[poledanceromance]

Its not just the plastic. I’ve been trying to break them in for the past year. I can get the plastic loosened up, it’s that my toes hang over the front making it difficult to, say, slide up to a forearm stand, or roll over the toes to stand up all strippery. Quite the pita. I wish I knew someone who had a pair of 8s I could try and see if they’re comfy. I don’t want them flying off either. The annoying thing about being a real half size is that sometimes I’ll find brands of shoes where the 7 is painfully tight but the 8 is dangerously large. Maybe part of the problem is the style of shoe. I think they’re the KISS model, but the sole of the shoe is kind of tapered in so the small surface area combined with my toes hanging off the front makes me feel like I’m going to topple over. And I’m a stiletto lover. I’m usually very comfortable even in pencil-point heels. But I can’t get confident in this one pair. I have a non-platform pair of electric blue patent leather stilettos I wore for my college graduation, but they’re such nice dress shoes that i really don’t want to wreck them.

[poledanceromance]

Just wanted to update. We started with Empy’s basic idea and went from there. We ultimately went with PS removables, and to keep costs down, the owner’s boyfriend is building some bracing down from the beams to level it out at 12′, which will keep costs down on hardware and put us around $380 per pole. So those top plates will have a really solid wooden base to go against that will keep the metal joists nice and stable as well and make it easy to get the poles up in the right spot each time. Were also installing them in the scheme of a larger plan to add several more! And were having a large mirror installed in front of them so as we add more poles going down the length of the studio we can just add mirror sections to match. When it’s all said and done the danceable area will be 9’3", which I’m really pleased with.

Plus, I got paid just for coming into the studio to consult about installation. So I’m just tickled about this whole situation!!

Now I just have to deal with my own pole…turns out the ceilings in my new house are 10′, so I have to buy an extension for my original xpole before I can even use my new space! ARGH!! forunately, they still sell them online or I’d be totally s.o.l!

[poledanceromance]

On a related note, do you half-size ladies usually go up a half step or down a half step in shoe size? 7.5 tends to be comfy for me, so I went with the 7. I’ve had the shoes about a year, and even after wearing them with socks, warming them up, and really trying to break them in, I’m still not happy with the fit. I wish I’d gone with the 8. Anyone else had this problem?

[poledanceromance]

That’s the spin that BadAzz calls the dangerous spin.

[poledanceromance]

I agree! Either curtains or just a tapestry with the sv logo HUGE in the middle. With that awesome splashy sparkly effect you sweep across the logo in the intro for your YouTube videos all around it. Like a black cloth with that cool sparky pattern and the big round sv logo with "studioveena" just BAM right across the middle. Yeah. Make it big. I’ll totally hang it in my new POLE ROOM and take all kinds of pictures of my sv shrine.

I def have decided to decorate my little studio with framed pictures of my friends and idols here on sv. I’ve been a member since before I got my pole. Only fitting that now that I have room to set up a small home studio that the space should have that love and inspiration all around me.

[poledanceromance]

I just wanted to update everyone. Man and I were able to compromise. He still can’t lift anything, but wanted to hold up his end of the deal with our trade (when I packed everything for his move so he promised to do all my loading in return). So he spent the afternoon doing all the dishes in my sink and getting the kitchen partly cleaned, and he also called in a few favors with his friends. So lo and behold but three huge guys descended on my apartment and everything was moved in about 4 hours! My mom wanted to help ke move, bit she and my dad are with my dads parents because my grandma is dying. Obviously, that’s been part of what had been upsetting me about this move that I didn’t share in my op. It’s hard for me to deal with allthe change right now, because she is up there dying of cancer and I’ve got this moving commitment…I don’t think she wants me to see her in the condition she is in, on hospice and very weak, and my dad thinks I should avoid seeing her in current state as well, but being so up-in-the-air makes me want to cut and run and just go sit next to her bed and cry. She’s one of the most important people in my life. Taught me everything I know about working the earth and gardening. So I guess I just need to plant a new garden and tend to the old one, hang up my pictures, and pray for my family to have peace and strength.

Thank you all for being here for me at a time when my family does not have the emotional energy to be here for me. Part of the reason I didn’t call my own friends to help me is that I don’t have any down here. I made the decision to move to my former college town in the middle of the summer. Pretty dead around here. I really am trying to start fresh. Man, starting fresh really sucks before you really get started! But still, thank you all for being here for me. The past few weeks, my pole sisters have meant more to me than you all could ever know.

[poledanceromance]

I also bought my pole without ever taking a lesson. In fact, I’ve been dancing for almost a year, and didn’t set foot in a studio for the first time until two weeks ago.

I really, really wanted to pole. I fell in love with pole. I spent over two years wanting to buy a pole, but the money always got used for something else. The day I got my pole, I was kicking myself for not just going out and buying it two years prior. I don’t think I could have just signed up for lessons and done it at first…I felt really awkward too.

I would say, buy your pole and sign up for Veena’s lessons. Get your feet under you. Once your confidence builds, you can try out some classes and see if you like the social aspect. Because real face-to-face instruction really is unbeatably awesome. But, I understand not everyone can start out that way. Plus, if (please, WHEN) you got hooked in class, you’d just be buying a pole for your house out of sheer addiction, anyway!

[poledanceromance]

I’m with you. Had no confidence to try it, so I waited to be instructed on this one on a mat. I was taught that the easiest way is from a chopper. Get a comfy thigh grip and hold with the outside hand while inverted, reach the top hand around and get it solid then arch way way back, really really arch and drop the back leg. When I was doing it right, the thigh burn was unreal. I was working on it more today. It’s just excruciating to me. As
bad as yogini was at first for me. But from a chopper is definitely the easiest way IMO. I was also shown from Scorpio but she said there’s an innate awkwardness to that way that makes it a little harder and I found that to be true. Tbh Im just tickled to finally be in a position to talk about this move! Woohoo haha!

[poledanceromance]

Posting again after having read it all. My $.02:

1) feminism is about choice and about teaching us all the places in which things that are normal or not considered sexist in our society have been shaped by misogynism. Ideally, feminism relates this to the post-colonial world at large, and shows how the dialogue used to subjugate women is the same "us/them" dialogue that subjugates many groups of people for who they are. And the funny thing about subjugated people is that subjugated people can’t help but have the oppressor dialogue become part of their own culture. So all this is about choice. A womans choice to own her culture however she chooses, by being a stay at home mom if she wants, a career woman without kids if she wants, a pole dancer if she wants, or a prostitute if she wants, but only if she wants, and that she deserves to not be assulted for her choices, because they are a result of who she feels she is-something she can’t change. So all these women who think that being a feminist means covering yourself in baggy track suits and sewing your vagina shut after you have kids really need to crack some damn books.

2) so many people told the OP that she deserved 11 pages of flaming because anyone who is proud of pole dancing should expect to be publicly harassed by hundreds of people. That’s like saying a woman deserves to be raped if she is proud of her body and wears a miniskirt and heels to the bar.

3) I lost count of the posts saying "go to the gym like a normal person." I.e. How dare you pursue a method of fitness in privacy. You should be paying to work out in public where you can show off your progress properly. Or worse, they told her she was "flaunting it" by having it in the living room, the one place it beat fit. They act like having it in the living room = dancing naked in the street with neon signs pointing at your naked body and cameras broadcasting it to childrens TVs.

4) no matter how many times she said "I’m doing this for me" they said "you’re doing this to be looked at by men." when she said "I’m doing this to get toned" they took issue with the word "toned!" FFS!!! She just means she wants to be toned but not bulky! Such nitpicking! She could have told them she was a nun in a convent with a private room and a removable pole dancing aerobic style to showtunes and they still would have told her she was just a man-leeching attention whore.

The language all these mothers are spewing at this woman is not only hateful, it’s dangerous. Every day, these moms are reinforcing to their children the idea that a woman is always a sex object whether she wants to be or not, and any lecherous attention she receives because of her gender is to be expected and tolerated. Even worse, that it is deserved. The point is that no woman deserves 11 pages of hatred for her choices, as long as they aren’t malicious.

That was probably $.04, but whatever. Freakin buttholes.

*Edited to fix a few typos.

[poledanceromance]

I wanted to post before bed since I really appreciated all your replies. I read them all periodically throughout the day. I should clarify that the only reason I came to depend on my guy for this move was that he just moved a month ago, right at the same time he got a new job. He had to move one weekend and couldn’t get the time off and worked three 10 hour shifts in a row, so I basically moved for him. All he really did was some heavy lifting. I packed everything and then unpacked it at the new place, set up all his decorations and hung pictures, stocked cabinets, folded undies etc lol. He doesn’t have much stuff, the silly musician, it wasn’t hard. I however have tons of furniture, a dining room set, mattress and box spring, couch, thee full size dressers, and literally 6-10 full size boxes of just books. Too much for me factoring stairs both ways to do safely alone. But he was like beyond tearfully grateful for my help in that and promised to help me move. He actually asked me if I could move the truck day so that he could help, and offered to pay the cancellation fee and cost of a new truck on a better day if they wouldn’t let me move it. (luckily, they did)

I took what you all said to heart about obstacles making an outcome sweeter, and tried to remember I always have the capability to make new happy memories. I rescheduled my truck to Friday. And I’m currently trying to pin down a couple friends to help so that my guy cab mostly stick to helping me arrange things inside, I.e. Scoot things across the floor with me and not have to do tons of lifting. He’s been really depressed that he is so unable to help so I’m trying to get the job done enough myself that he doesn’t feel like he’s screwing me over yet have lots of valuable things for him to help me with because he wants to feel needed and to help me in kind and, frankly, I want the help.
I still don’t feel 100% joyful about my move. There’s such a sadness about losing my adorable, personality-packed first apartment. ESP because I forgot to take pics before I tore it all apart like a total idiot. Arg. I hope it’s normal to feel so torn even when a choice seems like the best choice on it’s front.

[poledanceromance]

I suggest sending the original poster a private message apologizing for the others reactions and sending her our way (to studioveena). Let her know there’s a place where people are proud of her for taking a first step toward improving her life and doing something amazing for herself.

[poledanceromance]

Great blog post! Only thing I have to add to it is that even if you were to cause damage with the pole that cost more than your deposit amount to fix (and this is unlikely since drywall is cheap) there is usually something in the lease saying that, if repairs cost more than the deposit was, the tenant (you) pay the difference. So you don’t have to worry about stiffing the landlord. Also a good thing to check your lease on the landlords visitation policy. A good landlord will never let himself in without asking once the keys are in your hand.

[poledanceromance]

I gave her the link to ps but I think she’s hesitant to go the permanent route. Removable is ideal. Unfortunately removable is also pricier once you start talking about extensions or drop ceiling mounts or god forbid stages. Plus, having seen the roof that’s under the filing tiles, I don’t know how I’d place the plate for a removable. I don’t know if the wood in between the metal joists would withstand the tension, but with extra plywood I think it would accept permanent. The space is such a give-and-take. The $500 was the number I found lil mynx wants once you factor in mounts and about what a stage costs and those were the two she originally suggested. I had no idea ps permanents were so reasonably priced. I hope she goes that route. I got to try a ps for the first time last weekend and I totally loved it. It was sticky sticky sticky and my chrome is slick slick slick! Actually big enough of andifference to make me want to ditch my xpole for stainless.

Annie: def going to call markstaar now! Had no idea you could go over 8 with them. Have you tried their stainless? As for the floors, i’ll have to do some digging on that since it’s carpeted and I’m not sure what’s under. But you’re right if it’s concrete that’s a big factor.

[poledanceromance]

Amcut: markstaar sadly only goes to 8ft.

And by $500 I meant in outright pole cost. I’m rather handyman-savvy so any installation work needed, I can handle. Power tools don’t scare me haha.

[poledanceromance]

I only have one complaint with bras. And it’s the same complaint no matter who the manufacturer or what the style: when EVERY BRA COMPANY THERE IS makes their bras, they make the same bra in multiple sizes. But they don’t take into account that a smaller breast has a completely different shape than a larger breast. The cups of th bra are always the same shape as they are in a DD as they are in a AA, so the bigger chested girl has pretty supported cleavage and I get droopycups that swallow my boobs. And if I go down another size, the only thing that changes is that the cups are narrower from side to side the smaller the cup size. And it really frustrates me! A smaller breast still needs support from alllll the way over by the armpit to the center to be comfy. Just because I have small breasts doesn’t mean I cant get armpit rolls when the cup is too narrow yet sticks too far out in the front. I want a bra that doesn’t make me look like a mastectomy patient yet also doesn’t assume my boobs project forward like DDs. I want a bra that enhances the perky, MUSCULAR look that is so common in us hootlet bearing polers, and is cut for the kind of non-binding support that us girls in the AA-B range really need, because we are more concerned with achieving the proper shape than locking and loading the gals.