majikmyke
Forum Replies Created
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I began reading this thread out of curiosity more than anything, but was intrigued by all the responses. I began poling 2.5 years ago, and am now 67. The 5 “bullet” points flyingchiro stated in her post to this thread are absolutely the most important elements that you can take away from this thread. I am privileged to pole with an exceptionally great group of ladies, at several studio’s, that are encouraging, supportive, and inclusive.
I find pole dancing/fitness challenging and rewarding. It has transformed my body and mind. Would love to hear from others that are over 40, or even 50. Thank you for allowing me to contribute.
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Thanks, mate!
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She doesn’t look like she’s in her mid-forties. To me she looks like she’s in her late twenties or early thirties. You would be surprised how many of us that do pole fitness are well over 40. The photography is absolutely stellar.
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This is a really cool thread. You would be surprised by how many males possess very limited verbal skills. I like the comments all of you offer on asking “what do you mean” so that he has to re-phrase the question, which buys you time to find out what he’s really about.
When other guys find out that I pole dance, I too, get awkward/stupid/idiotic questions. In reference to the original question asked in this thread – the guy is extremely immature! A more visually graphic term is that he is a douche. Being that he is the husband of a friend, she should be challenging him to grow-up and stop acting like an asshole!
If there’s any other male pole dancers at SV I’m sure that they will agree with me. Love all of your comments and input.
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I was unaware that Tina had a Chic Physique location in DC, ofezo. Thank you for mentioning this addition for LolaSlaytor. LolaSlaytor, now you have 4 possible studios to go to? That is a target-rich pole studio environment. Have fun.
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LolaSlaytor, the three main Pole Pressure sites in DC are; downtown, Capitol Hill, and Cleveland Park. Pole Pressure used to have instructor “bios” on their website, but with their expanding business locations I think that has been discontinued. I would recommend that you ask for Crystal as a private instructor. I personally haven’t trained with her, but everything that I’ve heard about Crystal is very good. She’s a great lady. I’ve seen her at competitions and she’s a lot of fun to be with. Plus, she could give you lots of tips on places to eat, what to see, clubs, etc.
The “Exorcist Steps” are in the Georgetown area near the river. Lots of history, restaurants, and sight-seeing in this area. Ask one of the locals and they’ll be glad to tell you where the steps are located. It’s worth a few photo’s with your friend.
Pole Pressure was the first studio that I went to when I started pole fitness. It’s a very progressive, and well run organization. Unfortunately, the Leesburg, Virginia studio closed in 2013. The other PP studio’s are a long commute for me. Have a fun trip. Enjoy DC and I hope you have a great time poling at Pole Pressure.
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Do what makes you feel comfortable, polereveur! I agree with you that your original question generated a great deal of posts. It lets you know the difficulty, as well as the various opinions and approaches to doing holds and maneuvers. The “falling backward,” or “release” is very hard for all of us. We really want to stay near the security of being close to the pole, not falling away from it! I think everyone on the SV site likes questions like this. We all learn by reading the posts of others as well as Veena’s contributions. Please, let us know how you do, and when you accomplish the CAR, and possibly the CKR. Good poling, polereveur.
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I agree with you Hazi411. I, too, feel more secure, and safer with the CAR. While I will do a CKR I always seem to come away more bruised than when I do a CAR. It took me a while to feel comfortable when falling backwards in these holds. You’ll find everyone has different things that they’re comfortable with, and other moves that they’re not.
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This has been a really great thread to offer input on. Thank you Veena for your posts.
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Well Phoenix Hunter, by the time I got ready to answer your question there were numerous other posts that have already done that. I won’t be redundant. I haven’t done the CAR using the foot hold as I find it awkward to re-position my legs for it. Having done a headstand onto the pole, and securing my legs and using a foot hold, I find the lift from the headstand to the sitting position hurts my coccyx bone as apolemorphic indicated. I do it, but not often. PolarGirl’s description is pretty much right-on for this hold.
I polekat I, I’m sure I’ve seen some of your video’s and you have a beautiful CAR – a really nice arch in your back. I like your technical description of the CAR as a dance performer.
For Shimmy, you will find many “exceptions” in pole. It’s one of the primary reasons pole instructor’s encourage use students to always do, and try to do, a hold, trick, or maneuver from both sides. It is surprising to me the number of times I have found it easier to get into a hold from my non-dominant side rather than my dominant side. Go figure, right? It happens. Your ability to do the CAR release easier than the CKR is not unusual.
I hope all the posts help you polereveur?
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A very interesting discussion. I do both the CAR and CKR. The problems that Polereveur acknowledged in her post is a common one that we’ve all encountered. When I started doing a CAR and CKR layback I was uncomfortable with both. Once I got the CKR, my CAR followed quickly. The problem for me was not the leg position. It was doing the layback itself. I remember my instructor saying once you feel secure on the pole slowly go into the layback without hesitating.
Polereveur’s comments indicate those difficulties, and by holding the pole with her hand her balance is shifted and she begins spinning. Not a good time to go into the layback portion. I would recommend that you only do this hold in the studio with your instructor to spot you, and a mat, until you’re fully comfortable with smoothly releasing the pole with your hands and unhesitatingly go into the layback portion. It’s scary, and counter intuitive I know; but once you’re seated securely with a good leg grip, release your hands from the pole and smoothly go into the layback portion and roll your head backwards and look down towards the floor. It takes a lot of ab control. By rolling the head back along with your body you are committed to the maneuver. But, once you do it I promise you, you will not shift on the pole. And, after you do it several times you’ll fully understand what I mean by “smoothly going into the layback.”
Now, use your abs and slowly raise yourself back into the sitting position. Throw one arm out to the other students and wait for the cheers! You deserve it.
For Phoenix Hunter, I’ve seen people do their CAR where they do have a foot that hooks the pole as Polereveur indicated. I do my CAR like you, my feet are away from the pole. I think there are more of us that do it this way than the hooked foot. But, it seems to work for those people and their CAR looks good.
Ladies, thank you for allowing me to comment.
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This is a really cool thread that should be included in each of our personal profiles. So, here we go….
NAME: Michael
AGE: 67
LOCATION: Sterling, Virginia
STAGE NAME: “Majikmyke” – The name was given to me by the ladies at the studio, and I’m not about to mess with it.
LESSONS or SELF TAUGHT: Lessons
SPIN or STATIC: Prefer spin
SHOES or BAREFOOT: Barefoot
FAVORITE POLE MOVE: Shoulder Mount, Cupid, and Sad Girl Drop
DAY JOB: Pilot / Senior Captain / Retired – Working ended 12 years ago for me.
YOUR BEST FEATURE: My overall body conditioning
HOW YOU GOT INTO POLE DANCING: Two years ago I wanted to do a surprise pole dance for my wife for her birthday. It was just a joke and something different to do. I feel in love with it!
HOW YOU FOUND STUDIO VEENA: One of the ladies at the studio recommended it.
IF I WERE UNDERWEAR: I’d be a bikini. Mostly covered, but a little edgy!
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On pole class evenings I try to have protein at lunch, and not over-eat. About 2 hours before class I always have an orange. I’m comfortable with that. Inverting within an hour or so after I’ve eaten is a horrible feeling. I take a bottle of fortified water to class with me.
Poling is a far more intense workout than other sports. Any of you that have poled to a three minute song can attest to the stamina and strength required to continuously workout on the vertical jungle gym. You have to eat. Finding the right balance of when to eat, what to eat, and how much is a trial and error method used by most people.
I workout in the morning. Each day starts with two cups of coffee. I’ll workout for 30 minutes to one hour, or 30 minutes plus a 3 – 4 mile walk. Breakfast comes next; fruit, yogurt, cereal, or eggs. Not all at the same time. I vary it and concentrate on portion control. Eating healthy, portion control on an overall ongoing basis is far more important to me than concentrating on eating something specific prior to a hard workout. Your body will tell you when it wants more.
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I had a big surprise waiting for me by the front door four days ago…. it was a box containing my “Pole Dancing Adventures” books. They arrived safely and in great shape. Thank you, Leen.
The book is cute, funny, and, oh so true! If you are a pole dancer you can’t help immediately reading and looking at the book, and then re-opening it to again enjoy the reality of what we do. I look forward to the next book.
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You are so correct Club Dynasty. All the tats are beautiful with diverse personal meanings. The “photo realism” tat that Danielle Tillie has in black and white has tremendous minute detail in it.
I can understand Poledancefan’s looking at Danielle Tillie’s tat in class. It’s mesmerizing! Small, but draws your attention to the beauty of it. I’ve done a Natasha Wang class and loved it. She is very perceptive, and a good instructor. Look forward to doing a Danielle Tillie class when she’s in our area. Sorry to have drifted from the main topic….
Club Dynasty’s question is so multifaceted with answers. Pole is truly a way for someone to display their personal body art work to others. The large body tattoo’s are so well thought out and so beautiful to look at. Love the discussion threads that come up on Studio Veena. Thanks to all of you for sharing your pictures and insights.
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Prplegrl 10 that is indeed a gorgeous tattoo. The artist has done a wonderful job. Love the clarity and depth of the flowers. I can understand the meaning of your creation. Beauty and sadness at the same time.
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Club Dynasty thank you for the compliment. You pose interesting questions which have given me thought over the last several days. Sitting down for coffee and conversation with you could potentially take a long time.
Speaking only of the tats shown here; my opinion would be that an individual who “plans” and “executes” on a large tattoo is very confident and comfortable with themselves. This type of tat is a long term project in which the owner has a defined visual clarity as to the end result.
In broad terms, these ladies know who they are, and are not trying to be someone they are not. They have a multifaceted awareness of self that is anchored in reality. Creativity, aesthetic art, artistic flair, personal growth, seeing and understanding different view points of others, and having little time for contumelious negative people would be a fair general description.
Your question is challenging if seeking only a single answer. My opinion would be that the true answer contains elements of both questions you posed. Your tat to me is reflective of beauty and reminds me of a Chinese scroll. The art is narrow and vertical telling a story. It has symbolic meaning. Polekats tat is contemporary to me. The multiple overlapping colors are impressive especially the art work over her spine. I would imagine this shows beautifully when she is poling with her muscles engaged.
More later. I enjoy your questions.
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Club Dynasty (CD) you have posed a most intriguing question about tattoo’s and poling. I have been poling for almost two years with a short five month lapse when I had spinal surgery (not related to pole dancing or fitness training). CD, the tat on your back is incredibly beautiful. What interests me about the question is my background and age. I’m not young, but really love to pole. The short answer to your question is, yes! After a few months of poling I began thinking about a tat? My first instructor had a beautiful tat with stars that cascaded from her shoulder down her back.
A little personal background will help you understand the transition in my thinking. As a young man in the military in the late 1960’s we got paid once a month. We went out got drunk, did stupid guy shit, and around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning wound up in a tattoo parlor. A lot of guys got tat’s. I never did and frankly wasn’t interested. There was a lot of peer pressure. Once the hangovers wore off most of the guys thought their tattoo looked like crap. They were not happy with them. However, the next month when we all got paid, we went out got drunk – well, you get it, repeat above process!
Placement of the tattoo’s and quality were severely lacking in my time. As such there was no desire on my part. Through my working career it never entered my mind. Tattooing seemed to actually drop out of favor for a number of years. Then in the late 1990’s and early 2000 seemed to start a revival where you saw more women with good quality small tattoo’s on the arm, shoulder, lower leg, or ankle.
The concept of tattooing has transitioned from being an individual male macho thing to group identification, memorial to someone of remembrance, to the outright creative artistic concepts of the wearer. The quality of the tattoo artists themselves has improved vastly when you see some of their work and the depth of color and vividness it shows.
To this writer there is still a vast difference between what you see in tat’s on guys versus tat’s on the ladies. In general, from my observations, guys seem to do a cluster of tattoo’s on the arms, and/or neck are to show. Often, whatever has been tattooed is jumbled together and poorly recognizable. Ladies on the other hand seem to treat tattooing as if decorating a room. They tend to put a tat where they want it to show when they want it to show. They don’t generally clutter. Their tat’s are well thought out drawing the viewers eye to the tattoo and it’s significance, creativity, and coloring. The tattoo often has meaning to them.
The beautiful long tattoo’s of CD, MeganJoan, Lula Geddes, PoleKat, and tacha666 would all display well when pole dancing. The danger of having a beautiful tattoo is the desire for another. I think that if you have a large creative tattoo you must be very careful not to do another tat that draws the viewers eye away from a creative piece of body art. It sort of goes back to the minimalist thinking about how to decorate a room.
I have given serious thought to a tattoo; maybe a snake on a vine from my shoulder winding down the back. MeganJoan’s thigh tat gave me a new idea about location.
You asked a very interesting question, Club Dynasty. I think you ladies are incredibly creative. And, look, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Thank you for letting me reply to your interesting question.
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yes.
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Poledanceromance’s (PDR) thread above clarifies what I have been trying to say. I’m really glad that my first instructor insisted that I participate in the floor work, and not treat me differently from any of the other student poler’s. My instructor made the classes fun for me as I’m sure PDR will for any male dancer. If you “want” to pole dance, then you need to see and do the entire scope of what’s required. It’s the only way you learn your strengths and weaknesses, and explore what you don’t know. Nicely written and expressed, PDR!
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I agree with Tropicalpole’s statement. FoolsErrand’s (FE) description is laid out very well from a male perspective, with the exception that if someone is really interested in pole they will mentally make, or at least attempt to make the necessary changes required to perform the maneuvers. FE is so correct in stating, “Pole is a near-perfect physical activity.” His thread is well written .
From my experience all the pole instructor’s I’ve worked with would be quite direct in telling a student why they aren’t gripping the pole well with their legs if the shorts were too long. Unless a male coming to pole has a ballet, or other professional dance or arts background, I would imagine they will encounter one or more of the conditions stated by FE.
Pole for men requires a huge mental shift in attitude, physical awareness, and elasticity. You have to “want” to do pole to learn to do it well. The “want” is the mental challenge. If a guy has the “want” then he can learn and make the physical changes. Pole is not about brute force strength, but, to me at least, learning to engage and use muscles you don’t use consciously.
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Based on my personal experience most men who pole do well with upper body strength moves, such as “shoulder mounts.” Most women have the advantage in flexibility and lower body movement. Which explains why moves done by women always look good. Understand, when I say “most” I’m referring to the average poler like myself and others who attend the studio. I’m in no way referring to professional male or female pole dancers.
When I first began poling my instructor insisted that I do the floor work in class along with the ladies. I was in relatively good shape when I began poling. I had a decent core structure. The floor work had me using muscles I never knew existed, and within the first six weeks I lost 5 pounds. I didn’t need to lose any weight. I enjoy doing the floor work from the physical point of view, but I don’t think that it looks good when men (specifically me) do it. The benefit to me is a perceived increased in flexibility.
I think that you will teach a man the same as you would a woman with the basics. Start from the beginning. I have to admit that getting up on the balls of my feet and walking around the pole was awkward and feminine (to me) initially. Soon after I realized that you had to be on the balls of your feet to correctly enter the pole maneuvers. After a quick discussion with myself I got over this, and my maneuver entries improved. He’ll figure out his strengths and weaknesses.
It only takes a few pole lessons to realize the different groups of muscles you’re engaging simultaneously. If he stays with it, in relatively short order, both you and he will notice a transformation of his body. Pole is an incredible total body exercise experience. This is way more challenging than the gym or weights! I hope you and your boyfriend find this helpful.
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I do the high heel repairs at my workbench. Thank you, lilredrobinhood, because I never thought of using a piece of furniture to wedge the toe part under as a holding tool. Simply ingenious! Caution on using vice grips – I used them once on the heel of a shoe when doing a repair, and crushed the soft pad where your heel rests. It eventually returned to normal shape, but the ladies in the studio felt/noticed the crushed pad when they wore them right after the repair.
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Let me begin by saying that the previous studio I attended had about 10 to 12 pairs of heels available for the ladies to wear in class if they wanted to. Some of the shoes were in disrepair, and there wasn’t anything happening to improve that situation. That’s where I was able to help. A number of the shoes were Pleaser’s.
The hardest part about working on/repairing the platform high heels used for pole fitness is establishing the “hold points” after gluing or an epoxy application. It’s just not as simple as gluing two pieces of wood together. I use various small clamps and masking tape to create holding pressure where needed. This type of shoe repair is a “thinking” repair. Think it through first, and then act!
As mentioned in this thread epoxy comes in a dual cylinder tube that pushes out in equal amounts as poledanceromance has said. You mix it and then apply it. Depending upon the repair it can, in my opinion, be very messy and difficult to work with. Many of these shoes are specialty items with glitter and sequins on them that I doubt you want covered with dribs and dabs of brown or gray epoxy.
I think a better answer than epoxy to AprilPoleKitten’s question is using “Loctite GO2 Glue.” It has a long snout so that you to get into the inner shoe area and spread a bead of glue around. The glue has a decent “open” work time which let’s me finish the repair, and clamp it or tape it secure so that the repair can dry. Using super glue will be awkward, because of the lack of “open time” using this product.
The pole high heels undergo tremendous abuse in practice and dance performance sessions. It’s not that you personally are hard on the heels, it’s the environment they’re being used in. The most important thing I’ve found in making pole high heel repairs is to first establish how you are going to anchor and secure the repair after it’s been glued. I would not recommend taking the shoes to a cobbler unless it’s for stitching the leather. The cobbler has no reference to what pole shoes go through. This is not just a repair when it comes to gluing, but a “rebuilding” of the shoe to withstand the endurance and harshness of the pole fitness environment.
The shoes you use are well constructed, but the shoe adhesives used by the factory, while good for regular walking heels, is totally inept for the pole fitness environment. I hope this helps you and others.
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You have a lot of survey requests, but if you'd like another please send me one; gulfstream34@aol.com
I'd like to help you with your project.
