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AllysonKendal – Ugh, what a horrible experience! I’m sorry you had to go through that. Yeah, they don’t do an end-of-class freestyle at the studio I go to – sometimes they’ll have a minute or two of choreography piecing together everything we learned in class – and the music they play isn’t terrible, but still isn’t anything I would choose to dance to. I will definitely check out those videos (video didn’t work at all on my phone, but I can watch them now that my laptop is back, yay!), thanks for pointing me to Veena and Stefana 🙂

kulotsalot – I like that idea of doing some passes at it in a more dance-oriented way, I guess that’s what the other girl and I were doing. That’s a lot easier to do in the first class than in the second, since the second class is so advanced and challenging that I’m pretty much purely thinking about the technique and doing it so I don’t injure myself.

The other girl I usually take classes with mentioned that she’s considered starting her own freestyle class at this studio, and I would definitely take it if I could or else talk about having an open pole at this location at a time when I could go (I have a feeling I would know more people there)… I’m just a bit worried about having enough rest days, since I pole 4 or 5x a week as it is =/ Maybe I could do that on weeks when I only have 3 days of work, then I’d consistently be poling 5 days a week and have the same rest days?

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tacha666 – That’s totally true, I wasn’t even thinking about that… people charging ahead and trying to get the “cool” fad tricks before they even have basics down is definitely a problem. Also the whole idea of “fad tricks” seems like BS to me, not every trick is right for every body and every dance style, it is so much more important to have good basics. I see the point now too, I wasn’t even considering that.

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Sorry for the novel of a post, I just have a lot of thoughts on this.

I actually found this exact video 8-9 months ago, before I had gotten back into classes at my local studio. I didn’t know much of anything about pole back then, only that I loved it and wanted to learn more, and I had heard girls say they had learned or wanted to learn from YouTube videos so that’s where I went. I have to admit I didn’t read the description or the comments, I just saw that the video was titled “beginner” and marked it in my phone as “moves I should work on.” This was a little before I had my basic invert, so it definitely made me feel bad about myself that I couldn’t do most of these tricks that were apparently “beginner tricks.” I also feel like that was part of the reason I started working on my aerial invert WAY too soon after I got my basic invert from the ground, which meant I was kicking into it. It’s still kind of a habit for me to kick into aerial inverts, even though I know it’s bad and that I’m strong enough to lift myself into it.

The description does make it a bit better, but it’s still incredibly misleading when the common understanding of “beginner” is very different from how she’s using it. It also bothers me that she says almost every trick begins with an invert. I can think of quite a few advanced tricks that begin with a CAR/CKR, a witch sit, etc. There’s also quite a few beginner (or slightly past beginner but not quite intermediate, at my studio it’s classified as novice level) things that can be done aerially that don’t require an invert. I was recently thinking about how much happier I would have been if I had gone back into classes sooner, since I would have been less focused (and miserable) with trying to get my basic invert and having more fun learning the other stuff that WAS within my ability. If I had read the description, I would have been incredibly discouraged to see her say that. I also can’t believe she says that you’re at beginner level until you have your full front and middle splits. Bodies are so different and flexibility training takes so much time, it just kind of boggles my mind to see someone say that. There’s a ton of advanced stuff I’ve been working on that doesn’t require full splits in any direction, and I think it would have made me feel incredibly hopeless if I had read that, say, a year ago.

I don’t want to be too negative about this, though. I think I see what she was trying to do – I agree with Phoenix, I think she was trying to show how challenging pole dance is by saying in the description that the fundamentals/basics take months or years to learn and take lots of conditioning to be able to do. I give her credit for that, I just think she didn’t communicate that very well in some ways.

I agree with Phoenix that I’ve definitely seen that kind of dismissive “I’ll learn it on YouTube” attitude, and it really bothers me because it’s clear those people aren’t taking it seriously as an art/sport. Obviously not everyone who uses YouTube as a tool for learning pole dance are treating it that way – I saw a video interview with Nicole “The Pole” where she said she primarily learned off of YouTube – but I just can’t shake the feeling that it needs to be approached very carefully. There’s so much on YouTube – and so much crap on YouTube, like the videos that Veena mentioned saying beginners should be able to do XY and Z – that I feel like you have to know something going in to not get lost, hopeless, or injured. I’ve definitely used YouTube videos at times, but I felt like it was the most useful when I had the basics of a move down already and wanted to learn variations. I also feel like even decent tutorials aren’t anywhere near as detailed as a lesson really should be. I know not everyone can afford studio lessons, but it just feels really dangerous to use YouTube to learn a ton of new stuff, since a 3-4 minute video can only tell you so much, and it would be easy to miss something and get injured.

That said, I am so so happy that SV exists as a resource for those who want to learn online 🙂 I don’t have the lessons mainly because I don’t have a home pole and I am NOT comfortable trying new things at work (the poles are a bad width for me, are rarely cleaned, there’s dangly light fixtures on the ceiling above the stage, the floors are plexiglass or something, there’s pressure to get everything perfect on the first try when you’re on stage). If I had a pole at home, though, I would get them in a heartbeat. It’s awesome to see such a detailed resource and such a dedicated woman putting it all out there 🙂

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Hi! I’m a baby aerial artist (just pole so far) in the US who also works as a stripper. I’m curious if you’re considering working in a club, or if you’re just curious to learn more about pole dance in general? Because, while Western pole dance as we know it today did originate in strip clubs, there’s really not all that much of it going on in front of customers most of the time. I’m convinced that most of the development of pole happened in empty clubs full of bored strippers, not in front of crowds of people sitting at stages. Pole dancing and stripping really are separate things at the end of the day.

I second everything skramamme said. Most dancers at all the clubs I’ve worked at do little to no pole work, maybe some basic spins but not much more than that. That said, there are a *few* clubs where you can make some money off your pole work, and where you will probably see some skilled pole work at some point in the night if you go there. They tend to be big clubs in big cities, they tend to have taller poles, and in my experience they tend to have a reputation as being more classy than other clubs in the area. There are a few dancers at the club I work at who regularly make quite a bit off the pole (stage is where I make most of my money), but in my experience you have to get fairly advanced to consistently make money off your pole tricks.

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Sorry I haven’t gotten the chance to respond before now, thank you for all the replies!

@chemgoddess – I’m definitely curious to find like-minded people in the pole community, as Phoenix Hunter explained. There’s so much variety of ages, races and body types that I’ve seen in pole that I was kind of sad to not find much at all on lesbian pole dancers. Trying to search “lesbian pole dancer” on Google just gets you a bunch of porn sites =/ The other unfortunate thing that I saw was a fair amount of casual heteronormativity (things that assume heterosexuality) on various pole blogs and sites owned by straight female pole dancers across the web. I really don’t think any of these women even realized they were doing it, but those things were still jarring and I wasn’t able to get into their work in the same way after that, and it made me feel very alone.

Thank you, I wasn’t aware of those women before! I’ll definitely look them up 🙂

@Rhianael, millonme – I’ve wondered about that too, making people feel weird or like I must be trying to hit on them because I’m a lesbian. In the end, because I want to be open about my life (and also just want any opportunity to bring up my wonderful wife 🙂 ), I am still open about my orientation, and the studio I go to has been good and accepting. At the end of the day, I figure, if a woman *assumes* you’re hitting on her just because you’re attracted to women, that says more about her than you =P

@polekat, Stefana of Light – I’ve known a number of women who have said that, they’re attracted to men but appreciate the female form more. To be honest, I think I said that at one point too before I accepted the true extent of my feelings for women.

It’s really not something I can separate out, myself. My aesthetic appreciation for women, my sexual attraction, my romantic feelings, my general affinity for other women – it all kind of blends together, it’s all part of the same thing for me. It’s like… “Do I want to be with her or be her? Ah, screw it, it’s both” =P The only feelings I’ve ever had for men are feelings of obligation and, when I was younger and didn’t know what lesbianism was, envy that they got to date girls =P (yet that was somehow enough to convince myself that I was bisexual when I was younger… But that’s a different story)

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I definitely empathize with having an imbalanced invert! I have quite a few inverted tricks on my right side, but on my left I can barely get up, and sometimes miss the pole. I’ve noticed that a big obstacle for me on my left is actually pain tolerance – since I haven’t conditioned the skin much on that side, everything burns a lot more and is harder to do. I’ve been trying to get into some of the inverted tricks on my left side through a side climb-jasmine-inverted trick progression in addition to working on my inverts in order to train that skin better and get my body more used to doing a lot of the same things on both sides.

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For sweaty hands, I would recommend Dry Hands – it’s basically liquid chalk and dries on your hands within a few seconds of applying it. This is my go-to when I start sweating.

For dry legs, I have two suggestions. If you like grip products made specifically for pole, I would recommend DewPoint Pole. It’s a grip product that moisturizes the skin, and it worked really well for me when I was having grip issues due to dry skin recently. I applied it once and it worked well for 2.5 straight hours of poling.

My other (cheaper) suggestion is using Aveeno daily moisturizing lotion or Aveeno overnight cream. When I applied these the night before poling, it actually made my skin grippier the next day. The daily moisturizing cream worked pretty well for me, while the overnight cream actually made my skin TOO grippy – which is really saying something considering I have dry skin and live in a dry climate. It might work well for you, though, depending on your skin and climate where you pole. I wouldn’t apply this the day of, since that made me a bit slippery, but I found using it the night before worked well for me 🙂

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@KiwiGirl – That really sucks, I’m sorry =/ I would have nearly cried too, I can do 50s (though I vastly prefer a 45) but there’s no way I could do one on spin. If they have one or two 45s, I would definitely be showing up mega-early to get a 45!

My studio used to have a few 50s in the back, while the rest were 45s. At some point they took out the 50s and now they’re all 45s. They all have static and spin modes, but the default setting is static.

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Hey there Macabre! I feel your pain for sure – I have tiny hands as well, I actually just measured them because I was curious and they’re about the same size that yours are (middle finger just barely passes the 6 inch mark, measuring wrist to tip of middle finger). I’d also say my grip on a 45mm looks about the same as yours.

I’ve been poling for a little longer than 1 1/2 years, and these days my grip feels pretty solid on a 45mm. I can hold a split grip pretty well and I’ve got a good, wide reverse grab spin on a 45 that feels very secure. I use Dry Hands pretty rarely on a 45 (usually only when I start to get pretty sweaty). So there is hope! You will get there!

Honestly, I’m pretty sure the reason my grip feels so secure on a 45 despite the size of my hands is because I’m forced to work with a 50mm pole most of the time (3-4 days of the week, I only get to use a 45mm once a week when I go to lessons). This is a good way to get a solid grip, but man is it frustrating as hell. I’ve actually fallen out of quite a few reverse grabs that I’ve tried on a 50mm, even when I just used Dry Hands and I thought my grip felt solid. I can only hold a split grip for a few seconds before I come sliding down, and I use buckets of Dry Hands all the time whenever I work with a 50mm.

Other than that, your grip strength will grow as you pole, regardless of what diameter you’re using. It will get stronger even if you never touch a 50mm 🙂

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I’ve been lucky enough to avoid big differences in pain tolerance/energy/mood swings. My big thing is that I get AWFUL cramps and extremely heavy flow for 2-3 days of my cycle. I’ll avoid going to work on those days if I can, but sometimes I can’t avoid it. If I had class that day I would probably try to go to a class later in the week instead. It’s definitely best to rest if you can.

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I’ve poled in some ridiculously small spaces, and my main advice is: start slow. Extend slowly into your moves, especially ones that have you extending your body farther away from the pole, and pay close attention to where your body is in the space around you so you don’t bump into anything. It’s likely that you’ll be able to fully extend into tricks only if you’re facing a certain direction, so make note of where that is. You might be able to speed up a bit over time as you get more used to the style of movement and the specific space around you, but don’t push yourself and don’t try speeding up a lot until you feel confident that you know your space – and where you can safely extend – very well. Even after you get used to your specific layout, keep starting slow for every new trick you do.

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Oh, this is especially bad in showclub-style strip clubs. The desire to race ahead of where you really should be is already there in a studio setting, but when you’re a dancer in a strip club who can’t do certain tricks, but you see the girls who CAN do those tricks getting more attention and better stage tips than you are because those tricks make them look more impressive on the pole – it makes you want to try EVERYTHING NOW, because you want to do it anyways but you also need the money, goddammit.

This is the urge that led me to try the Jade split when I had absolutely no business doing so – I did not have the flexibility and I barely had an aerial invert, but I saw other dancers doing it and figured I would go for it. Thank god I found Aerial Amy’s Jade tutorial and started taking classes, or else I fear what could have happened to me (and my ribs).

I try to be much more careful these days, and the studio I go to is good about providing a progression of tricks and skill levels, so that’s definitely helped me be much safer and stay within my skill level. The things I see other girls at the club do sometimes, though… Especially the Jade. I’ve seen some truly awful Jades from women who have no business trying it yet, and I really wonder if they’re going to break a rib soon. The other thing I see happening all the time is kicking into inverted tricks that they probably don’t have the strength for yet, as well as bad body placement in twisted grip.

And yes, drunk poling. Taking shots to get over fear of handsprings = worst idea ever, but I’ve heard girls say they did it.

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I do think I have short arms =/

I talked to my instructor about the Janeiro, and he went ahead and taught it in the class. It clarified so many things for me 🙂 I feel ridiculous now, because I realized I was trying to put my head where my legs were supposed to go and vice versa O.O God, no wonder I was getting nowhere with this move! I don’t even know how I got it in my head that that’s what I was supposed to do!

Also, in class I was able to almost get it 🙂 I just needed to let go with the one arm so my upper body can lift up and I don’t feel like I can’t breathe. Watching the video I took of myself, I can really see why I feel that way when I don’t let to with that arm. I just hope I have the strength to hold it that way, since all your weight is on one arm and I haven’t really done all that much in flag grip (though I can hold my weight in that grip, I haven’t been able to get into a flag/half-flag the one or two times I’ve really tried).

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The studio I go to charges $20 for a lesson that lasts an hour and fifteen minutes, $10 for an hour of open pole, and $50 for a private lesson. I currently have a package with them – $99 a month for unlimited lessons, though I think that’s a temporary deal they’re offering. They always have packages of a series of classes, usually a package for a level of difficulty (6 beginner classes, for example). I believe my studio is on the low end for what it charges, but it just depends on the studios in your area. If you do a search for studios near you, they’ll probably say on their website how much they charge, or you can call and ask.

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@Andrea Pole – WOW… New favorite pole dancer! She’s amazing!

I think it’s wonderful when kids pole! I wish I had been able to pole as a kid. I never really felt like I found my place or my passion until I found pole, and I could have had that a lot sooner had I been able to pole as a little girl.

My studio had a mother/daughter pole class at one point, and I thought that was the sweetest thing. I wish more studios would let children take classes, there really isn’t a reason they shouldn’t be able to if the classes aren’t sexual in nature.