[poledanceromance]

Oh shit, I’m so sorry to hear you guys were underwater. My house flooded last year and it was a nightmare. I can’t even imagine the damage you dealt with having your factory flood. Glad to hear you are back on track…says good things about the business that something like that didn’t shut you down. A lot of businesses wouldn’t be able to recover.

[poledanceromance]

If it really is from the nickel, and if you bring the wipes with you and periodically clean your skin, and shower immediately after pole, and you’re getting no rash or very little rash, then I don’t think you have literally any reason at all to worry about nickel toxicity from a topical encounter.

As to the difference in the poles, xpole has said that they use a slightly different process for applying the chrome coating than they did originally and in years past and I think they have a bit of a different look to them. However look closely at the surface of the poles…look for lots of little scratches/scuff marks, it’s possible that at some point they used an abrasive chemical or treatment like fine sandpaper or magic eraser which roughed up the coating and is giving you more exposure to the nickel but…from what I understand about how chrome plating works and seals the surface, you’re not talking about a high level of exposure here. Possibly enough to cause a slight surface reaction but if you are allergic enough to react from just that, if you were having enough contact for nickel toxicity you would be in bad shape.

[poledanceromance]

Just chiming in to say I have had great luck with JC Penney carrying long length jeans in every size (from the Arizona jeans in the cubby hole on the wall in the junior section). I usually stay away from the junior section but I’ve been able to find my basic jeans there for $20 a pair.

[poledanceromance]

Agreed korinne!!!

[poledanceromance]

I’m 5’8″ and also experience some regular shorts being too short, high waisted shorts not being tall enough too is super annoying…but I’ve had good luck with mika side scrunch shorts! I like them cheeky but there’s enough fabric there that there’s a lot of crotch coverage even with a good amount of cheek.

On a side note, I’ve been “peeped” while spotting a few times even with people wearing high end workout shorts just because the fabric got pinched and pulled enough to gap just a bit. From time to time it can happen even with the fuller coverage shorts, and I would hope most instructors and students are open and professional enough to not shame someone when it does. Just my two cents, I really feel studios should be safe places for any kind of body embarrassment. (Not talking about people wearing indecent or inappropriate attire here, just saying even with the best quality pole wear a slip can occasionally happen and no one in a studio environment should be shamed or made to feel bad about if it does!)

[poledanceromance]

Interesting. I would think there would be a challenge in that there’s no horizontal place to grip, it’s all sloping down.

[poledanceromance]

I get so conflicted because I think women aspiring to be strong and have muscles is clearly a better alternative to women aspiring to be extremely thin. However the images of female fitness models often come out of unhealthy practices like dehydration and fasting before shoots to increase muscle definition. The pictures don’t tell the whole story. Sometimes the pictures are of elite athletes who are training for the function of their sport, not just to look a certain way. Their bodies are essentially a mixture of luck and accident in the sense that they have the genes to be an elite athlete and intensely skill-focused training that results in a particular build.

So for me I guess it comes down to a more general belief that, while it might be healthier for women to aspire to a muscular physique instead of an extremely thin physique, as long as the goal is about achieving a particular aesthetic and not about achieving health and skill, then it’s not really healthy.

[poledanceromance]

Thanks for the update! You’re being awesomely methodical about this. No matter what solution you find this is really good information for people who have been struggling with rashes.

[poledanceromance]

Keeping your skin clean could be the key then. This is weird, but so you know if you look in a pharmacy, they make basically baby wipes for taking care of bed/wheelchair bound people, but they’re much bigger. Like big oversize baby wipes for sponge bathing. Those could be good for wiping down during/after pole practice provided you don’t find them irritating, but they’re usually pretty gentle.

[poledanceromance]

Some people can do twisted grip easily and the rotation of the shoulder is not damaging for them when carefully and properly trained up. But some people have real anatomical limitations that make it unsafe for them to train this move, and those people should not do twisted grip bracket holds. It has nothing to do with their skill, ability, or capacity as pole dancers. It has only to do with how their muscles, tendons and skeleton are set together according to their DNA. It’s no different than how some people have anatomy that will allow them to train up for 18″ oversplits on both sides where some people’s hip anatomy simply does not allow for oversplit training. If you have taken time off as directed by a doctor, done recovery, trained up carefully and built your strength and your body is still screaming NO, if you were a student in my class I would be giving you modifications away from using that grip. Moreover I would be using the sum total of all my teaching powers to show you that you do not have to take it personally because this move isn’t for you. And I will say from my teaching experience that this is not something you HAVE to be able to do; there are modifications for almost every trick and transition I can think of. Working on those modifications can make you feel better!

[poledanceromance]

There’s alcohol in most of the liquid grip aids so be aware of that if you do a spot test of alcohol and grips and get reactions from both. If it looks like you are having issues with metal allergy from contact with the pole, you might be able to prevent the effects by showering immediately after poling if possible, or washing off/wiping down at the studio before you leave. And it can depend on the severity of your nickel allergy. For example, some people have a nickel allergy such that wearing jewelry in a fresh piercing that has a high nickel content will cause a rash, but wearing something like a bracelet or even jewelry in a healed piercing might not cause a rash. Then again some people can’t even wear costume jewelry because just the skin contact is enough for a rash. Since you tested positive you might have a severe enough allergy that the contact with the pole repeatedly over areas that get tenderized by say, doing sad girl drops or working one knee pit grip heavily in a session, could be enough. Good luck, and consider reporting back on the process of elimination you use in trying to figure it out since it seems like there’s been a couple people with questions on this lately!

[poledanceromance]

I love that video ^^^ That’s fantastic!

[poledanceromance]

I just realized it might not have come off how I intended with the use of the word “complaining,” I didn’t mean that to sound like I think you’re whining! I’ve just seen a few people lately with rashes blaming it on metal allergy to the pole but we use SO MANY CHEMICALS on and around the poles that I think that’s the most logical place to start in ruling out an irritant, not the pole itself.

[poledanceromance]

I have seen lots of people complaining about this lately and frankly I think it’s far more likely that you’ve developed a sensitivity to something that you’re using to clean the pole or something in a grip aid. I would try using a steamer to clean the pole really well to remove any residue of cleaners or grip products, and also make sure to use a clean towel to wipe the pole and yourself every session, as your towel could also be holding something that’s irritating you. This is especially true if you have shared towels at the studio….bring your own clean one. It’s also worth a try to wipe your pole with water only. Giving the pole a wipe with a damp cloth and then a dry one does a good job cleaning it and you can eliminate any outside factors of substances that could be on the pole. If you try to eliminate the possible chemical irritants and you STILL get a rash from the pole, then you might consider nickel allergy. But if you switch away from chemicals and the rash goes away, you can find the culprit by doing “patch tests” of the different chemicals. Basically taking a little rubbing alcohol or grip or whatever, rubbing it on a little quarter sized spot on your forearm and leaving it there overnight to see if you get any rash. The most important thing if you’re having a recurring issue like this is to be systematic in checking different potential irritants otherwise you won’t know what it is.

[poledanceromance]

Just another poler chiming in. When I first got into this several years ago, pole was a different world. We were only just starting to really understand how to prevent injury in training, as there just hadn’t been a focus on that before. But we were just coming out of an era where the superman was considered a top tier advanced trick. Soon, we entered a world of twisted grip handsprings and then it all went psycho from there.

By the time I was 6 months into poling, I was already experiencing shoulder problems. We started to get the basic safety info out and I got smarter, but the damage was done. At about 2.5-3yrs into my pole journey, my shoulders took a turn and I was basically incapacitated. I couldn’t even hold my purse in my left hand-this was no longer a matter of pain to work around, my arm would physically and involuntarily give out if I put any weight on it. It was a “30 day push-up challenge” type thing that put me over the edge. As a result I took about a year of rest and completely 100% altering the way I approached pole in order to heal. It changed my relationship with pole completely. And this was something that could have been prevented by 12 weeks of rest and 2 weeks of physical therapy almost five years ago. Five. Years. Ago.
It’s a lot better now, but I am still training around the tightness and limitation in my mobility which sadly now interferes with my training in back bending. You need excellent shoulder flexibility for back bends, something I didn’t realize when I started. All of this plus my limited interactions with the “pros” made me realize: most of us started pole because we believed in our hearts that if we could do this, we would feel good. We started for our wellness. Most of the professionals we so admire are constantly training around really severe injuries. I mean really severe, really painful injuries that will cost them heavy consequences in the long term. They do this for the sake of making their bodies do a certain thing with a certain aesthetic. The professionals we admire make the choice to specifically sacrifice and jeopardize their wellness to enhance the end result. I believe that with pole we all have to decide what it means to us, and know completely and clearly why we’re here. Because we all have to make that choice in the end: are you training for your wellness, or are you training to make your body do what it takes to win?

Just my two cents on recovery and the role of injury in my training as I near the half decade mark in my pole life.