What Is Pole Dancing?
Pole Dancing. It’s a word that evokes many images, mostly outdated stereotypes of exotic dancers in high heels and sequinned G strings performing provocative moves around a pole. To be fair, sleazy men’s clubs are where pole dancing evolved. However, it has grown into so much more than that. Pole dancing is now a mainstream fitness activity that continues to grow in popularity around the world. In Australia there are over 150 pole dancing studios who are preaching the gospel of Empowerment through Pole Fitness.
Why is it Empowering? Pole dancing is not easy, it’s not for the faint hearted, but it certainly is addictive. Basically you’re trying to carry your body weight on your arms as you spin around a pole. Most of us don’t have the natural strength to do that, so initially it starts off looking a bit awkward. However, your body soon adapts, you learn how to control the moves. When you see yourself in a mirror looking beautiful on a pole, it is a very powerful affirmation. It can bring a fundamental shift in your body self image. The sense of achievement resulting from successfully mastering a new move puts you on a real high. You come back wanting to try the next pole challenge. This boost in confidence can and does have flow on effects into other areas of your life. For many, pole dancing has been life-changing. I know many women that have taken on personal and physical challenges that they would not have contemplated prior to starting pole dancing.
Once you become involved in pole dancing you soon realize that there is a huge and ever expanding repertoire of pole moves to learn and enjoy. The global pole community is very good at sharing new ideas about how to spin around and upside down on a pole. We don’t have hundreds of years of regimentation like ballet and gymnastics, so new moves and lifts are being developed and shared all the time. At Miss Fit, we have designed a carefully constructed curriculum to gradually develop your arm and core strength by challenging you with progressively more difficult moves. As your competence and confidence grows you start going upside down, and performing moves that you would not believe possible. We also help you to improve your flexibility, which is required for the more advanced moves. Feeling flexible really makes you feel good, and is a great way to keep joints healthy.
Lets not forget that it is fundamentally dancing, which is a great way to exercise, far less monotonous than sweating it out on a cross-trainer! Once you get comfortable with dancing, it is a wonderful way to express an array of emotions as you take on the character of a piece of music. The whole experience is quite transporting. Whether you are learning a pre-choreographed routine, or putting your own artistic stamp on a song, you are completely absorbed in the moment, no other thoughts enter your mind. We leave our worries and frustrations at the front door when we come in for our pole dancing fix!
This is why Pole Dancing is being taken up by many thousands of women all around the world. Sisters are doing it for themselves! It has less and less to do with sexiness and titillation for the benefit of others, instead you are challenging yourself and expressing yourself through this activity. It’s something that you just need to try. Talk to a pole dancer and find out how it has changed their life.
