[Electromagnetism] Magnet falling down aluminum pole perpendicular to pole?

My professor just dropped a magnetic sphere through an aluminum pole and it went really slow because of faradays law, which makes sense and we've all seen this many times.

Immediately afterward she was able to drop the ball through the pole and have it fall at normal speed?!? I know she used the same pole, and same ball, but I'm not sure if she changed anything else.

I understand what causes the magnet to slow down when dropped through the pole. But now I am confused as to how she was able to get it to fall normally through the very same pole?

My initial theory is that if she places the sphere into the pole so that its magnetic field is perpendicular to the axis of the pole there should never be a flux change and thus the magnet will fall at normal speed.

I'm guessing that the geometry of this situation is not that simple though; after all ive seen many times the professor just plops the ball into the tube and it works every time, and the ball is just a literal sphere and there probably isn't even any way to tell what is north and what is south.

Does anyone know how she was able to get the magnet / aluminum pole experiment to not work?