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I think of myself as a 'magpie' dancer because I like to pick up random shiny things (metaphorically speaking) and put them in my pole routines. I even had a dream last night that I really wanted to learn a couple of tap dance moves so I could stick them in the routine dream me was doing!! I've done random types of dance over the past 20 years (I did jazz when I was younger, a few short courses of things like belly dancing and street funk at the uni rec centre when I was a student, and an adult hip hop class a few years back, and of course pole for the past 4 years) but only as  once a week hobbies (so I feel a bit fraudulent to say I've been a dancer!). I think it's given me a desire to pull all manner of elements into my pole though!

I tend to freestyle to a variety of pop type music and do very similar moves each time and then for performance routines, I find myself leaning towards old style type music with a lot of brassy trumpets etc, which leads to sassy kinds of dances (my stage name is in fact Sassy Minx, although that's partly a riff off my nickname too). Most of my "I depesperately want to do a routine to this song but I want to put this slow controlled move that I can't do yet" songs are slow beautiful ones and I really want to make my next routine just a really slow controlled one that people think afterwards "wow that was beautiful!" (haven't quite figured out if I can pull that off yet!). I also totally want to do a slow sexy one, just to completely contrast to my performances so far!

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I don't use a spinny pole very often so I've only done those two spins on static. In my experience, you won't spin much once you're actually in the pretzel position on static – it's kinda, legs go out, hook round pole, spin out again. Rock star is much like a combo of sunwheel and vixen spins (I don't know what other people call this one – like a fireman but with one leg straight) so you get as much spin on static as you would for those.

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I find getting in from the pike hiphold good because there's not the twist there is the other ways I've done it but I do find my holding hand is much lower than it would be otherwise, which, if you were inclined to do so, makes it harder to maneouvre into figurehead or sim. I'm not sure about doing it from a gemini because I've never tried it but the way I learnt it was from what we call a starfish (I think Veena calls it a side v or something) – I get into it by inverting into a crucifix, reaching up sideways as if you were going to move yourself into an upright position (we call the full move from crucifix to upright seat a transformation but I don't know what others call it – this would be a half transformation anyway), end up with a sideways facing straddle (it'd be a similar position to the jamilla mount from the floor I think), then it's just a case of pulling your upper leg towards you and flipping over…

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Definitely do NOT go by bmi as a measure!! It doesn't take into account ethnic variations or muscle mass or anything like that! As an example, I think most of our rugby players (I live in NZ so it's a typical example!) would be classified as overweight to obese based purely on bmi – and have you seen how sleek and strong those guys are?? 

 

Personally, I lost a pile of a weight about 10 years back (c.20kgs) and I've managed to put about 10 of that back on in the past 3-4 years – part of it is what I call Happy Jub (the stuff you put on when you're in a happy stable relationship and the associated eating out etc) but part of that has got to be because of pole and strength work because I probs wouldn't have even gone back up a whole dress size even with the 10kgs and I'm still well below the country average dress size (I don't know the equivalent of NZ sizes to other country sizes so putting down numbers here doesn't mean much but I'm about an NZ 10), despite being borderline "overweight" according to bmi!!

 

It's so important to make sure you tailor your eating to the exercise you do and it's just as important to not undereat as it is to not overeat. If you're a student, you may have subsidised access to uni gym trainers (I know that's what it was like when I was at uni anyway) so it might be worth going and having a chat to them and see if they'll do a body fat percentage test for you – the 2 I've had done before are either with the tanita scales that measure it based on lower body or the skin fold test, which is using calipers to measure particular areas and calculate the figure. This is a much better way of getting an idea of how much is lean muscle and how much is body fat.

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When you say the spin, do you mean the reverse grab ending in the pretzel?

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chumpchkin, I just watched your vid of the rocketman – you make it look so easy!! How exactly do you brace the arm – is it pulling backwards and in or just one or the other??

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For some reason I find the yogini pretty easy but am too chicken to try the rocketwo/man 'cos I have a lot of moveable flesh on my upper arms (I keep telling myself it's muscles;p) so I worry about the grip when I'm not bracing like in the yogini! For the yogini though, I think I found it easier because I have done a lot of the yoga Bow Pose (here is one I prepared earlier;p http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/875) so part of the grip actually comes from the bracing of the ankles against your hands and tautening your body rather than just hoping the old arm skin will hold you up.

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I can never get past the fact that in these debates that the people who express the negative opinions don't seem to realise that if they didn't have this negative opinion that they express so close-mindedly, that there wouldn't be this stigma attached to the pole, if that makes sense! And that it is only prejudiced adults who make it seem like something bad to do and that kids approach the pole with complete innocence. There is SO much exposure of children to sexualised content through music videos and clothing and tv etc that just never seems to enter into the discussion as much more dangerous than kids having fun and doing exercise on a vertical bar!! Especially as pole classes are a closely monitored situation where trained adults are keeping an eye on the kids, rather than a kid being by themselves in their rooms, watching tv or the internet and not necessarily having that.

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Nothing in their profile + mean comments screams internet troll to me! Don't let a  troll take away from all the great comments you got because that's how they get their jollies! And noone wants to give a troll jollies…Cheer up and rejoice in your awesomeness;)

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Have you tried doing it from a pike? There's no twisting that way, just pushing. I find my hand holding on is much lower though so it's harder to manoeuvre to do anything other than jumping down out of it or doing a superman drop.

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Oops sorry for the double post!

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I know that two of the poling boys I know (including my bf) struggle with pole sits but I think that's more because they have problems with any of the skin sticking things (but flipping upsidedown and doing the crazy aerial stuff is much less of a problem – sometimes life is unfair!) rather than worry about 'package' damage. 

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I know that two of the poling boys I know (including my bf) struggle with pole sits but I think that's more because they have problems with any of the skin sticking things (but flipping upsidedown and doing the crazy aerial stuff is much less of a problem – sometimes life is unfair!) rather than worry about 'package' damage. 

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The requester actually appears to be female – at least they say they are! Not that that really changes anything…I guess I don't really have a problem with what people do with vids – I wouldn't put things up publically on the internet otherwise! I just find it odd because a)they asked for a specific vid rather than just working off what obviously interested them in the first place b)I've not had any sort of comments from anyone I don't already know or know of in any of the performance vids I have up on youtube and c)my feet are kind of flat and "lived in" for want of a better term so it surprises me that anyone's really interested! I might ask them for a few more details before I decide but thanks for all of your input 🙂

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Sorry, should have made it clearer – the person sent the message through yt not through SV – SV folks have been perfectly normal and congratulatory!:)

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I just watched that on fb and thought he was right on the money with his arguments – it was sad his colleagues wouldn't listen to such reasoned arguments!!

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Michelle is SO awesome and she's great to do workshops with too (yay for Aussies being close to NZ so we actually get them over here relatively often!) You can also find her in the Pure Pole Angels and Pure Pole Elements troupes – both well worth watching if you can find clips!

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I wish I'd read this before I went to class tonight! I've been struggling with this move for SO long!! Will have to try next time:)

 

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I wish I'd read this before I went to class tonight! I've been struggling with this move for SO long!! Will have to try next time:)

 

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My boyfriend uses my pole at home way more than I do!! I tend to only use it when I'm choreographing or I can't be bothered walking across town to the dance studio whereas he uses it as part of his several-times-a-week strength routine that he does at home, along with some free weights. He does pole classes too and will practice stuff sometimes on top of the strengthening:)

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It's one of Anastasia Skukhtorova's signature moves (and it's her in that pic in fact) so have a scout round some of her youtube clips for a way to get into it:)

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It's one of Anastasia Skukhtorova's signature moves (and it's her in that pic in fact) so have a scout round some of her youtube clips for a way to get into it:)

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I can't offer any helpful advice but this move has recently come to my attention in a couple of youtube clips and I think it looks AMAZING!

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Practising a complete deadlift into invert from the floor (ie no kicking/momentum etc) is probably the best way to start working towards it because this is how you'd do it from the pole.

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I seem to almost exclusively use the youtubes for pole related stuff – all my fav vids and subscriptions are of/to pole peeps!

 

I have 3 vids up under the username Sassafrassle and they are all of performances I've done (one's only partial though). I felt quite proud of my latest one but noone else seems to like it nearly as much as I do! Oh well…at least it means I have avoided the haters who seem determined to dump on people…