Charley
Forum Replies Created
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Welcome! Michigan has a ton of great polers and an awesome community! Welcome to SV – you're going to be addicted to this site!!!!
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No, no, no! Don't wait! Veena's lessons are designed for everyone!!! I recommend starting with the transitions and simple combo's – wait on spins and climbs – Veena advises this in the intro video. There are so many awesome things you can be doing right now that will help with health goals and make you feel super sexy.
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Also Skittles and Phoenix do skype privates for competitions. I also do comp skyping for what it's worth. (I'm currently working on a cool piece for someone in Vegas via FaceTIme) LOVE technology. I've done a skype with Phoenix before – it was awesome!
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'i don't know if this will help you at all. Recently I did a comp, knew I was going to be doing something WAY out of my comfort zone and skill set and basically knew I was going to suck. With that said, I realized it would be a better experience to suck it up and try something new and fail rather than do the same old, same old and perhaps fail but with a less likely percentage.
I stopped thinking about the competitive aspects ALL TOGETHER and focused on the show. That relieved me alot! I had something I wanted to do for *me.* So do it for you, focus on you, do the routine YOU want to do not the one you think will win, pick the song YOU love, the costume that makes YOU feel great and give it your all. If you do all of that – then the outcome won't matter.
I sucked my last comp, I totally went too far out of my box, I messed up almost everything, didn't place – I don't even care where I did place because even though it was a clumsy mess – I'm step closer to finding something new in me.
Does that make any sense? lol
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Is there an update? What happened?
As for the topic it's a gray area and without knowing what the competition really is I can't say so I'll generalize.
The only reason I could possible see not allowing strippers is if the rules also stated that "no one who has been paid to dance professionally" was allowed in making it truly amateur. I also think that if a competition is going to make a hard line about professional performers they should also not allow anyone to compete who has already done so and maybe even extend it to not allowing those who have performance experience. IF that's the reason.
On the other side of it, some organizations don't want to be represented with exotic dancers and are truly focused on the health and fitness aspects. I think it's ok for organizations to make rules and to protect their identity. Think about it, you're running a show and the winner is a porn star – your family finds out – an organization in pole is still just a single person. That's WHY this is really complicated. Can you imagine trying to explain it to your uptight parents? Kinda hard. The BIGGEST issue is not being upfront about your thoughts and feelings about it and then telling someone to change jobs – kinda late for that.
It's really a struggle in our industry to see all sides of it. The nice thing is we have a lot of options as far as competitions go and I think we have to realize while we may not agree with castrating pole dancing from it's exotic roots – that may not be the real intention behind an organizations thinking-they might just have to explain to their husband, mother, child, grandma, etc why they allowed someone from the adult entertainment world (still working) to win the high trophy. Winners are a reflection of organizers whether we like it or not.
With that said, we should be moving towards more professional competitions that don't include background checks. We need to focus on the actual art and sport and not where/how someone uses pole dancing. I think it's important for everyone reading this to realize we all have a purpose in pole and all versions of pole are great. It's also important to remeber, I as an organizer am always sure to do this, that it's really easy to assume something about someone because of what you see on a piece of paper – it's a whole other ball game to walk in their shoes and understand the choices they made.
Personally – I'd rather see better defined divisions based on skill level as opposed to time/experience simply because there are girls who have worked for 5 years to get to great and some who've worked for a year to be great. Time/experience is relative it should always be about an level playing field skill wise. 🙂
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Ownership of humans seems to be a common thing in the arts. I find it terribly unprofessional that these feelings were even shared with you. It can certainly make you feel a little quezy when your students begin to venture out, there is a bond you make and a friendship. When you've been the person who has watched a particular student grow up, it can feel "empty nest" ish when they move one. But that's the instructors problem.
We can't be everything to everyone. I've taken a step back from commercial studio instructing over the last year and it has been AMAZING! I no longer feel the pressure to keep up class #'s and feel so much freer when talking about the pole businesses in my area and recommend them all the time.
As I took this year off from studio teaching I began finding myself taking classes and working on getting things on both sides, taking workshops and really participating beyond just my few students and online. It's been great. Everyone is different, they teach different things, the classes focus on different skills and I think I feel more complete having the freedom to work with lots of people.
Ultimately this kind of behavior can lead to you the client feeling like a golden goose instead of an individual. I'd probably take some time off from that studio and continue training in other supportive environments.
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David is a great teacher! Super fun! Love him! And as has been mentioned there is Pole Fitness Studio with Fawnia – personally I would check out both. Fawnia, though I've never met her personally, seems SUPER sweet and nice and she has done a lot for our industry. I'd have to visit both places for sure.
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The box stage is ok but it's short and doesn't have a lot of room. It's great for burlesque shows, I've seen Gravity Plays Favorites do amazing shows with it but I do think the XSL is the best stage product you can get for versatility, ease of use and height. 🙂
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I met my bf in a bar, you know where all great relationships start! I was 20 and couldn't legally drink in the states and I was with a girlfriend and as we drove around I heard a bar in Windsor, ON was doing free piercings so I begged her to come with so we could get a piercing.
Well, it ended up the bar they were doing the event at was a meat market and my friends refused to go so we settled for a club I had been to just a few months prior with another guy. As we were walking up the street I saw a long haired, rocker hunk walk in front of me – he ended up holding the door for me. I melted. I told my friend that was the guy, the rest of my life guy. I didn't have the courage to talk to him but he befriended a useful tool and so I danced on a speaker in front of him in the tightest snakeskin pants imaginable – Rob kinda ignored me but his new tool didn't so I beckoned the guy over to dance then said I was tired lets go meet your friends! Then I got to meet Rob and we started talking, he walked me to the car, kissed me, gave me his number which I LOST but thankfully he called me the next the day and the rest is really history. 🙂
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Every single time I perform I am a ball of nerves, in fact I don't like to perform at all. Once you hear your music, your body will go into auto pilot, I promise. You won't blank, you've run the routine, know the song, trust me your body knows what to do when it needs to do it. You will be great, your performance will be a blur and you'll want to do it all over again 😀
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My bf kinda hates pole in general but respects what it has done for me. He will help and spot me when I need it, film the random dance if I need a filmer, etc. The biggest issue is the negativity, Rob stays fairly nuetral about things so that I don't have to feel bad about it. I think if he can't say anything nice he shouldn't say anything at all. You guys might want to have a heart to heart and just let him know his negativity is hurtful, let him know you get that it's not HIS thing but that you still need his support. 🙂
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All I can really add is that I have been poling for 6 years and I cannot always get this move, it's really hard, pure muscle.
A few tips I've found along the way that helped me was tummy up towards the ceiling, bend the bottom arm so you can push and pull up with your top arm. Start with knees bent to lessen the load too.
You can always work this reverse too which I recommend. Slow your descent coming down, nice and controlled. 🙂 I hope that helps.
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I'd be pretty offended at first. Echoing what's been said, he just doesn't really get it. I have had students tell me that their husbands told them their floor work wasn't sexy, lol. You should ask him what he was expecting.
AS far as the strip club correlation, men who have been to clubs do sometimes make the connection but I think it's more about the overall look and feel of the dance vs moves you and the girls were doing. Exotic dancers generally don't do a lot of tricks for a myriad of reasons (pole is slippy, pole isn't safe, pole tricks don't always equal $$.) I've never seen a beginner exotic dancer start out looking any different than pole students, either. We all start somewhere, we all feel awkward dancing around the cold steel pole. Heck, I see exotic dancers who have been dancing for awhile still look uncomfortable with the pole – progress and comfort are individual. Some of the exotic dancers I know who really aren't into pole also make big bucks because they love to chat, talk and hustle.
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My father came across my videos and was extremely disappointed and didn't like what he saw. I don't think he looks anymore and I decided that I would only post family approved videos on my fb page and have trained him to look there for videos but I still get worried and paranoid now. It depends on what you post though, I have some raunchy videos. Not that I am ashamed of them but when your dad calls you because he found a video of you grinding on the floor – an uncomfortable conversation ensues, not one I enjoyed and it did leave me feeling bad. I don't even pole under my real name and he still found it.
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I'm going though this student phase in my journey – I like honest critique, do help me make things better, but don't leave me feeling as if I have no business pole dancing…which is kind of how I feel currently, give me the tools and information to help me improve but please tell me I should keep going. Small things are still things.