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Pole moves for men
So my boyfriend is interested in my pole, and has had a bit of a play- I showd him a few things to have a go at, which is great- it’s good to have someone to join in my practice from time to time : )
But I was just wondering what moves work best for men? To the men out there, or the girls who have got their men involved, do they just learn all the same as the girls, or are some moves better suited for men?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts : )
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12 Replies
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Anything strength based they tend to like. Pole holds, pole triceps push and so on.
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I have taught them the very basic fundamentals. The walk to show them how to maintain a neutral wrist position, they remember the feeling. Basically making sure the fundamentals of balance and coordination which are learned from the very “intro” to pole moves. From then we move on, as I’ve found most men I’ve worked with are fit, however their core is weak, they will admit that after a few pole exercises! I spoke with David C. Owen (stellarmotion)and Joel (Poledancefan) for tips on working with men. So far it has worked well. Strength based is their favorite, but as David stated, they still need the Basic foundation. 🙂
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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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Great : ) Thanks for the tips! I’m looking forward to giving him a few more things to try next time he’s here (we live a couple of hours apart at the moment, so we’re not at each other’s houses super often). Watch this space… : )
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I hope your boyfriend likes it! Here are some reasons he may or may not, based on what I’ve seen and experienced.
CORE: If, like a dancer or Pilatician, he has a nuanced feeling for his inner core and the subtleties inside his hips and pelvis, he will take to pole like fish to water. If like most men he hasn’t trained any muscles much at all, he can learn how to use those muscles elsewhere, like Pilates, and then use them for pole. But if he has spent a life training the WRONG muscles (like the six-pack abs), he will yearn for some twinge or signal from his core the way a spinal-surgery patient yearns to twitch a toe, and will struggle months with whole-body moves which core-conscious types learn instantly.
PHYSICAL HABITS: If he’s accustomed to moving things in space, whether boxes or basketballs, he probably used his joints in their middle ranges, not stretched at extreme angles. This physical habit is very hard to break, but it makes active stretching difficult because you’re not only inflexible to start, but the instinct is to fight an external stretch rather than assist it from inside. Another example is climbing with the arms rather than the legs; if you’ve climbed since childhood with your arms, it’s hard to even figure how to use the legs, or even to hang with a straight elbow and a retracted shoulder. And so on. Even motor habits about physical expressivity wind up influencing whether his moves look clunky or fluid. And yes, men are more sensitive to pain than women (that matters too).
SOCIAL COMFORT: Guys with brittle egos don’t take well to being half-naked in a class while being outperformed by older women. Shy guys won’t wear shorts skimpy enough to get traction on the thighs. Solitary guys won’t be happy in a crowded room with mirrors. Macho guys won’t do body-waves or widen their legs enough to do pole-dance any justice.
So even though pole is a near-perfect physical activity in so many ways, it’s almost as if society trained men to find it difficult. Good luck to him!
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^^ excellent post! I have never seen it explained so clearly. Also women who aren’t yoga/pilates/dance-trained but very fit might well experience same issues.
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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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Every man will be different, just as every woman is. Many are going to find strength moves easier to tackle than friction holds or flexibility moves, but there are also many men who will need to work on their strength before they can do the tricky stuff.
For a good example though, this is how things went when my husband decided to take on pole… bearing in mind, he was in the gym several days a week before starting. He started maybe 5 months ago.
When Hubby first started learning I would take him through a lot of the basic spins and basic pole holds that my beginner pole ladies learned and he got a good foundation. I skipped some of the more “feminine” moves/transitions like hip circle/body waves and such, but we did the majority of the moves. We would briefly touch things like a pole sit or crucifix but it took him a lot longer to get those and he is still working on things of that nature now (he’s still not showing enough skin to properly pole sit but getting to that comfort level is something I know will take time, especially for him). He took very quickly to inversion work, some of the more difficult spins, and climbs (he can even no leg climb). He is working on leg hangs and jasmine and the like, they are difficult and challenging for him, but not so much that he gets frustrated, so long as they are mixed with the tricks that are more core/arm strength related. He is also very good at inversions, aerial invert, shouldermount, he has even done a handspring a time or two.
What I hear most from him as a frustrating thing about male pole dancing is that he feels that there is little inspiration for him when he looks up videos of men, because many that he finds are, as he feels, either showboating crazy tricks he can’t fathom doing, or they are dancing with tricks in a more “feminine” way that he can’t connect with. For a guy with no dance background trying to learn how to move around the pole without just hitting tricks, it can be frustrating.
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Reyn, maybe we can convince some of the guys here to post more videos!!
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For whatever it’s worth, while all the strength moves stuff is true and it’s always important to gauge a student’s physical abilities so they are challenged to the level they want to be challenged to physically, I realized recently that I’ve been underestimating men as pole students and holding some antiquated views that I hadn’t really thought about.
I’m dating a guy who likes pole and has had a few informal “lessons” from me on the home pole. I asked him recently if he would be interested in coming to the studio to learn. When he said yes, I just immediately launched into how I could show him lots of fun strength moves and how I could have him come get some individual beginner attention to get him going and jump into classes so he could skip some beginner stuff. And he got kind of quiet, and asked why he had to skip beginner. I kind of bristled at that and said “well I figured you’d want to just get into the jungle gym stuff since beginner involves a lot of like…body rolls and stuff…” And, not missing a beat, he said very confidently “Fuck yeah, I’ll do body rolls!”We got into a more serious talk about being a pole student, and it turns out, he doesn’t WANT to be excluded from the sexy movement club. He doesn’t feel the need to fit into a mold that says the purely gymnastic/physical exercise is the only outlet he needs as a man…he was open and enthusiastic to exploring pole and movement as a spiritually holistic activity and not just an hour on the vertical jungle gym that beats you up and builds muscles.
I know a lot of guys out there are totally just interested in the gymnastic and strength aspect of pole, and I’m fine with that like I’m fine with women who enjoy that too. But the experience taught me there was an aspect of pole that I was reserving in my mind as naturally for women only. I don’t want to do any student a disservice by making assumptions about them based on their gender that would deny them an experience with pole that could be potentially as impactful for them as it has been for me. Lately I’m making an effort to think about ways to let every student in every class I teach know that every interpretation of pole is on the table for them and that, as far as I’m concerned, they have my unphased support.
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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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Those guys are onto something! I had such an amazing (and amazingly different) experience in the “womens/beginners” class I started a whole thread about it, “A man discovers the secret”: https://www.studioveena.com/forums/view/52ed4e36-a690-4665-bf5c-1d130a9aa0eb
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