[poledanceromance]

I change my warmup depending on whether I’m alone or working with a student or multiple students. I will also modify it depending on what my goals for that session are.

For example: if I ultimately want to spend time after my workout going through stretches for splits, my pole workout will probably include working on extension in leg hangs, spins and spin combos, jades, caterpillar climbs and leg intensive floor and movement. And then my warmup would be tailored to that, with upper body warmups focusing on stabilizing and mobility and getting gently warm, then doing a series of regular squats, squats with wide hip rolls and narrow tight hip rolls in all directions. I’d follow that with a series I threw together that moves smoothly through a light standing straddle stretch to a light lunge series that goes into a plank that’s lowered, pushed up to a downward dog stretch and then reverses, back to the plank, to the hip exercise, to the lunge, to standing, to the light stretch and then starts again on the other side. I put the sequence together so a very thorough warmup targeted for my goals for the session doesn’t take half an hour. It’s definitely possible to look at exercises the same way you would dance moves and put together a little “routine” for a warmup of exercises that flow from one to the next so you’re really MOVING through them and getting an efficient warmup.

If I’m working alone and don’t have particular goals for a session, but rather want to just move and dance, exploring moves and poses I already have nailed down, I will just lightly freestyle through one or two songs, focusing on warming my body up in the same systematic way I would do with basic exercises, but without an intense focus on particular muscle groups, just getting my body generally warm.

Maybe for a monthly challenge we could each record our warmups, since everyone seems to do such different activities!

[poledanceromance]

Those white pants were HOT. That was at last year’s pole convention. She also said her pole was drowned in dry hands to compnsate hahaha.

[poledanceromance]

There’s a couple make polers out there *cough cough Jungle Cat cough!* who accomplish amazing pole feats in jeans. I’ll never know how they do it.

[poledanceromance]

Happy Valentines Day to you too, v! Xoxoxo mama!

[poledanceromance]

How about season one when Hayley shaves her head, moves out with Jeff (to his shag-van…parked in front of their house…) and starts stripping. At the end she flips into a CAR and her wig falls off and she gets booed offstage for being bald lol.

[poledanceromance]

Proactiv does work for me for the prevention and treatment of pimples, but the system can be harsh and drying. It actually can leave me without pimples, but with clogged pores. This is because if you strip off the oil on your skin with cleaning and lotions, your skin will produce even more oils to make up for the dryness. So you can be dry but oily and clogged at the same time. So when my skin really gets bad, I use the oil cleansing method because oil dissolves oil but doesn’t dry the skin. So I take coconut or jojoba oil because they’re similar to your skin’s oils, and add a bit of sugar if I want to exfoliate. But rub it all over your face with firm, massage kind of motions not scrubby motions. It can work all that gunk out of your pores. Then I remove the oil by taking a clean wash rag with hot water and pressing it to my face and GENTLY wiping the oil away. Then I apply the proactive lotion so it gets to my pores and I get the medication of the lotion without the drying effects of the face scrub and toner.

[poledanceromance]

Particularly if you are wrapping your hand around the pole past neutral as many people working on static spins for the first time do and not even realize.

[poledanceromance]

I’ll say that as a female who has gone to strip clubs, there is definitely a possibility for a respectful relationship there. I’ve had dancers offer me dances because they can tell I’m there for fun and not to be sleazy; they enjoy the playful flirting with me, and to demonstrate to them that I respect them, I don’t try to touch them or push physical boundaries. I keep my hands at my sides and let them do what they want.

A lot of whether that relationship is respectful depends on the client. The fact that not every client is respectful is a huge factor in determining those of us who could do that line of work and those of us who couldn’t. Because once the client pushes that boundary, it’s up to the dancer to handle that emotionally or not. If you can look at that the same way a waitress would look at a bad tip “that’s shitty and not cool. Get the F out of here.” then it’s not much different. But if you’re the sort of person who would feel horribly violated from a customer’s lack of respect, then that person probably shouldn’t strip OR waitress haha.

I honestly believe that morally right/wrong is at least partly connected to whether it’s right or wrong specifically for the person doing the action. If you can be comfortable with stripping and it doesn’t damage you as a person to do it, and you aren’t knowingly doing anything unethical with clients, I can’t find anything wrong there.

[poledanceromance]

I made one by taking a spare length of PVC pipe my dad had and wrapping a section of floor mat around it. It’s firm, but has give, and different textures to roll over. I’m really happy with it.

[poledanceromance]

So basically, we have a question on sweaty hands which was answered with full explanations of the chemical composition of the various components of each product and their action on the body.

This, ladies and gents, is why pole dancers are so awesome.

Sorry to hijack, carry on! 😀

[poledanceromance]

Think of it this way: when you let loose dancing for your husband, you’re doing it for many different reasons. But a big reason is that you feel safe in the boundaries of that relationship to express your sexuality and really assert your sexiness to him. It’s healthy for people to want that connection.

That’s also why people go to strippers-to enjoy certain kinds of sexual experiences in the boundaries of a much different client-customer relationship. Women who dance, ideally, are there because they are comfortable and confident in the boundaries of that relationship, and like to be sexually “in command” of their clients, to control the encounter. Even if a dancer is fulfilling the fantasy of an “innocent girl” character for her client, she’s still in control because of the setting and the nature of their relationship.

When you imagine yourself in that role, it feels icky because you’re not comfortable with that scenario. But the women doing the dancing in real life don’t necessarily feel that way. Maybe try imagining yourself in the club, but the only person in the audience is your husband(or multiple customers, but they’re all your husband!). But see if you can picture being in that setting and feeling the same way about being on stage that you feel when your husband is the audience. When you dance for him, you’re definitely in a dominant position. The two aren’t really that far apart, it just involves very different kinds of relationships.

[poledanceromance]

Just beside you can’t hold yourself in a static hold in the spin position doesn’t mean you can’t do the spin! The fireman spin is one of the easier spins, but I wouldn’t expect a beginner who can do a fireman to be able to just do a bracket hold in that position.

Remember as you do these spins that your bottom hand is important too! You should be trying to pull the pole toward you with your top hand and pushing the pole away from you with your bottom hand. Grip with the top hand like you’re trying to pull the pole down out of the ceiling, while your bottom hand is trying to push the pole away.

[poledanceromance]

Willowbreath, that’s the Camille Paglia view, one I’ve always been interested with: that it’s ridiculous to say strippers are exploited since all they do is remove their clothes and men bleed their bank accounts dry for them. It’s certainly possible to argue that the pole is a symbol of the exploitation of men because the whole club atmosphere is designed to take advantage of their instincts.

Now I don’t know if I totally agree with that argument as it still relies heavil on conventional gender norms, but it’s certainly an interesting way to turn it around. There are certainly men out there who have basically gone into financial ruin for their favorite woman at the club.

Either way, I think it’s important to acknowledge that if you’re asserting pole to be symbolic over women, you’re assigning more defining power to the pole than you are to the sexuality of the woman dancing on it. And I think that’s selling female sexuality short; it’s the dancer who defines the dance (and the apparatus), not the other way around.

[poledanceromance]

I’m not sure of any actual manufacturers of Chinese poles…but here’s a website that I know has specs to build one!

http://www.fedec.eu/home.1587.html

It’s under “pedagogical tools,” might have to do a little digging

[poledanceromance]

Please please listen to this. If a pole at 20′ comes down, that is absolutely and definitely enough weight to instantly shatter bones on whoever it hits. Felix Cane herself very recently almost died because of a rigging failure and has taken months to rehabilitate. If a company says their product would not be safe in your space, listen to them.