with my daughter, I just play with her a lot. We draw, we dance, we color, we rest.
I really try to just kind of like create a safe space of like love and peace and joy with her.
And that makes it less exhausting because I'm not thinking to myself, oh, I gotta make sure she does this, this, this, and this. I'm just like, let me connect with my daughter.
And that connection can look different depending on the day.
Maybe sometimes we're sitting down chilling.
Maybe we were like actually going out and doing activities, but.

[8:24] It's all a. I felt that stress a lot with my daughter. She's my older child and constantly thinking about is this activity benefiting her academic growth or, you know, and, and I think part of that for me really centered around it was important for me to raise a strong woman. And so I was constantly treating every moment with her as future grown up version, almost like trying to heal myself maybe. But then with my son, because I have no idea what it's like to grow up into a man.

[9:01] I experience him as a little boy. And it's somewhat easier to live in the moment with him.
And I know that's terrible, but I recognize now that I had that bias where one child is constantly being pushed towards the future and the other one I'm existing in the moment with a a little bit more. But it was easier to kind of come, like you said, creating a space of peace, creating, you know, time just for play. I read, I forget where I had read it, but they said that children, when children say like, Mommy, can you play with me? It's their way of verbalizing that they have feelings that need to be like heard or understood, or they need comfort. And so when they say, Mommy, can you play with me? Stop and play with them because it's the only tool they have to communicate that they need emotional support.

[9:56] Exactly. And that is why I learned that myself as well. Because my daughter does that all the time, mommy, can you play with me? Mommy, can you play with me? And even if I'm tired, I will still play with her. Even if sometimes I'll be laying on the couch playing with her, like playing dolls or to whatever she wants to do.
And I'll tell her, mommy's tired. You know, mommy's a grownup.
Mommy has a lot of responsibilities.
And so I'm tired and I'm gonna play from the couch. Is that okay with you?
Yeah, cause she just wants to connect.
But absolutely in my daughter's play, especially with the dolls that she plays with and the Lego pieces, like I learned so much about her thinking, her emotions.
Emotions. Also, I teach her through play. She's learning how to be social. She's learning how to express herself. She's learning so many things that can be incorporated in play.
Play is so important for young children. When I was in college, I used to work at a school for like a preschool that was like NACI certified.
It's like the National Association for the Young Child, more or less.
And it was focused on play. That's literally what they did all day.
And through play is how children develop. So yeah.

[11:25] Absolutely. And it's so important. I think one of the things that I really loved about poll was it allowed me to lead by example. Mom is doing something for herself. Mom is doing something for physical and mental health. And it is play. It is fun. She's having a good time. And by, demonstrating that you're setting an example. And it doesn't have to be poll. But for me, it's poll.
I mean, it could be running, it could be yoga, but for me, it's pull. And then you're able to lead by example and help show your children that it's okay to play, to prioritize your health.
You don't need to be another cog in the machine. Your needs matter.
Yeah, exactly. I agree.

[12:13] Awesome. Well, I want to know then, because I think you've been polling now for what, five years? So did you poll while pregnant? I did.
How was that? Oh my goodness. I pulled up until I believe month seven and that's when I just, my body just couldn't do it anymore. So I rested.
Um, it was, it was fun. It was also very challenging.
Um, I began to feel my center of gravity change and, um, a little bit of disembodied because Because I began to, that's when I became a mother and I began to form that identity while she was inside just through the physical changes.
But I'm glad that I did it and kept that connection.

[13:05] Yeah. Did you feel like, I guess when you hit month seven, I think that's when a lot of people, myself included, you start to slow down because your body can't do things that your brain and things that can do.
And you're shifting more towards looking at supporting a life outside of your body.
And I think that with it comes a certain shift in perspective.
So when you came back to poll postpartum, What was that like?

[13:39] That was so challenging. I had to do physical therapy, postpartum physical therapy for six months before I could pull again.
Because my baby was big for my body. She was eight pounds and I'm five one. So, yeah.
Yeah, I was all belly. There's still probably some pictures on Instagram.
But I did experience diastasis recti, which I still have. I can feel it sometimes.
But the postpartum physical therapy was so helpful for me to reconnect with my deep core muscles.
And I'm so grateful for that.
Did you feel like you had to advocate a lot for yourself to get into physical therapy or was this something that your team, your medical team was aware of and they're like, you're gonna go?
No, not at all. I had to, I found it myself because I could feel like that there was something off. I love research.
I do research in my other life. So while I was pregnant, I was already researching these things and I learned a little bit about it.
And so once I had my baby and I was ready to get back into it, I could tell that I had it. I could feel it because I have a very strong body awareness and connection to my body.

[15:04] So I advocated for myself. I found it myself and I pursued it.
But I think that doctors, the medical team involved in prenatal care, postpartum care should definitely advocate for that. But from my experience, it wasn't.

[15:21] Yeah, and I think that's really unfortunate. I had a similar experience where you just, you're working so hard to care for a baby and you don't always have the mental and physical capacity to advocate for yourself when you're trying to keep a tiny human alive.
And so you're hoping that the medical team that's with you is gonna be able to recognize signs and symptoms be able to point you in the right direction.

[15:51] Yeah. We're not there yet. So tell me a little bit about because I know this is a topic that's really, really important to you. Tell me a little bit about postpartum dancing and embodiment postpartum. Tell me a little bit about that. I'll start with my own experience. So So when I had my daughter, my body changed.
Diastasis recta was in one way in which my body changed. Also psychologically, I really struggled with a disconnection between the self that I thought I was before I had my baby and then this new self postpartum.
I've always been a very central person.
And that kind of like became more dormant when I had my baby, right?
Because she's the priority now and I'm acclimating and we're acclimating to each other.
So it makes sense that that that there would be a transition.
And I think that when I began to pull again after having my daughter, it was like being a whole baby all over again.

[17:05] And I appreciated that after I stopped feeling sad because I lost, because for me it was like, I lost something, I lost myself.
But as I began to just approach this as a rebirth, as like a new beginning for me, I began to see like there is no loss.
I'm transforming into another version of myself. And I think that we're always shaped by our experiences and we will always become different versions of ourselves better, hopefully.

[17:42] And this was definitely that for me. And so Po was pivotal. I began to develop body awareness again.
I began to really play with freestyle after having my daughters when my freestyle journey just really took off.
And I began to really want to play with embodying textures in my movements and exploring themes like sensuality or natural elements.
And then what's new to me now is I'm really fascinated with the idea of like juxtaposition.
So like these opposing, for instance, one of my workshops that I teach is called Opposites Attract.
And it's all about, in pole we have like this push-pull technique, which is often like the grip that is used to like basically help to affix you to the pole and help you to do transitions and things around as you orbit around the pole.
And so I love to marry these like opposite ideas together in my movement to just kind of like.

[18:49] Explore how opposites come together to help us to embody and to be more fluid around the pole.
So all of that happened after I had my baby, as I became this different version of myself.
And I'm just grateful.

[19:06] A transformative process. Do you have anything like that in your online community that speaks to that process, if someone is going through that postpartum process where maybe they are grieving the loss of their former selves, what resources might be available to them?
Yes. So my podcast, I have all of my early work, and that's my audio recordings, which is a podcast, really can be considered like many lectures, honestly.
In addition to poll tutorials, flexibility tutorials on my Patreon page.
My Patreon page is like a museum that holds all of my archive work, which people still love to learn from and listen to and reflect on.
But I do have several audio recordings that people can listen to.
One of them is all about body image and another one is broadly that's really popular is this idea of reclaiming yourself.
And I mentioned my experience goes part of in that recording.

[20:14] I love that. I have a question. Actually, I have two questions. So my first one being more about the mechanism of, you know, your patron, you refer to your work as a museum, an archive work. How do you feel when you go back and you look at these previous recordings that you've done?
Wow, that's a really good question.
I do this often, not even just with my archive work on Patreon, but also in my phone because our iPhones like to remind us that we have to delete things.
And I'm very rebellious. I'm always like, no. I have to hold onto memories.
But I feel when I look back at my early work, I feel like I learned something new from it every time.
I pay attention to something different every time. And I also think about the place that I was in, in that time.
And I, I feel so much appreciation because I started my Patreon at a time in my life that was so incredibly difficult.

[21:31] I was getting my PhD. I had a new baby.
And I was just like, oh my God, this is a lot. And so in many ways, like creating my work was an outlet for me that I wanted to share with my community.
And it transformed me. And it continues to transform me as I go back in my view.
And it makes me a better teacher.
As I think about the programs that I wanna develop and the work that I wanna continue now.

[22:09] Right now I'm in the space of networking, building community in real life.
Like I do pop-up workshops now and I travel and I connect with people, dancers that have become friends on Instagram.
And we just dance together, we teach together and we have a good time.
So all of that, the archive worked in, the in-person work I'm doing is informing something greater.

[22:33] I love that you use your past to drive you forward. That's really, really cool and really self aware and positive. I'm in awe of that. Thank you. So when you when someone is going to your Patreon to look at some of your previous works, like you said, reclaiming your reclaiming your body reclaiming your sense of self. When you go out and you're doing your traveling workshops, Is there a lot of that that's driving the movement?
You talked a little bit about the push and pull opposites attract.
Is that perhaps the underlying purpose of these workshops?
Yes. So speaking of going back into our time and learning from the past, I've developed a methodology and that is how I teach my workshops.
So first we ground and then we work on skill development. We train and then we work on building sequences.
Right? Because this is how our bodies learn how to move. We first kind of have to get familiar with new shapes or skills or techniques like push and pull and the opposite attract.
And then as we revisit and repeat and build sequences where the patterns that connect can kind of like be repeated over and over in our bodies so that they can like live there.

[23:58] Then we have developed a language that we can speak with our bodies.
And that's when I like to incorporate freestyle prompts, which I started doing last year, to help dancers to find their own voice in their movement, right?
Because when we peel back the textures, take away the emotion that we see in the movement of people that we really like admire. What we're really seeing is maybe three, like a sequence of three movements that is just stylized through their own identity, their own style, and their own, textures that they're embodying. So that is my methodology. And the big biggest part of that is is the grounding that I do beforehand.
And this is to help build body awareness.
This is also to help with the transition from like wherever you came from before you got into this workshop, we're here now, we're gonna be more present and mindful and aware so that our bodies can really work for us and we can explore be creative and have a good time.
That's such a good point, especially speaking to grounding and talking about building movement like a language, because nothing is more terrifying, I think, to a brand new poll soon than at the end of the choreo, the instructor going, now it's freestyle.
Oh, it's like what?

[25:26] No, I actually like teaching freestyle to beginners. At first, the first time I did it, I was just kind of like, ooh, because I have a workshop that I teach with other instructors.
Belongs to all of us is called bend and flow. And bend and flow is the integration of like.

[25:46] The yoga instructor that I work with, she teaches yoga. But when I teach the bending part, I teach a very embodied flexibility flow. And then it combines that either of those two with, freestyle dance class, which when I first did that taught that with another instructor, I was like, like, ooh, we have some beginners in here.
This is a little.
But I've come to find out that if done in a way that is encouraging and very hands on and very, you have to give a lot of examples, I think it can be a different approach to poll for someone's first poll class to be completely freestyle.
Because it's like, you're fine, especially if you're someone that has very low sense of body awareness.
You're discovering so much about how your body moves.
In many ways, it's like a pretest. Then as they develop in their pole journey and they do take classes heavy on technique, they do learn pole shapes and skills.
Then they start doing freestyle some more, revisiting if you do a post-test maybe like in a year.
It's like, wow, maybe I'm hoping what we see is these are some of the movements that my body just naturally did. And now I have a language and I can understand and I'm more aware of how to do that now.

[27:12] I love that. It's very intuitive. It's like intuitive movement. When you have a brand new poll, person, it's almost like they have no frame of reference, right, for their movement. So they're they're just going to do what feels good in their bodies.
Whereas if you have what you already know to be correct in poll, now you're trying to layer freestyle onto what you perceive to be correct, and perhaps might have trouble finding the cues of what works for you and drawing out your own personal movement patterns. I think that's really interesting. I did see the bend and flow. I was really curious about it, because I saw that Bend and Flow happens in a lot of different locations. And it happens with different people. Are you present at all of the Bend and Flow workshops?
Or is it is it someone else? I was curious. I couldn't I couldn't quite figure it out.

[28:07] I'm finding the light. There we are. So I started off with Bend and Flow teaching with a friend. And since then, it has evolved into passing this workshop along to other instructors And so no, I'm not present at all of them.
Everyone is taught differently because I, I like for instructors to teach in ways that are authentic to themselves.
And I think that makes it more beautiful. It's like, you can go to three Bend In Flows and not one of them are gonna be the same. You're gonna get something different from every single one of them.
So yeah, like I have instructors that I work with that are teaching Ben and Flo in Brooklyn.
And I'm going out to Los Angeles to teach with a pole friend.
This is my first time going to Los Angeles to teach.
So good times. I'm just excited to share and to learn because I learned so much from teaching too.

[29:07] That is so exciting. I'm gonna selfishly ask that you guys come to New Orleans sometime so I can experience the workshop.
Absolutely, you're in New Orleans. Okay, I'll keep that in mind because I see California, Andrea.
So I just thought you were in California.
Yeah, well, I'm manifesting my return to California. Yes.
I'm a military spouse, so we move around a lot, but my home is California. and.
You know, we're getting close to the end. This is this whole lifestyle is going to be over soon. So, I want to come back. Okay, well, when I get there, I will definitely say hi to California for you.
I'll tell them, I'll send your regards.

[29:49] Yeah. Well, and that's, and that's how I got into poll was this need for something that was myself, right? So all of what I've been doing for a while was tied to my my spouse's career, and his community. And I wanted a place, I wanted something where I could just be.

[30:09] I don't know how else to describe it as I just needed to be, like be myself and not feel judged or anything for it. Because I can be a little irreverent at times, at the wrong times, in a highly structured organization. So that's how that's how PUL came up. And I've loved it.
I've loved every minute of it. And I really hope that we'll be able to come back to.

[30:38] California at some point. So that's why it's it's California. But yes, right now I'm in the south.
I'm in I'm in the suburbs. There's no pole studio very close to me. The nearest one is in New Orleans, but I'm in the suburbs. I'm a lot further away. But yeah, when you guys come out, I will make the drive. Yes. All right. I will keep that in mind Orleans. Yeah. Well, that is that's really cool. All this stuff you're doing is super cool. What is next for you? Is it more bend and flow?
What do you see happening for poll ecology in the future?
So I have a lot of plans for the future, but in the present, I have evolved in my timeline for myself, because I'm definitely a planner, you know, a smidgen type A from grad school, I inherited that, but I'm mostly more of a in the moment, things change, timeline is a just type of person, And so I've come to find that I'm not completely ready to devote myself to teaching at this time.
This is why I like doing pop-up workshops because I'm traveling, I'm networking, I'm still learning.

[31:57] And I feel that like when I am, because I am getting to that place of like teaching as a full-time thing, because I really love it. I want to be completely focused on my students and not just on myself. So right now I'm still in that place of like developing as an artist as a dancer. So, I want to get back into performing this year. I want to co-teach with instructors more and dance with instructors more and learn, create together. But I do have like ideas for programming in the future that I can share with the Polk community and ways to like memorialize my ideas and share them with the Polk community and beyond. But stay tuned because I'm really excited about all these things and I can't wait to like just grow in my art and in my pedagogy of teaching as well.

[33:00] That's so exciting. So we can stay tuned on poll college on Instagram and then your personal growth as poll colleges PhD on Instagram. Yes. Thank you so much. Of course. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. I do ask this every time I get a new person on here. So you've got a PhD, you've got a kid, you've got your pop-up workshops and a full-time career. That's a lot. So what happens when it gets to be too much when maybe it's a little overwhelming? What's the first thing to go?

[33:35] Well, I my career research is actually part time. So that's like, that was a project of this year that I needed to like, put, you know, some boundaries around. So that was the first thing to kind of like not go but like I definitely had to take on less responsibility so that I could lean into my creativity. So I would say that. Nice. Because I think that sometimes in life we have, we always have to make choices, right? And sometimes we have to choose between our passions, maybe pursuing a project, a business that might be scary.

[34:18] Or the comfort zone.
And I think for me, research is my comfort zone.
And my business in pocology is my passion, it's my work.
And so I'm leaning into that.
I love that, that is awesome. What advice would you have for any moms out there that are looking at poll thinking, hmm, should I do it? What would you say to them?
Yes.

[34:54] Yeah, not like a yes. Yes, you should do it and you can do it.
Like you can, that's the biggest thing efficacy. Like you have the ability to do it.
And I would suggest that they...

[35:10] Support independent artists. Like there's a lot, many of us that offer teaching.

[35:20] And learning experiences.
There's like a full spectrum of learning experiences. There's pop-up style, there's people that teach more regularly.
I recommend that you learn from as many people as you possibly can and treat it as if you were in school, like in college, like learning from different people so that you can develop your own thoughts and your own voice.
It's much in the same way as dance as a language that you're learning.
And just have fun. Have a lot of fun.

[35:50] I love that. Last question for you. What advice do you have to any pole dancers out there that are new moms or are about to become moms?
Oh, my goodness. OK.
You embrace where you are right now. this liminal space of being in between.
Shout out to my friends, Sammy Pacone and Cami Arbolus for that idea of like understanding liminal spaces.
They've talked about that a lot.
But this is a really great experience for you.
And you're in a unique position of like, just kind of being in between, like the you before you had your baby and the you after you had your baby.
And trust and know that this new you is going to be a better, more evolved you because we're always moving in the direction of like, this is our trajectory.
We're always moving forward and onward.
So there's no loss.
You're just becoming something more.

[36:56] Yes, yes, absolutely. Such great advice. Thank you so much, Kristen, for chatting with me today.
Just wonderful information that you've given to us. I really hope I have my fingers crossed there's gonna be a Bend and Flow workshop near me. If not, people can find it on your links on either of your Instagram pages, right?
Absolutely. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. And I am sure we will talk again soon.
I'm gonna have to pick your brain about so many more things.
Yes, please. Let's have like a virtual coffee date. That'd be so fun.
Okay, sounds good, my dear. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, my friends.
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Until next time, my friends, keep on dancing.
And remember, there's enough spotlight for all of us to shine.

[38:10] Music.