Upper body strength training will help enormously when pulling yourself up into an invert, aside from abs training. I inverted only about two weeks into dancing because I just couldn't resist the temptation anymore, but I was very careful about it and went very slowly and cautiously. I never had a problem jumping into any of my inverts because I've done chin-ups for a long, long time, and to me it was basically the same thing except on a vertical bar. You don't want to use your legs at all; you should just be engaging your abs and your arm muscles and pulling hard with your hands. I might try and post a video of a dead lift basic invert too, if I remember; maybe that will help you guys to see a couple of different people do it.
I would really suggest doing some kind of upper body training, though. It will help you a lot in any of your moves. Also, to prep yourself to move into an invert, try doing pole ups, which is pretty much just like it sounds. Stand facing your pole, grab it in a basic grip, lift your feet off the ground so your thighs are touching the pole and then pull yourself up. Repeat as many times as you can. If you can't pull yourself all the way, just go as far as you can and keep doing that. That will build up the kind of strength you need to do a dead lift invert.
