Dressed in a low-cut pink shirt, tight black booty pants, and thick, plastic platform stilettos, Stephanie Babines doesn’t look the part of a political rabble-rouser. Yet an activist is exactly what Babines became when her efforts to help women shape up through fully clothed, decidedly G-rated stripper-inspired aerobics ran afoul of overzealous officials in the small western Pennsylvania town of Mars. This unyieldingly perky 31-year-old entrepreneur, standing in the small forest of steel poles that shoot up from the floor of her mirrored dance and fitness studio, has taught dance-phobic authorities an expensive lesson in federal court. “It’s pretty surreal to get calls from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, never mind Dr. Phil, Jerry Springer, and America’s Got Talent,” Babines laughs, leaning back beneath a bookshelf filled with such revolutionary tomes as The World According to Mr. Rogers and The Housewife’s Guide to the Practical Striptease. “It’s not attention I went looking for.” A few years ago Babines was a senior executive at a financial services company, nary a feather boa dancing in her head, struggling with an 80-hour workweek that severely depleted her enthusiasm for the gymnasium. One night over dinner a friend mentioned that pole dancing had become the hot new fitness pole trend. (more…)

The Heart Foundation is holding a pole dancing display in Darwin today to raise awareness about heart disease in women.

The foundation says heart disease is the biggest killer of women, with four times as many dying from the disease than breast cancer.

It says 890 people out of every 100,000 in the Territory die from heart disease, and women are particularly at risk because they have low awareness of the threat.

Higher rates of smoking, poor diet and high levels of rheumatic heart disease in remote communities are contributing to the higher death rates.

Royal Darwin Hospital’s director of cardiology, Marcus Ilton, says regular exercise is the best protection.

“Whatever activity you’re doing, it needs to be something that you can continue doing, that you enjoy doing and is not a burden for you and is not necessarily expensive.

“So whatever activity you take on, make sure it is fun.”

Royal Darwin Hospital’s director of cardiology, Marcus Ilton, says Territory death rates are higher because of higher smoking rates and high rates of rheumatic heart disease in remote communities.

“In the Territory we have the highest mortality rate for both men and women across this country of about 890 people per year per 100,000.

“So that equates to nearly 1500 people and about 47 per cent of them are women.”

Source: ABC News

If you attended the fundraising event, Artists in the Park, hoping to see the pole dancers announced in the June 10 Citizen, you were out of luck. So were the Spinning Angels who were planning to demonstrate their art for you. Their approval to appear was withdrawn when pressure was brought to bear on the event organizers. Because I recommended the Spinning Angels for the event, and because I believe this sort of censorship bullying strikes at the very heart of an open society, I feel compelled to comment on this development.
There is no point in being coy about why the Spinning Angels were excluded. In our culture, pole-dancing is associated with exotic dancing in bars, an activity some people find so inappropriate or provocative that they feel compelled to protect the rest of us from its influence.

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Your core has to be incredibly strong to pull off these jaw-dropping moves and to do it in 6″ lucite heels is no small feat! The winner, Jenyne Butterfly, obviously practices yoga, because I spot at least 3 poses in her routine, including Bow and One-Legged Wheel. My friend and I whooped and hollered through the whole thing and now we’re both thinking of trying out a pole dance class at Flirty Girl Fitness or S-Factor Chicago.

Now I see the difference between modern pole dancing and dirty stripper routines, although I’m still not sure these dancers should be performing for high school students.

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KENDRA Wilkinson has made no secret of her plan to trim down further before her wedding, and she’s taken her fans behind the scenes of her pole dancing exercise regime.

In Wilkinson’s official blog, the former Playboy hottie posted a photo of herself at home with her built-in

removable pole for her exercise regime, and told of how she is being professional trained.

She also teased fans with an upcoming video of her pole dancing in full flight with tips.

She wrote: “ive definitely hit the pole a time or two just for fun but wanted to learn the best ways to use it to get my body in smokin shape and look hottttt while doing it. i decided to take a professional lesson and had fitness instructor Estee Zakar come to my house to show me how to swing like a pro! its one of those things that people think they could never do but its a LOT easier than it looks…TRUST ME!!!!”

Source: The Daily Telegraph