tiramisu3123383
Forum Replies Created
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I am about average size and I do not have a tiny waist so I look for shorts that aren’t like crazy high in the waist that come up to your belly button but also aren’t super low and create a muffin top. This is why fold down shorts are useful as ladies like me appreciate being able to adjust where the shorts fall depending on how we’re feeling and looking that day. Another problem with shorts seems to be a straight seam up the crotch. Not only is this a problem for looks but the wear and tear on shorts can lead to the seam ripping. Having a reinforced crotch area like you see in other dancewear (like for ballet dancers) would be appreciated. And just because we want more coverage on the top of the shorts does not mean we want long shorts in the leg area, as we still want to do tricks where you need that skin available. I find sports bras easier to buy when made by athletic companies rather than brands for polers, as they seem to have more sizes and seem to have more support. I don’t like super thin and see through tops. I like just a bit of padding to tone down any high beams, and I like enough coverage to prevent spillage. I love interesting designs across the back. I prefer fabrics and colors that keep you looking dry even if you’re working hard and sweating at the gym or in the studio.
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The brand tweezerman makes different types of products….stone types for filing and one with a razor you can use to remove dead skin.
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Happy Birthday 🙂
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I appreciate everyone’s feedback and ideas. My student is working on a project that she is designing and carrying out within this one semester, so it has to be limited in scope (although hopefully we can work on it after the semester ends). This questionnaire is just one portion of her methodology, and when distributing a questionnaire, it is easier to get a higher response rate when the survey is limited in length. This constrained how many questions we felt that we could ask.
In terms of the sampling, she is sampling non-polers, and there have been people who completed the survey who do not know that pole classes exist. This is why some of the questions are they way they are at the beginning of the survey. The questions about what your friends, and co-workers think (plus some of the other questions) are designed to test a particular theory. It isn’t so much about what they really think that matters, but what you believe they think that matters in this particular case. I don’t want to skew things by talking about the theory more here, but if anyone messages me individually I can explain our thought process for including some of the questions.
I think the idea of having non-polers look at pictures and videos is a really interesting and useful one. I presented some work on pole at a conference last year and began by showing a video montage of polers and I could hear from the ooohs and ahhhs and comments that these people had no real conception of what pole was like before that. In terms of the history of pole, I think looking at how people frame the history of any activity is very important. It can be a rhetorical strategy in and of itself. -
Hello Veeners:
I am her professor, and the last thing I wanted to do was offend this group which I feel provides a valuable and safe haven for polers. I will try to provide a little background in case that helps. As she is currently a student honing her research skills, as well as in the process of learning about pole through trying it out and interacting with other polers, I would very much like this to be a positive welcoming experience for her rather than a negative one. Because of that, plus the way in which many of the questions offending you are mine, I ask all of you to please direct any anger and frustration towards me and not her. I welcome your feedback so feel free to contact me individually here (or my personal e-mail indicated on the survey). I do have some experience with pole, a couple years worth, and have a pipe in my backyard. I have also read about many polers’ experiences with people who they feel misunderstand the activity. These misunderstandings are multiple, and can be perpetuated by studios themselves. Meanwhile, there is research in the literature on pole but it is very limited and it is often framed by issues of whether the sexualisation of culture is good or bad, etc. At the end of the day, I feel that polers are in the process of creating various meanings for pole, in the midst of a society that has framed it in potentially other ways. I wanted the survey (amongst other things) to give polers a chance to discuss this. I did fear the survey would be read by polers as potentially offensive. Interestingly enough, I actually put the survey up on a computer and discussed how polers and non-polers might read or misread the survey. Although we made changes, I knew some people might still be offended and misread from whence some questions came (read more below), but I took the risk because I think it is important to understand what good and bad stereotypes people have about pole, and because a researcher has to begin tackling the issue by addressing and building off the literature that already exists (whether he/she agrees or disagrees with that framing).
This survey was designed to start looking at what motivates people to take pole classes (as well as more erotic dance classes at studios), and to see how people’s perceptions can change after they take classes or try pole through some other outlet. For example, personally trying pole made me viscerally realize pole required things out of my mind and body that I did not previously anticipate. Rather than automatically assume that the expression of one’s sexuality, versus one’s strength, or flexibility, or anything else, is separate from the other…we wanted to give people a chance to discuss if/how they felt these are separate or overlap.
Question wording does affect people’s answers. Even the order in which answer choices are given affects people’s answers. That being said, many of the questions that are troubling this group were not worded by myself or my student. They are standard wording used to understand why people do what they do, whether it is pole or something else entirely, like not chewing gum in school. This includes that list of questions about acting without thinking or doing things for fun. To make this study relate to those theories about why people act the way they do, we utilized those questions. Of the questions we did word, we tried to take a more balanced approach. Further, my student wanted to give polers a chance to really express themselves in their own words, which is why she included questions where people could just write in their thoughts and would not be constrained by artificial answer choices. I can’t say too much about the theories here as I think that might bias anyone else who wants to take the study, but I would be happy to discuss this with anyone individually.
As for the sample, I encouraged my student to ask the first questions of people who have very limited knowledge and experience with pole. I also encouraged her to give the survey to a very different group of people, those who have experience poling. Home polers who have never taken classes were given somewhat different questions from those who have taken classes (although this probably was not obvious). I thought it would be valuable to see if/how all of these groups’ experiences and thoughts are different. It can start to tell us if the world really has moved on from stereotypes and issues polers may have faced years ago, or not. -
I am very glad someone posted about this because I had a feeling pole was not just a physical workout but could provide mental benefits. Personally, at points in my life where I have had quite a bit of anxiety, I found pole to be very useful. I think it is perhaps because my mind has to focus simply on not falling on my face. 🙂
Aerial Amy posted this interview with Tarakarina where she talks about pole and how it helped her with GAD.
I am also very glad all of you are writing about this because so many people can feel alone with whatever problem they have, while other people are experiencing the same thing. Shadow22, the words you used to express your experiences sound so much like the students who have come into my office and told me about their depression. They can have the same sense of looking outwardly at their life and thinking it looks great, but knowing things feel off inside. There is a book called Speaking of Sadness that is about people’s experiences with depression in general…and it may help those who are depressed see how they are experiencing some of the same things as others.
I am more familiar with the research on some other mental disorders rather than depression, so I don’t want to wade into too much. However, as some posters pointed out, there is a lot we don’t know about disorders. I will also say that there can be interactions between our biology and our environment. Shadow22 you may also find it interesting to read the latest research on depression. I don’t know if you have access to those type of articles, but if you search journal databases and find something you want and can’t get, let me know and I will see if my library has access. One place to search for such articles is http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed If you are interested in complementary therapies, you might want to check out this site. Just search for depression. https://nccih.nih.gov/ -
I like shorts that are good for an average sized person like me that doesn’t have a perfectly flat stomach. So any other mentions of shorts that come slightly below the belly button but aren’t super low and create a scary stomach…would be appreciated. 😛