One evening in the summer of early 2007 when my partner and I were holidaying on the Gold Coast we decided to get a drink after a nice meal before we went back to our hotel for the night. Not knowing the area well and being young and a bit green, it wasn't until we were inside ordering a drink that we discovered that we had accidentally wandered into a strip club. As you do.
After making the decision to stay for one drink (chocking it up to life experience), I realised that on the stage I was watching not a strip tease, but a real performance like I had never seen before. Two fit women with spectacularly long legs were doing the strongest, most acrobatic and beautiful things on two vertical brass poles on either side of a raised stage. These women were wearing bikinis, but no heels, and were gliding around the poles with such elegance and poise that I was absolutely transfixed. The yahoo-ing and wolf whistles from the male crowd faded into a hum and it was like a little firecracker went off inside my brain.
Hours later, after finally consenting to be dragged out, my partner and I stepped out into the warm night air and I simply said to him, “I reckon I'd be good at that.”
"I reckon I'd be good at that."
Holiday over, I jumped online as soon as I got back to work and Googled ‘pole dancing in Sydney’. It was by pure chance that the school I discovered was a dance and fitness-based studio, so I donned my joggers, leggings and baggy t-shirt, and within just two weeks of seeing pole dancing for the first time I was in Surry Hills for my first class.
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| At the 2008 Australian Fitness Expo - my confidence had soared enough to pole dance in public, but my bod still had a way to go! (That's Jen next to me & the gorgeous Erica from level 10 2nd in from the right!) |
Five years later and 20 kilograms lighter, I am instructing PoleFit® classes at Studio Verve almost every day and have made a 2012 new years resolution to become the fittest I have ever been by pushing myself 110% in class, at home and in every moment I have to spare between teaching, running a household, maintaining a healthy relationship and working as a television programmer full time.
Don't get me wrong, there have been times in the past five years where I have felt like I've not just plateaued, but have actually been sliding backwards and getting progressively weaker. In my time as an instructor I have learned that this is something we all experience and it's nothing if not frustrating. But the fact is that we're not really getting weaker, it's just that the skills we're learning are getting much harder. The thing that sets people apart is how they push through this phase and feelings of weakness like it's not happening quite as easily as it did in the beginning.
When I started pole classes, I was pretty strong. My first teacher asked me if I had any formal dance training because I had “long legs” “good posture” and “beautiful arches”. I didn't. Dance was something I’d dabbled in, but being the little actress that I was as a child, I was never particularly inspired by the structure of dance classes, favouring the freedom of acting on stage, improvisation and making people laugh. That is my passion and I’ve always followed that desire to perform, studying drama at Uni, making films and always putting my hand up to be the emcee!
Unlike acting, which comes more naturally to me, it was not until I started pole dance classes and realised what it meant to physically push my body to limits it had never known, that I discovered how driven I was in something that didn’t come easily. I had to push through barriers, endure pain, forge through injuries and practice, practice, practice even when I could make every excuse in the book not to (I'm tired/running late/can’t find a park/ Flo’s in town…).
From PoleFit® levels 5, 6 and definitely 7, pole undeniably begins to shift from something that should be considered purely recreational to being treated more as the incredibly specialised skill that it is. Big skills that require strength, body awareness and a degree of flexibility take over from the spins and basic climbs of the fundamental classes, and cannot be undertaken without focus and presence of mind in every class and training session (I have memories and scars from a caterpillar face-plant incident to thank for teaching me that lesson!) There were some moves that I was great at, like any climbs or leg hangs (I would like to take this opportunity to thank my thighs…) But there were times when I thought I would never EVER achieve a particular move – overhead V comes to mind, which realistically took me until almost level 8 to nail consistently – and it was made more disheartening when I saw girls in my class get it before me and even worse when I saw girls in lower levels getting the move.
"There were times when I thought I would never EVER achieve a particular move..."
This is the point that every pole dancer can relate to, and this is what I like to think of as the crossroads. When we get to this point we can go in one of two directions: admit defeat, tell ourselves it's too hard and the desire to do it is overtaken by the desire not to. Alternatively, we can visualise ourselves getting the move and commit to doing all the little things along the road to achieving it for real: reverse curls at home every time you think “I'm bored”, star jumps while watching Australia’s Next Top Model, tricep dips while you watch YouTube clips of your favourite pole dancer, stretching while listening to your Mum tell you the same story for the fourth time, getting on the pole outside your one hour weekly class and attempting the move over and over and over again! Just like a marathon, it's nailing the little steps on the way that amount to you getting to your ultimate goal quicker.
Some people see pole as their oasis once or twice a week where they think about themselves, focus on their bodies and catch up with new friends they’ve met at the Studio, and fitness is just a fabulous by-product. This is a beautiful thing and that’s just the sort of place Studio Verve is – for women and men to feel completely at home and not like you feel at a gym.
But, for those of us who have found ourselves in class feeling pissed off, angry and useless for not being able to ‘get’ a move, we need to be honest with ourselves about what we want out of pole. If you’re happy with the moves you’ve achieved thus far, don’t be disheartened by feeling ‘weak’ not being able to achieve a move. Instead, think about how far you’ve come and know that you are strong – stronger than the average woman OR man! Look at your classmates not as ‘beating’ you at something, but as inspiration for you. The phrase that has kept me going through my training has always been “if she can do it, I can do it. And I'm going to do it even better.”
My turning point came after I had been in level 7 for almost a whole year. 7pm Wednesdays at Cooper Street, it was the same groups of girls week after week and before that I think we were the level 6 class! At the end of yet another term of level 7 Jen, who was my teacher, said she was not converting the class to a level 8 and if we wanted to move on, we had to start coming on Saturday mornings. This was not a welcome suggestion – the thought of coming in on a Saturday for some girls was unthinkable and, to be honest, I was one of them. But then, after realising if I didn’t push myself past the easy and familiar then, I would still be in that level 7 class in another year, no stronger and losing inspiration. This was MY crossroads – I could be top of my class or start again at the very bottom and push and try and fight to rise to the top of the next one.
So I moved to level 8 on Saturday mornings and it was hard. The girls were amazing and inside I felt fat, stiff, weak and heavy. But deeper inside I now knew absolutely what I wanted and what it was going to take to get it, so on the outside I sweated and swore and grunted and screamed and, before too long, I was looking more and more like those other girls in class every day. Classes became more like jam sessions as we tried new moves and spotted each other in hard moves. After a while, I found myself at the studio more and more. I came to all the workshops, did doubles classes, came in to practice and try my own stuff, helped at the Fitness Expo and other events, and hung around to chat ‘pole’. This started to change how I viewed other things like food, which I didn’t appreciate or understand before. I began to view food more as fuel for the machine my body was becoming and as a result toned muscle started replacing the surplus of fat on my heavy (albeit sexy and voluptuous) bod.
I was just so passionate about what began as a tentative hobby and it must have showed, because one day Jen asked me if I would be interested in teaching pole parties and eventually PoleFit® classes. This was not easy – teaching was nothing like doing – and it required the best part of a year of training and education about dance, health, fitness and people’s bodies, but I embraced the challenge as I couldn’t believe I got to teach other people the craft I’d come to love. And I'm still learning every day!
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| Jen, Twee and I backstage right before we went on stage at Sydney Theatre Company in 2011& presented Form 3 at the International Pole Showcase with Zoraya Judd. In this performance we used each others bodies as extensions of our own, which required intense & intimate training. The thought of dancing on the same stage as Sydney Dance Company and alongside the 2 most senior dancers at Studio Verve was enough motivation for me to push myself to new limits. Jen & Twee trusted me implicitly in some incredibly dangerous moves so there was no option to say, "I can't"...I had to! |
Of course, I'm also still going with my own pole training. It’s harder than ever before to find time between teaching classes and working full time, but even if it’s just sticking around after class when the studio is empty and getting on the pole when I'm warm from teaching, or talking website stuff with Twee while doing back bends or having a really serious conversation with Jen while massaging the knots out of Twee’s muscles, or doing Sydney Dance classes on my day off, everything helps toward keeping in touch with my body and reaching my 2012 goal of being the best damned pole dancer I can be.
This year I will do a middle split. I will do a dead lift. I will press up to brass monkey. I will free hold a handstand. I will make my shoulders more flexible. I will embrace my white, white legs and I will take care of my body, inside and out, so it can take care of me.
I hope at least one pole student who is standing at their own crossroads reads this and feels inspired. Think of me when you’re feeling like you’re sliding backward and remember that I was not a trained dancer before I came to Studio Verve, I was not a gymnast. I was heavy with T-Rex arms, I had never worn shorts in public in my entire life and at the start of 2011 I could not get my crotch to within 30 centimetres of the floor in a split.
Since then, I have become Principal Dancer in Pole Evolution Dance Company, danced in productions at Carriageworks doing seven routines per night across two nights and filmed a DVD. I've danced with Jen – a ballerina who has danced her entire life and Twee, who has been a gymnast her entire life – at Sydney Theatre Company alongside Zoraya Judd, Laurence Hilsum, Matty Shields and some of the world's top pole and Cirque de Soliel performers.
So, you’re allowed to say ‘I can’t’, but next time you find yourself thinking it, try saying this instead:
“I can’t yet. But I will.”
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| Holding Jen in an intense pose during Form 3 at STC. This took trust and lots of practice! |
