Dance lessons outside of pole?

HilaryKate aka LolaSlaytor started this discussion · 6/18/2013

Hey Veeners! I was thinking of taking a couple of dance lessons outside of pole dance to help add variety into my movements and just for fun! There is a chain studio around me (Fred Astaire Dance Studios) that usually has great and affordable intro packages. They offer many different types of dance - but not ballet or contemporary or lyrical. It's mainly a wide variety of ballroom or Latin styles. Just wondering what you guys thought would be a good choice to learn a bit?

11 replies

baobab · 6/19/2013
Since I haven't seen any other replies yet, I'll throw my 2 cents in based on my own experience. Salsa is lots of fun and tends to be more popular with the single crowd (at least that was the case when I was taking classes in Toronto) - so there were lots of social opportunities to practice without having a regular partner. There's lots of styling moves you can learn to do without a partner, but I also found that learning to dance with a partner provided me with a "instinctual" feel for how to perform turns and other kinds of moves with a pole without learning them in a pole context. I haven't done ballroom dancing, but I've heard that body positioning is relatively more "rigid" in some ballroom styles than Latin. My personal soft spot is for bellydance, which doesn't require a partner and is likely not available at the Fred Astaire studio. I'm not sure what the bellydance community is like in Hamilton, but there are tons of options in Toronto, I know there's a community in the KW area, and a lot of DVDs are available to learn from as well.
kareno · 6/19/2013
hi there , i have belly danced all my life and thats come before i ever started to learn to pole, as im only new to pole i found even being able to belly dance helps me very much :) , ive danced a lot in turkey and also in canada ( at my sisters wedding in the 1000 islands ) its a lovely freedom of your bodys expression and its fluid and soft movement are great , my hips will automatically shimmy and shake when i hear a good beat !!!
Legs4Days · 6/19/2013
kareno I took belly dance as well and you are correct! It does help! For example, I learned the body wave in bellydance so I was familiar with that move for pole.
yrngrl · 6/19/2013
Another vote for belly dance. I'm also new to pole, but I have belly danced for years and I'm sure it's helped.
HilaryKate aka LolaSlaytor · 6/19/2013
Thanks for all the replies! I've been pole dancing for 4 years now and I feel pretty confident with hip movements and body waves etc. I'm really looking for things to help strengthen my ability to choreograph and complete routines - be able to dance while being mindful of every part of my body, out to the fingertips and toes. The studios in my area have a big emphasis on sexiness and that's not really my movement style so I'd like to try something that gets away from that a bit. While I definitely can see belly dancing helping certain parts of pole dance, I don't think it's going to be quite what I'm looking for right now.
Dwiizie · 6/19/2013
I personally love Ballet. Flexibility, correct posture and form, and you develop a beautiful point. The choreography is there. You can even do stuff like a Barre class thats like ballet and pilates fushion if you want a workout to go with it. I do like tap, but not much as an adult. Jazz dancing is incredibly fun, and will give you some funky choreography, but seems to have fallen out of favor (though Jazzercise is making a huge comeback). Hip Hop dance I would consider to be like belly dancing, in helping you figure out new ways to move or transition, but ballet is soooo wonderful.
Dwiizie · 6/19/2013
Ballet teachers will usually correct "floppy hands" too haha
Veena · 6/19/2013
I recently took a session of ballroom and I'm taking ballet right now. Ballroom is fun and I loved it, but it was very expensive!!! I think Ballet is a wonderful addition to pole, if you had to chose, go with Ballet.
baobab · 6/19/2013
LolaSlaytor - So based on your goals, I've got some other suggestions. Learning other dance styles will definitely help you to extend your movement repertoire, but it doesn't necessarily make you better at choreography. It's a common problem in many dance styles - you have a back of tricks but don't necessarily know how to string them together. Or you can string them together but the moves look slapped together rather than nicely transitioned and matched with the music. I don't claim to be a choreo expert, but there are a number of approaches to improving choreo with your existing move repertoire that I am aware of, including: 1. Watching and practicing combinations of moves that have transitions in them (like the Routines section in Veena's lessons) - and then from there playing with variations or challenging yourself to find different ways to get in and out of the combos. When you get "stuck" freestyling, for example this allows you to pull out a combo your body has the muscle memory for. 2. Playing with paths to improve the flow of a sequence of moves. Decide on a start and end position, and think about ways to get from A to B that flow well together. 3. Playing with repetition (particularly in relation to the music) as well as contrasts (high/low, fast/slow, sharp/smooth, big/small). For example, I can picture a downwards body wave standing next to the pole that starts small and slow, and then a larger one that propels the outer leg forward and back, and transitions into backward spin. Like you, I'm not into the exotic dance style. Some moves from pole classes can be adapted though so that they are less overtly "sexy". Sometimes it's as simple as bringing the legs together for moves like hip rolls, or changing the angle of your body with respect to the audience, or adapting hand positions - and getting a sense of what changes to make would likely come from having other dance experience. Hope that helps!
kaygee10 · 6/23/2013
i like modern dance, if you want to try something more abstract
Legs4Days · 6/23/2013
Oh yes, ballet def. has helped me as well, veena!