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I have a 50mm cos that’s what the pole studio I took classes at had. If I had extra cash for a 45mm, I’d love to get one too just to see the difference, but I do like how smooth and non pinchy the 50 is for sliding down it and I’ve heard 45’s can pinch?

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Thanks guys! I guess my laptop is kind of old now. My phone is pretty new so I guess I'm going to be trying to tape it to something to get videos done that way. I don't need HD to see myself, soft focus is my freind, lol 😉

[NightFall]

Thanks guys! I guess my laptop is kind of old now. My phone is pretty new so I guess I'm going to be trying to tape it to something to get videos done that way. I don't need HD to see myself, soft focus is my freind, lol 😉

[NightFall]

"ew" to blood clots and passing out!https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_eek.gif

[NightFall]

This is a good question and something that the author of "Living Dolls" felt was a sign of a backlash against feminism, while I personally feel it's anything but, or at the very least, that "it depends" on the person. 
 

For me: I took a pole class because – big deep breath and- I thought it was tacky and couldn't understand why women today would sign up for this. So naturally, the best way to understand something is to just do it, and once I did I loved it and I've been thinking about my prior opinion on it a lot and where it came from.

Ok, we know where my old opinion came from: I can't watch re-runs of the sporanos without scenes of zombified girls rubbing themselves against poles unenthusiastically in every episode. That's the common preception of pole dancers. I didn't even know there was more to it than dancing around a pole naked until I youtubed it.

The bigger annoyence for me is the "but it's sexual" part. here's the thing: guys are turned on by women, no matter what we do. Woman washing a car: SEXUAL. Woman bending over to check something in the oven: SEXUAL. Woman doing yoga: SEXUAL. Woman in rain (ffs!!): SEXUAL https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_surprised.gif. That's how horney guys are! We have no control of what someone sees as "sexual" and it's not our problem. And this is especially important for me because I grew up in the arabian gulf where just walking down the street covered in black (not that I ever needed to do the all black thing 'cos I'm not from saudi or iran, but most women do dress that way in my country because it's culteral) are sexy. They actually find blobs of black silk SEXY. They'll point out a particular blob and say to their friends "she's hot. I think she's fliritng with me". There is nothing women can do to discourage sexual thought, and in the torah, apparently it's pretty explicity said that this is men's problem, not womens. 
 

Pole dancing in itself is neither repressive nor liberating: it depends on the context. 
A  (hypothetical) pole dancer who is being exploited is no worse off than a girl working in a sweat shop and being exploited (so is my sewing machine a tool or repression too? or just a money saving gizmo?) or spraying pesticides on tomatoes (same question re: my watering can), etc. 

People object most vocally against the symbols that they can't hide of things they wish didn't exsist; the girl in the sweat shop or tomato feild aren't visible, but the pole dancer is. What they should be objecting to is inequality, but it's easier to hide the pole dancer than it is to change inequality.

Lots of other sensitivies are representative of this sentiment.

xxxxx

[NightFall]

I think those posts would work much better as text posts instead of jpegs (although I'm guessing the point of the jpeg is to be able to print it like an index card for offline reference?). If they were text posts in addition to the jpegs/images then the text could link to the individual moves demonstrated on youtube or whereever. In fact, maybe if the text linked to a youtube playlist of the all the moves and then there was a jpeg under the text link so after people get familiar they can print off the jpeg to stick on their wall, mirror, etc. 

I think it's a great blog, just a teeny bit user unfriendly at present since I can't copy and paste the text in the images to search for, and I'm too lazy to remember the names and type them in one by one, but I think the text post + image combo would knock it out of the ballpark.

xxxxxx

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Guys, The Sun isn’t a real newspaper! It’s mostly bought for having the "page three girls" (on, page 3, as the name implies) who are toppless girls in their late teens or early twenties. The "paper" is racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and anti single moms, and like their peers in the trash paper world, they’re not above printing stuff that MADE UP: e.g.
http://bit.ly/cbsHp9

This was run in the slightly more credible, but only due to lack of nudity, Daily Mail. But really their "ethics" and audiance are the same. Here’s an example of the Mails distortion http://bit.ly/cA3uZn. No one bothers to critisize The Sun, because it’s such a joke. I’m sure this peice is fiction written to whip up anti-pole, anti single mom feelings.
Oh, another fave from the mail is when they wrote aboout visiting an area in england that had the highest precentage of single moms and the female reporter wrote: i was expecting burnt out shells of cars in the streets. Yes, like that’s what single moms do for chill out at the end of the day.
xxx

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I’m sorry you had such a horrible confrontation with your mom. You must be feeling very bad about this https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_sad.gif.

I think you are right and brave for standing up for your two year old. It’s not ok for him to be getting the message that his sister is "better" or "more loveable" that he is, which is what is happening each time his sister gets attention from grandma but not him. That’s something that can have a big impact on how he turns out so for you to be all mama bear and rock the boat -something i can tell you hate having to do- to protect him is the living definition of love.

Each parent needs to set boundaries. I think it shocks your mom that yours are different to hers, and she always expected you to be like her, but this is your right and she has to accept what is acceptable to you and your husband. Maybe if your mom understood it from the impact it had on your two year old, she’d see sense? She might be thinking he’s too small for it to register, but i hope she’ll be a bigger person and think of the emotional health of her grandkids and their relationship with each other, which could also be impacted if one gorws up being jealous of the other.

Hope you’re feeling better today.
https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_fish.gif https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_nemo.gif
xxxx

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I’m so sorry.
Look after yourself.
xxxxx

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I have a bunch of food allergies, (gluten and wheat, any starch or sugar dervied from wheat or gluten sources whether classified as gluten or wheat free or not, seafood, dairy and now soy. Oh my!) so most things that are processed are off limites to me. In some ways this helps as I can only eat things i prepare myself and carry around with me, but in other ways it means i go nuts when i get home and raid the plain salted potato chips. Or when I cave in and bake allergy free brownies I don’t just have one slice once a week, cos theres MORE in the fridge just waiting for me.
Defintily, it helps to prepare food in advance and carry it with you, i think. I didn’t notice before how much I’d snack while doing other stuff without noticing.
I base my meals on veg as its easiest for me, then try and get most of my protein from plant sources (quinoa, lentils, beans, etc). I eat meat once or maybe twice a week (more cos of me not liking to buy factory farmed meat but then not being rich enough to afford more of the non-factory farmed type). despite all this, I looove food so much! I’m a total foodie and trowl the foodie blogs for ideas and make up fany stuff on the weekend (quiche from rice flour, etc) and gluten free pasta is higher GI, so actually turns to fat faster than regular or wholewheat pasta, so I don’t really lose weight as such from my diet, although it helps offset what I guess I might othewise gain if I were able to add cheese to my food (sigh) or what I would have gained from eating a lot of gluten free pasta/bread.

to shayshay: the thing with salads is that I notice its easy to make a skimpy one then be starving later and snack a lot. The best advise I got was to add two or more calorific sources to it, so pick any two from: tofu (not for me, obviously), tuna, beans, avacado, falafil, boiled eggs, grilled chicken, puey lentils, etc.
I haven’t lost any "weight" according to the scale because of muscle weight, but I can see a difference in my body =). I would love to be thinner again, but it’ll happen slowly. I need to up my workout to be honest. I used to eat a lot less than I do now portion wise.

Workout wise: truthfully, it’s between 30-40 mins every other day. I would love to do more, but it’s not easy to fit in. I do pole and then some pilates for my abs cos I want to be able to invert and this is my weak spot. maybe later i’ll do some yoga stretches (seperate from my cooldown stretches) for my legs and back, but ..it’s not regular. When my bf is aways I’ll stretch while watching tv, but when he’s around around i’d rather cuddle :">.
I’ve found a kettlebell class on the saturdays that I hope to make so hopefully that’ll help.

xx

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Is this for boys too? I really think more guys need to get into this is we want it to be taken seriously. Obviously, there is still some ideas in peoples heads about what is masculine and not (think: Billy Elliot) and in Scrubs they made a joke about JD taking gymnastics, but we can challenge this too. My BF has been asking if the pole would support his weight lately and this is because he’s seeing what a workout I get. Once classes for guys start appearing, it’ll be amzing how fast this talk of pole’s "origins" disappears.

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I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I do understand that people who haven’t seen pole dance can’t get the image of the strip club out of their mind (i would have thought the same. It was just luck – and youtube- that brought the first pole dance video on youtube to my attention before the first pole dance school in Oxford opened).
I used to hate people who brought class into every argument, but i have to say, the more I’ve thought about this subject, the more i see it is relevant. People who are saying "go for a run" assume it’s SAFE to do so in the area where these girls live. For most student diggs locations, this really isn’t true. Where I live, I’d need to run FRICKING fast so as not to get knifed and/or raped in the morning. Sorry, but it’s true. I’m not saying the area is THAT bad, but I’ve lived here long enough to know this does happen, if not as frequently as in some other "choice" areas. So, no. no running for me thanks.

Same for the gym. After a certain hour, I’m not gonna walk it. I don’t have a car, I work outside of the city. I come home late. Gym is HARD for me to fit into my life. I need a workout that i can do at home. I love yoga, but there is only so many times a girl can do downward dog.
These critics assume everyone has time and access to a gym, but it’s not so. My pole costs less over a year than even the council gym membership. Not everyone has safe areas to go running in. If i go to tango or salsa, I know i’m going to meet a lot of middle class people, and I can put money down that a fair number of them will be bilingual at least. I’m probably not going to meet any metalheads or goths there. Pole dance is actually appealing to all classes and backgrounds.

Pole hasn’t gotten more popular for sinister reasons. it’s just easy to fit into a life. I don’t need a dance partner to practise. I don’t need to be at a certain place at a certain time. It’s a new thing for people who are bored of pilates, spin, yoga, etc. it’s more compact than most home gyms and setting up a pole workshop is a damn sight easier than setting up a roller derby or -and i’m guessing here- an aerial class. It’s a little bit competitive too, which is something other fitness things don’t really offer.

I think the reason people are objecting are different to my first thoughts. I think they are unconsciously emoting that this is fine for "common" people, but not for posh girls with other options.

another thing i wonder, is that the guys who object don’t like to be confronted with the idea that "that whore" on the pole is a real person. They don’t want to be forced to accept that by someone like their girlfriend or sister going to classes. It works better for them to have their fantasy girls in their head and their real girls safely at home or at work.

At any rate, it really doesn’t matter. they can grumble and write away: they objected when women first wore makeup (they said only whores did this), objected when women perused education, the vote and later on work. They said all their objections were for our own good. It didn’t change anything. neither will this. Pole will get as popular as yoga, and there was a time only hippies did yoga. People were afraid of being told to believe in hindu stuff and it was a sort of weird thing. Then came Madonna and it became cool. So yeah, people can kick up a fuss but it won’t change anything.

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To be honest, before I stumbeled across one of Veenas vids on youtube, I thought the same. This article just tells me he doesn’t like strip clubs, hasn’t looked at pole dancing vids online (presumeably goes straight to the hardcore? :-S).

The key is here in the text:

"And if, as Francisco claims, it’s "not intended to be sexual", why is it only for women? Shouldn’t men get the chance to be empowered too? I told you it was sexist!"

I think a pole fit class for men would make this article moot. If it’s great fitness, great fun, why not push it for men as much as for women? Don’t assume men would find it unmanly, give them a choice. I think, until we do, we’ll always hear this view.
xxx

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eeeee…this is what’s been bothering me all week. How to come out of moves and get back up without looking like I’m having a "now what?" moment. All my transitions look clumsy and SOOOo disjointed, but I figure the only way is to just keep doing them until I stop thinking "I look ridiculous" and start beliving "hell yeah, i’m sexy!" and then maybe it’ll show. And I’m still too weak to count for 3 secs, in ANY move..but I’ll try when I get stronger!
xxxx

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Hi there! Nice to meet you! I’m in the UK, in Oxford. Wow, you do so many things.. you must be sooo toned! xx