Katherine McKinney
Forum Replies Created
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Veena, can’t wait to see your scope on this. Sexuality in pole is one of the areas I’m struggling with as a mom now. I’m hoping it will get easier once I finish breastfeeding in a couple of months!
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Good stuff here. I poled (in heels!) until I was nine months pregnant last year (there’s a video still up on my profile), and it really is sad how much women are shamed for trying to keep some semblance of normalcy in their lives while pregnant.
I mostly was concern-trolled for continuing to wear heels when I danced, even though I’d stopped inverting as soon as I found out I was pregnant and stopped climbing once my belly got in the way. By the end, I was only doing very light spins and floorwork. I went from wearing my usual 8-10 inch heels to 5-inch heels, and I felt incredibly safe in them. If I’d ever felt wobbly for a moment, I would have stopped wearing them, but I didn’t.
Some people felt the need to tell me to “slow down, be careful, it’s only 9 months,” etc. We all make choices while pregnant, and people should just stuff it, whether they agree or not. You don’t have to make the same choices I make, and whether I agree with the choices you make, I won’t open my mouth about it. I think that’s what it comes down to–for whatever reason, people feel that women’s bodies and choices are open for discussion, while men are often seen (in my experience) as the masters of their little universes.
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I second Eva Bembo! Alethea Austin and Cleo the Hurricane are classic dancers with amazing floorwork.
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I’ve fallen out of superman before as well, and that is not a fun experience. I managed to roll and hit my shoulder instead of my head, but I had horrendous bruising and held off on that move for probably six months after that. I took it very slowly and also tried a different way to get into superman first that made me more comfortable. I fell out of it from a shoulder mount to superman, and I spent a lot of time on the gemini to superman and the side climb to superman. You’ll be happy to know that this was four or five years ago, and now superman is one of my favorite moves. You’ll conquer it again, and your fall will only make you a stronger poler with more awareness!
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Lol@ginger78, yeah, I have the same problem. This big ‘ole booty will be held in by no shorts! I do think PinkPony makes a great point that being comfortable goes both ways. I want everyone to feel comfortable, including myself. I absolutely hate poling without heels. I realize a lot of people feel differently, but I started in heels, love my heels, and really, you’d have to pry them off my legs. I also like wearing booty shorts and shaking said booty.
It just comes down to preference. Personally, I wouldn’t attend a studio with a subtext of “Cover up, you might offend someone!!” I prefer studios where the subtext is “Open your mind! We’re all different, so let’s embrace that!” I have attended both kinds of studios and find that the latter is where I feel most comfortable. I’m just hoping those kind of places aren’t squeezed out as pole fitness mainstreams.
My classes all revolved around everyone feeling comfortable with themselves, which I loved, and girls who weren’t comfortable became more comfortable as time went on. It would be nice if studios could offer both types of classes, which is how my studio ended up panning out. I taught choreography and sexy floorwork classes where the atmosphere was really low key and accepting and we joked about our “vagina monsters” when we learned to straddle-walk. The studio also had classes under a “fit” moniker that were much more fitness based and wherein ladies wore longer shorts, tank tops, went barefoot more often, etc. There’s a place for every poler! I do agree that these two schools of thought can coexist peacefully, but only if we work hard not to exclude people.
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I really don’t care who thinks pole dancing is a dignified sport. I don’t think that pole dancing should be in the Olympics, and I’ve long thought that the fitness aspect of pole dancing would consume the sexy aspect to its detriment. I am seeing that come true as I am often the only student at the studio I now attend who wears heels to class. I have no problem with anyone using pole dancing as a fitness tool and do not mind whether or not students wear heels, go barefoot, or wear sweats or booty shorts, but some of us were only attracted to pole dancing because it was so different from every other kind of fitness out there.
More and more, I’m giving up on pole dancing because what I loved about it is fast becoming extinct. I would not attend a studio with a dress code. I have been instructing for a year and a half, and while I would always wear respectable shorts and a tank top for a beginner classes (still in heels, though!), I loved to see the girls get into the sexy aspect of pole dancing as time went on. Barefoot ladies would start wearing heels, the tank tops would turn into sports bras, and I would see self esteem shoot through the roof.
This is all a moot point because the pole world is going to where the pole world is going to go. It just makes me sad to see how much the experiences of dancers are being marginalized and stripped (ha ha) from pole dancing, even though they are the creators and the forerunners of it. Sad, sad, sad.
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Yes, a thousand times yes!
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Whoooa, not saying that I don't enjoy sex with my (now) husband! I'm not saying it's not romantic, sexy, etc.
The transaction goes both ways! We please each other, and for us, sex is mutually beneficient. All relationships are different, though, and not everyone feels the same way. I'm not going to judge a sugar daddy/May-December relationship any differently than I would judge two young star-crossed kids getting married right after high school. As long as everyone is happy, why should I care?
Relationships have so many different ways of working out successfully. I just think it's terrible when people judge them against a standard they've created for themselves.
And as for pole, I get what you're saying about feeling uncomfortable when people express a sexuality that you don't share, and that's fine. think when that happens, people should just turn their heads and look the other way and move on, which is unfortunately not what we tend to experience outside of this community. To do otherwise sounds uncomfortably close to what people say about the LGBT community: "Your version of sexuality doesn't match mine so you should change to what I find comfortable."
I'm not saying that anyone here is alternative lifetstyle-bashing, or that anyone here is suggesting that people should not inject sexy into pole dance, just that the exact same argument is used against gays demonstrating affection in public. I'm also not comparing our troubles to the LGBT community–just putting out there that the argument is ridiculous no matter what the subject is.
I also agree with scarletthoney that it's really tough to get people to listen to you about a job if you haven't worked it the field!
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Flirty Fitness just bought an X-Stage Lite, and I've found that it's much better to have two people carrying it around. One person can do it, but I've read that the straps on the bags tend to break from all that heavy weight. I found that the pie pieces are not too cold–but when we took it to the beach, they sure burned my feet! 😉
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I second the massage therapy. I get one after my toughest practices when I end up the most sore and I find that it really cuts my healing time and gets me back on the pole.
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I put down laminate wood flooring over the carpet in my rental. I didn't use any edging except a bit of rope around the edge to accent the nautical theme in our home. It has worked very well thus far. To laminate a 9' X 18' area, it cost me a little over 100 dollars because I used the cheapest laminate wood at Lowe's!
I don't yet have a video up in the forum of my new place, so here is a link to a youtube video where you can see the laminate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZr1E2LNXD4&feature=g-upl
The only problem I've had is that the laminate is squishy and spongy over the laminate, but the pole is stable and safe, and I'm REALLY glad I put down the laminate.
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I teach college English (literature, writing, and research, mostly) during the day and pole fitness at night!
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Yes, agreed. It's good to ask questions and it's good to discuss the issue. I also agree that there are some simple ways to combat human nature in judging (the ones Amy listed are great), although we will never fully eradicate the biased and visceral nature of judgement.
I'm just reiterating that these competitions are still in their infancy and there will be growing pains! This is the way competitions become more stable–obstacles are thrown into the path of the organizers; the organizers climb up and over (or around) them. The organizers might look back and not be happy with how they handled the problems this year, but next year, after this uproar, I bet they'll know how to handle a situation if it reoccurs!
All of these issues are just providing templates for organizers to do better next time. I agree that there will be no change if people don't speak up. I just think it's important that even while discussing the issue, we never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance (and I don't mean that as an insult–I mean ignorance as in encountering new situations and making decisions on the fly, as competition organizers must often have to do).
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I am definitely not a pro, or even an awesome amateur, but having competed in pole competitions and judged a pole competition, I just want to put out there that since humans are humans, there will always be some kind of bias in juding.
I won a local pole competition in 2011. It was incredibly poorly planned–as in, at first, we were told we needed routines, then we were told it would be freestyle, and the night of the competition, suddenly routines were wanted. I am not blaming the organizers either, as I think the venue imposed some sudden rules on the competition or something. It was a mess all the way around. I had not made up a routine as I actually hadn't been planning on competing, but on the night of, the organizer asked again if I wanted to join as some girls had dropped out, so I said yes.
The competition itself was terrible. It was at a local watering hole on an X-Stage. I stood from about 10 pm to almost 1 am in my eight inch heels. The competitiors were not asked to perform once–we had to perform five or six times each, and from what I could tell, we were all freestyling.
I ended up winning the competition, and there were definitely whispers that it was rigged, or that it had almost been rigged, or that I shouldn't have won. I have no idea how the comp could have been rigged for me, sincd I wasn't even going to compete until the night of the competition. I'm not saying I should have or shouldn't have won first place. My performance wasn't perfect, but no one had a perfect performance that night. We all slipped up at least once (this is the nature of competition–you know how nervous you get when you flip on your camera and start recording yourself poling? Now, multiply that feeling by a hundred cameras); plus, you just can't control every factor that makes for a sticky pole, especially when, like me, you don't use grip.
Anyway, I don't think I was any better or any worse than most of the other girls. Some others did some crazier tricks; there was definitely a girl who had better stage presence, etc. I think that for those judges, maybe I just had a little bit of everything and that's why I won. That's the thing–judges are human. You will have one that appreciates fluidity and another that prefers a gymnastic-like approach to the pole, and since both are viable styles, they are going to judge girls differently. Even having score cards with every category meticulously laid out doesn't help. Judges are human! At the competition I judged, I had to stop myself from marking up a girl's costume and appearance score because I thought she was just adorable–but when I really looked closely, she hadn't done anything special with her makeup, hair, or costume. I had to change my score to reflect reality, not my holistic view of her performance. And as a college instructor, I think it is at least slightly easier for me to be objective–I've graded a lot of essays and used a lot of different rubrics over the last five years.
So, to boil down this loooong post, I just want to say that a competition performance is not the same as a performance filmed on the comfort of your home pole or studio poles. And judges are human, and they often already know what they like. So, while I agree that this is a good discussion to have, I think everyone deserves a ton of leeway as we navigate these new waters. If people express their concerns in a postive, non-judgmental way, everyone will feel more comfortable with any changes that are made.
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Ruthwinters. Also, there might be another thread for this, but I'd really love some new pole buddies on Facebook! My profile link is http://www.facebook.com/katherine.mckinney.afeversomeday
Hope to chat with some of you soon!
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My friend PoleRaven and I have a saying for awesome moves that are intimidating or that we've tried and have yet to conquer:
"I can do that move–I just haven't done it yet!"
It's silly, but it really helps not to think of it in terms of "can't" but in terms of "can." Maybe we can't do it yet, but that doesn't mean we won't in the future!
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Hi, minicoopergrl. Have you tried working on the move from the floor? You may have already tried this, but it's how I teach my girls to build up the strength for catepillar. You invert, not into a chopper, but just grab the pole between the thighs and knees. Move your body around the pole until you are in a handstand position (not scorpio handstand, but regular handstand) and sink down the pole until your elbows are completely bent and your head is on the floor. Once you're in that position, push up with your arms until they are straight. It should look like you're sitting on an upside down chair, i.e. the pole is clenched between your knees and shins, and your butt is pushed up to the same level as your thighs.
Repeating this move can really get you comfortable with the push needed for catepillar!
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Congrats! I'd love to come out there sometime and take a class!!
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That is completely understandable! I think there's room for all types of sexuality under the umbrella of womanhood. Whether we pole with 8 inch heels or bare feet or sneakers, I think we mostly pole for the same overarching reason–it makes us feel good! 🙂
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People have a tendency to oversimplify the relationship between a stripper and a client. A server in a restaurant is in the same basic position–the person sitting at the table has all the monetary control, and the server has (at least some) control over quality and the overall experience.
Can anyone honestly say that every relationship between a server and customer equals "This person is my servant" versus "Ugh, this stupid person is giving me money to bring out food he/she could have made at home for much cheaper."
No, that's the worse case scenario. Client and service providers have the gamut of feelings toward each other in any industry, whether involving food or sex. 🙂
Also, remember that all relationships are transactional. I give my fiance sex, and in return, he provides emotional stability and various other benefits (this goes both ways; I'm just using it on my side to illustrate a point). The client/stripper relationship is no different, but the transaction gets a bad rap because people tend to romanticize relationships rather than seeing that all relationships are transactional, but the pay scale (and type) of transaction varies widely.
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As a feminist who wrote about interpellation in my master's thesis, I have heard the same arguments you've pointed out, Black Orchid. I tend to use this rebuttal:
1. If you're a feminist who believes women shouldn't wear make-up or dresses, then we don't need to discuss this any further. Confirmation bias is much too likely for both in this scenario.
2. If you're a feminist who wears dresses occasionally, you do know that dresses are also symbols of oppression and slavery, right? Today, when the average person sees someone wearing a dress, does he/she think, "Tut tut, she's wearing a symbol of oppression?" Doubtful.
3. Sexuality can and has been reclaimed by women in multiple ways. To say that women cannot own a certain form of sexuality isn't giving women a lot of credit for the strides we've made. Pole-dancing will not take us back to complete subjugation; rather, pole-dancing forces people to rethink the dance form and what it means. Perspective is everything.
A name is very powerful, and so are the associations that come along with it. With time and continued rational rebuttals to the assumptions that people make, pole fitness will have less and less of a stigma. I mean, it's already on "America's Got Talent." It's safe to say that pole-dancing is on its way into the mainstream.
***Also, I have no problem with stripping. I've done my fair share of dancing for money. ;)***
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I am at home all day right now, so I am very flexible as far as being able to SkypePole. I would love to practice with some of you ladies! Now that I have moved to a new town with not a lot of pole presence, I would love to meet some new pole buddies. 🙂
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If Peytonplays had posted her question with a respectful tone, looking for information instead of looking to vent, she would have received many helpful, friendly replies. I doubt anyone would have had a negative reaction if they'd seen this post::
"I'm curious as to what kind of incentives Studioveena.com receives from X-Pole. Sometimes it seems like people are biased toward X-Pole on here. Can anyone tell me if I'm off the mark here?"
I've seen that time and time again on this forum–as long as queries/complaints are voiced in a respectful way, they are answered fully and respectfully. I'm saying this having used StudioVeena for a full year, having disagreed sometimes with people and having agreed with others. I have never experienced what Peytonplays experienced when I disagreed with someone on this site. And I own a Lil' Mynx, a TG Expert, and I'm planning on buying a PS starr!
If Peytonplays wasn't a troll, she shouldn't have behaved like one. This is the internet, and many of the cues we see in person aren't here. If you start ranting and raving about the two people that almost everyone here have come to care about very much, you will receive censure from the general community.
Bottom line: disagreement is fine, but cool off first and don't make the community think you're yelling and/or attacking because it never ends well.
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Luvlee, maybe we could have outtrolled that troll. 😉
Kobajo, I am marrying a network security analyst in February, so I have lots of access to the internet underbelly. I mean, this guy roped me into playing World of Warcraft for a little while (which was an enlightening and entertaining experience).
As far as I can tell, most trolls don't have criminal intent. They see themselves as flushing out the n00bs (newbies) and overly histrionic commenters. They get their jollies from baiting comment threads to get 100+ angry replies. Payton Place was probably rolling over and dying laughing over that comment thread, unfortunately. Just like at the playground, lots of kids are there to have fun, but there are always a few who get their kicks from bullying the others, so as the old saying goes, "Sticks and stones . . ."
One final word–I applaud the way Veena and the webmaster handled the situation. They gave the troll a measured answer and then moved away. It's the only way to answer a troll, if a troll is answered at all. It would have been best if Payton's comment had just been buried at the bottom of the board within a few minutes because no one replied, but at least the webmaster only reacted to the legal terms in her post and moved on.
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It's kinda funny, actually. With that name, she had troll written all over her. I think the problem is that everyone here IS too nice and supportive. If the only response to her original thread had been:
U MAD?
http://gamerabies.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Sony-UMad-300×224.png
She/he would have known immediately that we caught the trolling and it would have ended there. Another good way to flush out a suspected troll is to say, COOL STORY, BRO.
Lol, sorry, I'm on the interwebs waaaay too often. 😉 Besides this semi-serious answer, though, ignoring a troll is really the only way to get rid of it. No audience, no drama.
