We recently connected with Heidi Coker and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Heidi, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
It was 2013, I was happily employed as a sign language interpreter. I had unexpectedly won my first world championship as a hobbyist pole dancer, turned competitor. I was offered opportunities around the world, to teach, judge and share my set of skills as a pole dancer to a global community I barley knew existed. I was overwhelmed with requests and quickly turned down many not fully understanding what was in front of me. I was contacted by an agency to represent me and help me to book tours. I was not interested in leaving my job and didn’t believe in my ability. But after continuing being asked to teach, I chose to research what this new tour life might look like. I taught on the weekends locally in the US and reached out to people to get a better understanding of what being a full time touring artist meant. I agreed to be represented and we planned a month long tour, for me to try over the summer. This was a safe trail run as the school system offered me the freedom to do as I pleased over the summer. My first tour was amazing. Fun, challenging, full of nerves being in the unknown and an incredible experience to explore the world. After months of agonizing over the idea of leaving a steady job, that I loved, and loving my first month as a touring artist, I made my decision. With tears in my eyes, I told the principal and my coworker that I was leaving my safe career, to start a new one… as an artist. One of the biggest risks I’ve taken.
Heidi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am an international pole artist, life and spiritual coach. I work with people to bring forth their authentic expression in life and to support them to realize who they are. I use pole as a physical expression to not only strengthen their bodies but also their mind and spirit. And of the other end of the spectrum pole is a way to introduce and guide people through mindful movement, moving meditation and a means to help process and integrate our challenging experiences and healing. As a coach, I support people and walk beside them as they begin to understand more deeply, what their life is bringing for them to become who they are meant to be. In addition, I have been in a shamanic apprenticeship for 5 years, bringing an additional layer of knowledge to both movement and life coaching. I work with people who are of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels, meeting them where they are in their journey. Clients work in modalities using movement, breath, plants and personal connection to parts of ourselves. It’s the inner journey I am eager to support. The authentic expression, that is uniquely ours, that is so desperately wanting to be shared, that is what I help clients remember and connect to.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
When I first started my career as a movement artist, I was deeply passionate with my practice and it was also my form of personal expression. I didn’t realize how much it was helping me to process what was going on in my life. How necessary it was. The problem was, when it become my “work”, my income, everything changed. I wasn’t prepared for the shift, to work for others. All of my time went into prepping and planning what I would teach, and share and my personal practice suffered and nearly disappeared. I wish I had been prepared for this. No one explained how to keep separation from my professional life and my personal life as an artist. Eventually, I had depleted my internal resources and lost my connection. I was forced to reassess what my work and what it meant for me. I had to reexamine who I was as an International pole instructor, and redevelop my craft to fulfill my heart again. Of course the journey was exactly what it needed to be. I had to fall out of balance and realize I had used up my inner resources, so I could re-emerge and re-introduce to myself, what my craft had become. But now when people come to me asking what I wish I knew before I started, I encourage them to find balance and keep what is theirs(personal practice), sacred.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I grew up as an elite gymnast. It was my life, all I knew. My dad gave up his life and career, to move across the country for me to train. There was an unintentional, deep pressure to do well and live up to “my potential”. At that age, I didn’t have words for it, but in my unconscious they was a fear of failure and letting people down. As a young girl, I had equated success and achieving with love. My inner worth and value was attached to who I was in the eyes of others and what I won or didn’t win. I didn’t have my own sense of worth and value. I lost who I was. I only know how to see myself when I was pleasing and doing for others. Honestly, I have been unlearning this concept all of my life, my worth is not attached to what I accomplish. My worth is my worth. I have value in just being, we all do. That’s what I am remembering and I help others to remember too. The process and experience of life is about unlearning what others have told us and we blindingly embodied. and relearning, recovering and meeting ourselves as if for the first time, as adults.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://heidicoker.com
- Instagram: @heidicoker
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heidicokerpoleartist
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRbUKv6YgjGhwl0tRP3YqtA