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How Do You Spin Static Holds?
So I was watching Dancing At the Blue Igunana the other day (it’s the movie that got Sheila Kelley, creator of the S Factor, into the whole stripping and pole dancing shebang,) and at the beginning one of the strippers spins an inverted thigh hold on a static pole. I thought it looked pretty cool. I mentioned it on the Vertical Dance forums I think, and a couple of people said you could spin most holds on static as long as you got enough momentum going.
How would you even do this? I’m really comfortable with a regular inverted thigh hold, so I think it would probably be ok to practice getting a little momentum going while I’m in it. Has anyone done this before? Any tips?
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5 Replies
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My friend ashley does those a lot, But more in a gemini/scorpio position. It looks like she gets her momentum by switching her legs from side to side…I found a video of her doing it on you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvI1PjnYILU&feature=autofb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Hopefully that helps https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif
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Yeah, I’ve actually heard of people spinning gemini/scorpios before too, but I’ve never really seen it (except on a spinning pole.) It does look like she’s getting her momentum from just switching her legs up. I kind of do that on a gemini sometimes, but I don’t swing my leg out as far as she did, so I’ll have to try that next time. Thanks for the link!
BTW, I really like your friend’s dancing! Very pretty and graceful.
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You’re welcome https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif
She is really graceful. She was actually my inspiration to start poling a few years ago, I just finally got my pole in February https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif She Just started a school of her own in Tucson, az.
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Hi Horsecrazy,
There are two ways that your question can be taken. There are the full-on inverted spins that are started from the spinning chopper, and then there’s also some amount of natural turn that happens as a result of the combined momentum of leg movement with the shifting of the skin against the pole. Personally I’m a big fan of both of these kinds of skills. Some experts at doing the inverted spins would include Sarah Cretul (Joy) and JK of the jkdfefiesgravity channel on YouTube. And certainly an expert at the latter is our own Veena, who seems to be magically able to keep a lot of her static poses "turning" and even though it looks like pure sorcery, it’s just a high degree of skill.
So… mind you, if you can’t lift into an inverted V position, I’d advise not to do the spinning chopper which requires a full-body swing and semi-kick in order to get into that position. Let the body be thrown out from the pole as if you were going into a corkscrew spin or performing a windmill, except while you still have tremendous spinning momentum lift into the inverted V position while still spinning in your baseball grip. If you want to go into the inverted thigh hold while maintaining some spin, I would make two suggestions. Don’t go directly into the Tammy, but hook your outside leg first to go into Gemini, and then kick your free leg to the other side of the pole. The other suggestion would be to have your holding leg in the Tammy be hooked around the pole instead of flush against it, since you’ll be fighting your own body’s momentum. You can make a couple rotations in that spinning Tammy on static, or you can shift your legs into Scorpio in order to maintain movement. The looser your body grip the more spin you’ll get out of the leg hang positions, but you’ll have to experiment and play with that a little so that you know just how loose that grip can be while still keeping you on the pole. A good example of this would be Sarah Cretul’s inverted combination spin, which from what I can tell starts from spinning chopper to Gemini left, swing around to Gemini right, and then lift into Superman. She does this in the Pole Superstar competition, and also in her Joy videos. Also, any video you find of JK will have inverted static spins. Please be mindful that until you are used to this amount of friction, these types of spins are murder on your thighs.
The alternative isn’t quite so painful, but even though it’s not as flashy it’s still very beautiful. Your skin will turn you as it shifts against the pole while you are shifting your position on it, even if there is a minimal amount of momentum. For example, when I go from hip hold into Jade split on the static pole, I sometimes get over 180 degrees of turn even when I’m on brass. This works for other body grips too, like teddy bear holds and ballerinas. Experiment with contracting the muscles of your thigh, hip, underarm, or any other body part that is gripping the pole to see if, where, and how much it turns you. Veena is an excellent inspiration in this regard as she has a positive genius for turning her static holds with little or no momentum. There will be a little bit of natural turn every time you shift between related positions, such as Gemini, hip hold (don’t forget that the hip hold turns itself when you go from V to pike and back!), Jade Split, Scorpio, Tammy, and inverted crucifix. You can find out how much turn you’ll get from each shift and then immediately make another shift into one of the other positions that the previous one will transition into. So technically, if you were to use only these positions in transition from one to another from a static pose at the top of the pole, you could "spin" all the way down the pole in these inverted hip and thigh-grip based poses, assuming you allow yourself to lose a little height each time you transition.
Tabbycat, I really enjoyed watching the link you posted! That was lovely.
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Thanks for all the info, Stellar! I can do an inverted v without a problem, but have yet to try a chopper. I’ll take the time to really go through your tips carefully next time I’m practicing and see if I can apply some of them. I’ll check out the ladies you mentioned and see if I can get some idea of what to do from them as well.
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