Grr, grr and double grr.

That's the feeling I had when packing up last night after an hour on the poles.

And, for once, I wasn't groaning about the pain, but at my complete inability to life my own legs.

Daft (and easy) as it sounds, one of the tricks is proving trickier to get my head (and wrists, and arms, and legs) around than any other has done before and, unfortunately, it's a crucial one.

I always knew my upper body strength - or lack of, as it seems - may hold me back from making progress on the poles, and while my attempts at the star-jump move proved more fruitful than last week's feeble effort, I still would have liked to have it successfully mastered by now.

But this is the reason why the girls have four weeks to complete each block; while I am confident at the other three moves, it's going to be time consuming - and frustrating - building up to become competent at every single thing I attempt.

I suppose the main point to remember is that the group only started six weeks ago, from scratch, so the progress we have made, while gauged by weeks, really only accumulates to six hours.

Hmm, I feel a bit better now, back to the push ups tonight!