[SpyralBound]

What I really think is awesome is how many ladies on here are holding down more than one job. Most often our "real job" which we may or may not love, and a second or third job that feeds our passions – so many pole instructors here to attest for that! Really fab. Interesting that I can't think of many guys out there who do the same. Mostly if they're working a second job it's to make ends meet, not exercise their passion. 

I write marketing copy for a new business development firm that serves small to mid-sized marketing agencies. Easiest way to explain it is, I help agencies advertise themselves to potential clients via email marketing. A lot of writing and a lot of HTML. I love it! 

Before this I worked as a web content manager for a local newspaper (technically, 8 local newspapers all managed by the same media company). I worked nights, weekends and holidays for 4 years before I finally had ENOUGH and quit – that happened last summer, I've only been in my new gig for 9 months. I just ain't cut out for the news biz. 

In addition to my day job, I've also recently started teaching creating writing workshops with a local nonprofit called Women Writing for a Change. "Recently started" is a bit inaccurate – I got certified earlier this year and my first for-real workshops are coming up within the couple of months. And I blog (very infrequently) about creative writing at marisabecker.wordpress.com 

I've always dreamed of being an author and may still yet make that happen. Cheers and props to my fellow writers on here! 

[SpyralBound]

So if you do put a piece of tiling or plastic matting down, like a chair mat – do you put the base of the pole on TOP of it before you tighten it up, or do you cut a hole for the pole? 

I've been thinking of doing the same for my apartment (been looking at those hard foam "safety" mats that fit together like puzzle pieces – my concern isn't heels, I just don't like the texture of our cheapo apartment carpet) but wasn't sure what the best, and safest, setup is. 

[SpyralBound]

I had somewhat the same upbringing, only with illness, not with pain. My parents didn't object to giving me Tylenol, TUMS (antacid, for heartburn/sick tummy) or nasty nasty Chloroseptic (spray for a sore throat – it's gross!) if I whined enough for it. But in general my family was not one to go running off to the doctor every time we came down with something. Bedrest, toast and hot tea were the go-to remedies in my home. (My parents are also very frugal so some of it might have been financially motivated.) 

I didn't even really notice this until I started dating. My boyfriend's family definitely liked their medicine and would get antibiotics, painkillers, etc. for almost everything. This struck me as odd, but then made me wonder if maybe MY family were the odd ones.

I still have most of my parents' attitudes towards healthcare, but sometimes I do worry that by not being more medically responsive to my illnesses and pain, I might put myself in danger. There is some risk to my healthcare habits, which is why I really try to pay attention to what my body is telling me so I can separate "normal" (by my own standards, not by society's) from "serious." 

I'll echo what others have said – recognizing your pain and stopping to pay attention to it is NOT weakness. And if pain is getting in the way of your life, you absolutely have every right to seek treatment for it. You're doing what's right for yourself and your health; that matters much more than the possiblity of anyone seeing you as "weak."

It's a pity there's so much shame around crying. I think women AND men should be able to cry in front of others without being judged for it – in a way, we have it lucky as women, that crying kinda comes with the territory and is more socially acceptable for us than for men. 

[SpyralBound]

Somehow I doubt Sofia Vergara wears one; to me, she seems like a natural beauty and she probably works really hard for her physique. 

I'm not generally a fan of shapewear for everyday use. I wore a tummy-tucker thing for my wedding and I sometimes break it out again if I want to wear something clingy that would reveal my belly pooch, but those occasions are few and far between for me. I know others, though, who swear by Spanx and such even for everyday wear. 

Personally I would not want to spend all day sitting at my desk at work with one of these on, no matter how great it made me look. I have found that tummy-shapers are always way more uncomfortable for sitting down than for standing around looking pretty, especially for people like me who look pretty fit and trim when standing but get a big belly pooch when sitting down. So IMO, not worth the trouble – but to each her own!

[SpyralBound]

There is a move called Rainbw on Pole Dance Dictionary.

http://poledancedictionary.com/moves/289/rainbow/

It is like a cross-knee release where you hold on to your crossed foot and drop the straight leg so it's no longer pressing against the crossed leg. I did it in my last practice video, if you have a good CKR it's actually pretty easy!

[SpyralBound]

I kept my normal profile and just made a list of friends called "No Pole!" for family, former teachers, coworkers, people I'm friends with but don't know well, etc. So whenever I post a photo or video pole-related, I set it so it can be viewed by all of my friends EXCEPT No Pole! I found that easier than making a pole-friendly list, because it was easier for me to come up with people who I *don't* want to see me pole than those I am okay with. And now whenever I add a new friend or get added by someone, I always make sure to add them to No Pole! unless I know they're cool with it.

And yes, Facebook is stingier than YouTube with musical copyright. YouTube will warn  you if it detects a copyrighted song on your video, but it will only take it down if there's a complaint (which probably won't happen if you have it set to Unlisted, which is what I do), while Facebook just skips the whole issue by removing the video automatically. Posting the YouTube link to Facebook (and making sure it's only visible to people you want seeing it!) is really the best route.

On a small side note, I sometimes wonder why people get so freaked out about employers checking them out on Facebook. It's SO easy, one of the most basic profile settings, to make it so that only the people you are already friends with can see your info. I have mine set up so that you have to be my friend to see more than just my name and profile photo. If you ask me, if you leave your profile open to the public, you take the risk of anyone and everyone seeing everything you've got to show.

[SpyralBound]

Is there anywhere that has demos of what this is? I haven't heard about it before now, and I'm curious, since a lot of my freestyle poling goes into that realm of "in the moment, musically-inspired movement." But the videos I'm finding on the website are just Sheila talking about S-Factor. But from what I've seen you say so far, it seems like it's sort of an individual/private thing and thus might not be the kind of thing you video-tape and share.

[SpyralBound]

Oh, the story of Pankake…

My real name is Marisa, but it's pronounced "Ma-ree-sa" not "Marissa." When I was a little kid and couldn't pronounce it right, I called myself Meesy, but it was only ever a FAMILY nickname, no one else was allowed to call me that.

When I grew older, I sometimes used it as a nickname with selective people, including my (now-husband) boyfriend's family, who adapted it to Meesa. Then, in a play on the word "marzipan" (a character in a web comic we were both reading at the time), Boyfriend started calling me Meesapan.

Which has spawned literally DOZENS of spin-offs on that theme, of which Pankake is only one. He usually calls me Pan, but he's also called me Panzer, Pan-shaped-one, Pan Flute, Pantomime, Pantera, etc. (Pretty much anytime someone says pan, or a word containing pan, when he's around, he'll look at me and smile.)

I liked Pankake because it's the only one that sounds remotely cute as a pet name (LOL) and just changed the spelling to make it "mine." Nowadays I usually use Pankake or Pankakez online. Sometimes I shorten it to PK or KKZ.

[SpyralBound]

I've never had anything good job-wise come out of Craigslist. I only got scammed once, and luckily it wasn't bad, I didn't LOSE any money, I just started working a job (from home – ghostwriting articles for the web) and didn't get paid after the first month. Luckily, very easy to quit, and they didn't go after my PayPal account or anything.

We're trying to rent out our condo right now using Craigslist and Zillow. Got burned BADLY by the last tenant we got off of Craigslist, partially because we didn't do enough homework on the person. She moved in, paid the first month's rent and the security deposit, and then stopped paying us and trashed the place. We had to replace the entire carpet because of her. 🙁 So I am definitely wary of Craigslist after that experience.

CareerBuilder.com has been my best resource and is how I found my current job (and scored all the interviews that preceded it). There ARE scams, but it's less like Craigslist in that the scams usually come to you. There aren't very many illegitimate job postings, but you will get emails from random people saying they saw your resume/CV on Craigslist and then usually point you to a link to set up a time for an interview, or try to entice you by promising a certain amount of pay up-front or the perk of being able to work from home. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between legit inquiries and spam, though.

Good luck!

[SpyralBound]

@Glitter, I'm doing the same thing! Only englann86 (Danielle) is helping me because I can't sew very well, LOL.

I don't want to give away the surprise of my costume but I'm super-excited to pole in it. I'm still auditioning songs…I can't wait to see everyone else's costumes and dances. I cam imagine everything from the hysterical to the super-sexy to the downright glamorous. Should be fun!

[SpyralBound]

Runemist, I too am on Google+, but just because they don't have crazy games and apps and whatnot YET doesn't mean it won't happen. There's already talk about add-on apps, Google just hasn't opened the platform to third-party developers yet. I mean, Facebook and MySpace both started out pretty damn basic, and while Google+ is starting far ahead of where FB and MS did, it's still quite basic and will probably evolve into a convoluted monster the same way its competitors have.

It took me the better part of yesterday morning to figure out the ins and outs of the new Facebook and get all my friends into lists. They did already have the list thing looong before this change, I just don't think a lot of people used it. I used it mostly for privacy things; I had (and still keep) a "No Pole" list so that if I do post something pole-related on FB (which I don't do often), I can hide it from people who (a) I don't want seeing it, like my family-in-law and coworkers, or (b) have indicated to me that they'd prefer not to see it.

I think there's been a lot of very public backlash against the "Facebook get to decide what's important" thing. And what I think it is, Facebook wants you to tweak your feed and tell it what's important so it can give you more of that content, which is fine in theory but flawed in practice. For instance, if I mark a video from a friend as a "top story," will Facebook think I want more posts from that friend? More videos? More videos just from that friend? I don't understand its criteria, so I haven't been messing with the Top Stories thing and will probably just end up ignoring it.

(Sorry for the long-ass reply, I'm kinda techy so while I find the Facebook changes frustrating, I'm sort of weirdly fascinated by the impact it may have on the future of social media. I think it already pushed a lot of people to Google+ or other alternatives.)

[SpyralBound]

Polergirl, you made me laugh with your spaz comment – have you seen my Outtakes video? SPAZ!

I usually let the music dictate how I'm going to dance. I've spent a LOT of time crafting the perfect pole playlist with a mix of hard-n-fast songs (Supermassive Black Hole by Muse is one of them), mid-pace electronic and techno songs (I just did a vid using Thievery Corporation), slow sensual songs (lots of blues, R&B, Corinne Bailey Rae) and some very slow, ethereal, meditation-type music (like Enigma and Cirque du Soleil). Then I just put the whole thing on shuffle and dance to whatever comes on – although I will skip through if too many songs of the same genre/pace come up. I'm also pretty new to pole and can't do a ton of tricks, so I tend to dance around the pole more than on it, lol!

I have a lot of ideas that would put me in the category of a "funny" dancer, if such category exists. For instance, for the July booty challenge I wanted to do a wacky video to Queen's "Fat Bottom Girls" but ended up taking a break from pole that month to work on other fitness things. I know part of it is because I use humor as a defense mechanism when I'm uncomfortable, especially when I want people to like me. But I also like the idea of using the pole for satire or parody.

[SpyralBound]

The instructor in my class said the more you are "one" with the silks, the easier it is – that you should hold yourself close to them if you feel yourself falling back. This reminded me a lot of when I used to go rock-climbing (in a gym…I'm not *that* cool) because a lot of the same principles applied – don't try to hold yourself up by your hands/arms only, use your legs too and lean into the wall.

[SpyralBound]

I tried silks for the first time today too and it was AWESOME. I only got to do two things because it was part of a sampler class at the studio, and it was the last thing we did, so we were running out of time. But I would LOVE to do it again and learn more. I just want to play on them! And the instructor did a routine that was just sooooo pretty. I can definitely see it being a good addition to pole over time because it is a full-body thing – which, pole is too, but probably not quite so much as silks.

Roamy, flying yoga sounds so cool! As a longtime yoga lover long before I was a pole dancer, I love to see crossover between the practices.

[SpyralBound]

Runemist, I think your advice comes from the right place, but have you ever heard the phrase "Don't feed the trolls"? I work on the web team at a local newspaper and for the longest time that meant moderating our forums and the comments on our stories. Trolls are persistent. The more you "confront" them or get upset at them or otherwise engage with them, the nastier they get, and they pretty much can't be reasoned with. Delete their comment? They come back with 15 more. Delete their account/profile? They create a new one before you can blink. We even had nicknames for them.

Sadly, trolls will be trolls, and because this is the Wild West Web, we can't just pen them up in Troll Jail. They deserve pity for the sad lives they must lead that drive them to tear others down anonymously, but that's about as much credit as I'll give them. I even managed to track down and identify one of the worst offenders on the newspaper's site and found his Facebook profile, and my little cyber-peek into his real life showed me he was pretty much a loser on all fronts.

Granted, what you say could be true, they could be new and not oriented to the loving, supportive, awesome atmosphere of StudioVeena.com. Maybe I've been made cynical by my troll-slaying experiences but I would vouch that the Laws of the Internet and Probability say the commenter in question was a troll and nothing more (you kind of have to be a troll to even be OK with attacking or belittling someone online). And 99% of the time, the easiest and best way to handle a troll is to completely ignore their comments and report them to the site admin. It's tempting to go on the defensive and fight back, but that's what drives them, and it's SO not worth the effort.