poledanceromance
Forum Replies Created
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I change my warmup depending on whether I’m alone or working with a student or multiple students. I will also modify it depending on what my goals for that session are.
For example: if I ultimately want to spend time after my workout going through stretches for splits, my pole workout will probably include working on extension in leg hangs, spins and spin combos, jades, caterpillar climbs and leg intensive floor and movement. And then my warmup would be tailored to that, with upper body warmups focusing on stabilizing and mobility and getting gently warm, then doing a series of regular squats, squats with wide hip rolls and narrow tight hip rolls in all directions. I’d follow that with a series I threw together that moves smoothly through a light standing straddle stretch to a light lunge series that goes into a plank that’s lowered, pushed up to a downward dog stretch and then reverses, back to the plank, to the hip exercise, to the lunge, to standing, to the light stretch and then starts again on the other side. I put the sequence together so a very thorough warmup targeted for my goals for the session doesn’t take half an hour. It’s definitely possible to look at exercises the same way you would dance moves and put together a little “routine” for a warmup of exercises that flow from one to the next so you’re really MOVING through them and getting an efficient warmup.
If I’m working alone and don’t have particular goals for a session, but rather want to just move and dance, exploring moves and poses I already have nailed down, I will just lightly freestyle through one or two songs, focusing on warming my body up in the same systematic way I would do with basic exercises, but without an intense focus on particular muscle groups, just getting my body generally warm.
Maybe for a monthly challenge we could each record our warmups, since everyone seems to do such different activities!
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Those white pants were HOT. That was at last year’s pole convention. She also said her pole was drowned in dry hands to compnsate hahaha.
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There’s a couple make polers out there *cough cough Jungle Cat cough!* who accomplish amazing pole feats in jeans. I’ll never know how they do it.
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Happy Valentines Day to you too, v! Xoxoxo mama!
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How about season one when Hayley shaves her head, moves out with Jeff (to his shag-van…parked in front of their house…) and starts stripping. At the end she flips into a CAR and her wig falls off and she gets booed offstage for being bald lol.
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Proactiv does work for me for the prevention and treatment of pimples, but the system can be harsh and drying. It actually can leave me without pimples, but with clogged pores. This is because if you strip off the oil on your skin with cleaning and lotions, your skin will produce even more oils to make up for the dryness. So you can be dry but oily and clogged at the same time. So when my skin really gets bad, I use the oil cleansing method because oil dissolves oil but doesn’t dry the skin. So I take coconut or jojoba oil because they’re similar to your skin’s oils, and add a bit of sugar if I want to exfoliate. But rub it all over your face with firm, massage kind of motions not scrubby motions. It can work all that gunk out of your pores. Then I remove the oil by taking a clean wash rag with hot water and pressing it to my face and GENTLY wiping the oil away. Then I apply the proactive lotion so it gets to my pores and I get the medication of the lotion without the drying effects of the face scrub and toner.
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Particularly if you are wrapping your hand around the pole past neutral as many people working on static spins for the first time do and not even realize.
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I’ll say that as a female who has gone to strip clubs, there is definitely a possibility for a respectful relationship there. I’ve had dancers offer me dances because they can tell I’m there for fun and not to be sleazy; they enjoy the playful flirting with me, and to demonstrate to them that I respect them, I don’t try to touch them or push physical boundaries. I keep my hands at my sides and let them do what they want.
A lot of whether that relationship is respectful depends on the client. The fact that not every client is respectful is a huge factor in determining those of us who could do that line of work and those of us who couldn’t. Because once the client pushes that boundary, it’s up to the dancer to handle that emotionally or not. If you can look at that the same way a waitress would look at a bad tip “that’s shitty and not cool. Get the F out of here.” then it’s not much different. But if you’re the sort of person who would feel horribly violated from a customer’s lack of respect, then that person probably shouldn’t strip OR waitress haha.
I honestly believe that morally right/wrong is at least partly connected to whether it’s right or wrong specifically for the person doing the action. If you can be comfortable with stripping and it doesn’t damage you as a person to do it, and you aren’t knowingly doing anything unethical with clients, I can’t find anything wrong there.
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I made one by taking a spare length of PVC pipe my dad had and wrapping a section of floor mat around it. It’s firm, but has give, and different textures to roll over. I’m really happy with it.
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So basically, we have a question on sweaty hands which was answered with full explanations of the chemical composition of the various components of each product and their action on the body.
This, ladies and gents, is why pole dancers are so awesome.
Sorry to hijack, carry on! 😀
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Think of it this way: when you let loose dancing for your husband, you’re doing it for many different reasons. But a big reason is that you feel safe in the boundaries of that relationship to express your sexuality and really assert your sexiness to him. It’s healthy for people to want that connection.
That’s also why people go to strippers-to enjoy certain kinds of sexual experiences in the boundaries of a much different client-customer relationship. Women who dance, ideally, are there because they are comfortable and confident in the boundaries of that relationship, and like to be sexually “in command” of their clients, to control the encounter. Even if a dancer is fulfilling the fantasy of an “innocent girl” character for her client, she’s still in control because of the setting and the nature of their relationship.
When you imagine yourself in that role, it feels icky because you’re not comfortable with that scenario. But the women doing the dancing in real life don’t necessarily feel that way. Maybe try imagining yourself in the club, but the only person in the audience is your husband(or multiple customers, but they’re all your husband!). But see if you can picture being in that setting and feeling the same way about being on stage that you feel when your husband is the audience. When you dance for him, you’re definitely in a dominant position. The two aren’t really that far apart, it just involves very different kinds of relationships.
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Just beside you can’t hold yourself in a static hold in the spin position doesn’t mean you can’t do the spin! The fireman spin is one of the easier spins, but I wouldn’t expect a beginner who can do a fireman to be able to just do a bracket hold in that position.
Remember as you do these spins that your bottom hand is important too! You should be trying to pull the pole toward you with your top hand and pushing the pole away from you with your bottom hand. Grip with the top hand like you’re trying to pull the pole down out of the ceiling, while your bottom hand is trying to push the pole away.
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Willowbreath, that’s the Camille Paglia view, one I’ve always been interested with: that it’s ridiculous to say strippers are exploited since all they do is remove their clothes and men bleed their bank accounts dry for them. It’s certainly possible to argue that the pole is a symbol of the exploitation of men because the whole club atmosphere is designed to take advantage of their instincts.
Now I don’t know if I totally agree with that argument as it still relies heavil on conventional gender norms, but it’s certainly an interesting way to turn it around. There are certainly men out there who have basically gone into financial ruin for their favorite woman at the club.
Either way, I think it’s important to acknowledge that if you’re asserting pole to be symbolic over women, you’re assigning more defining power to the pole than you are to the sexuality of the woman dancing on it. And I think that’s selling female sexuality short; it’s the dancer who defines the dance (and the apparatus), not the other way around.
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I’m not sure of any actual manufacturers of Chinese poles…but here’s a website that I know has specs to build one!
http://www.fedec.eu/home.1587.html
It’s under “pedagogical tools,” might have to do a little digging
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Please please listen to this. If a pole at 20′ comes down, that is absolutely and definitely enough weight to instantly shatter bones on whoever it hits. Felix Cane herself very recently almost died because of a rigging failure and has taken months to rehabilitate. If a company says their product would not be safe in your space, listen to them.
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Maybe if you could do it aerially/from a hold with the legs extended far forward to get some serious sweep going, but that sounds tough. I don’t know if it would be possible to lift into it from the ground, unless it was lifting into a flag, then swinging the legs forward and back up.
Too tough for me!
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**and I suppose some might make the argument that sex workers cause harm when their customers violate the bonds of a relationship to use those services, but I would argue that this is also counter to feminism because it makes women responsible for men’s choices. If the clerk at the hardware store is not responsible for making sure that the poison you’re buying is for rats and not your family, then the sex worker is not responsible for making sure that her customers aren’t lying to anyone.
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To me, the answer is very simple (sex positive feminist): feminism must be about choice. It’s about women supporting other women in our efforts to explore undiscovered parts of ourselves. If I want to explore my potential by staying at home full-time to be the best mom I can be, you’d support me in that. If you wanted to explore yourself as a sexual being by experimenting in different sexual relationships, I’d support you in that (provided everyone is being safe!).
What’s the common thread there? A feminist view grounded in Mill that as long as what we are doing is done in an effort to seek progression of the self and doesn’t hurt anyone else, we ought to support each other as feminists in our choices regardless of whether or not we would make the same choice.
Perhaps the hugest strength of true feminists is that honest feminism does NOT look down on women who choose not to work outside the home or follow more “traditional” gender roles. A true feminist should not–would not–say to a homemaker that her lifestyle is damaging to women even though those structures in society have certainly been harmful to women in the past. If we can respect another woman who freely chooses to partake in patriarchal structures, we must respect pole dancers and businesswomen and even sex workers. Because the whole point of feminism is not that certain choices are wrong, but that no woman should have to feel pressured into OR bullied for her lifestyle choices.
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AWESOME!!!! Congrats, it’s a sweet move!
I never get a chance to work on this one cause I have the original top loading x pole and I’m not about to try to clamp my legs over the adjustor, ouch!
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Yeah like the clothes you would wear on any given average day. Just not fitness wear…the clothes in your closet that you wouldn’t be wearing anywhere you were going to be poling. Something you think is a cool outfit in your everyday wardrobe. Could even be a challenge to do spontaneously on a day you feel like you look great! And we’ll all have to adjust what we do for what we’re wearing. If your go-to move is a knee hold and your go-to outfit is jeans, that’s part of the challenge!
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When I first started working outside leg hangs on my bad side I thought I was going to strip the skin off my knee pit. But it got better! From there I started working on the superman and…well we all know how that move feels…but it got way, WAY better. Then when I learned the yogini I thought for sure I had turned my tummy to hamburger. But it got better! Then when I learned the Allegra I seriously wondered how people do that move without their inner thighs fleeing in terror from their body at the thought. That one hasn’t gotten better for me yet, but I’m confident that it will!
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*squee!* Thanks for choosing my suggestion! I’ve been reading updates from so many of my fellow members about struggling with our identity as dancers–I know I struggle with it. So why not start answering that question by bringing our everyday selves to the pole? Some of us have alter-egos and personas for pole, and I think that’s great. But all those personas come from inside us, and it’s a part of who we are. Maybe the “persona” can learn something by wearing street clothes, and maybe we can learn something by having that persona in our street clothes. I believe neither of those sides of us should be limited from influencing us all the time!
I’m so excited to see everyone’s videos!
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David explained this a bit in st. Louis…when doing the Jenyne variation, you’re moving both legs at the same time, and the grip between your legs becomes important, remember to push-pull. And you can use your outside hand on top, with the inside hand around waist level; you use the bottom hand to PUSH while you also PUSH your butt out and backwards. Don’t think of trying to lift the legs as much as you are lifting your butt, throwing your booty back and up WHILE you lift the legs. We found for some of us in class it was easier to side climb this way and for some of us it was much harder. If your basic side climb is very secure, you are probably safe to play around with it and observe the way your leg grip changes in the different variations.
I happen to love veena’s lesson for the side climb. She illustrates very well the way your front leg pulls and back leg pushes to use a pretty grip rather than all the grip coming from the knee pit on the top leg.
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I’d just like to kick my opinion in here for whatever it’s worth. I am tallish (5’8″). My pole room dimensions are (I believe) 10’x12′. And it’s not big enough. I don’t have enough room to explore the space, partly because there are huge windows on two walls and a fireplace on one wall leaving only one open wall to play with. Normally then you would shoot video with the wall as background, but the room isn’t big enough to set up a video camera and get the full length of the pole, the full length of the room, and the floor. I have to basically pick one. I can get the floor in if I don’t show the full height of the pole. I can get the full length of the pole, but then it’s a narrow view. Or I can get more width of the room, but you can’t see my head or my legs. I know now that I would rather have either a bigger pole room or (more realistically) a pole area in a larger room. In my next house or apartment, not sure which it will be, I’ll probably try to give myself as much room as possible around it. And I’d ONLY give that up if the difference was setting up in a larger room with carpet or a smaller room with solid floor. But that’s my loathing for carpet talking 😉
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Omg! What luck!
I’ve no idea about your paint, but I suggest you ask Valerie (studio409) as I know she had painted poles, at least at first.
