Columnist tries popular class that separates the men from the women.

I am clinging as if clinging to life itself, muscles I didn’t know I owned now straining, parts of my body previously unfamiliar to me suddenly calling out, begging for a break.

Or a Valium. Or a Budweiser.

I am feeling many things at the moment, not one of which is sexy.

“One of the great things about this,” Collette Kakuk says, “is that it caters to you as a woman.”

This is when I realize I probably should point out to my instructor that I am not, in the most technical sense, female.

But there’s no time for that now because now I have to execute a spin, hooking one leg and twirling the other while lifting myself off the floor, all the while exploring my sensuality and expressing my flirtation nature. And trying to protect my groin.

You know, men really shouldn’t pole dance.

“We have noticed,” Kakuk says, “that it doesn’t look right.”

No, it doesn’t. Personally, I resemble a square-dancing primate, my moves not from The Great Gatsby but more from the Grape Ape.

Thankfully, this isn’t about being a good dancer or really about dancing at all. This is about toning muscles, burning fat and building serious self-confidence, even if it’s sometimes done while wearing FootUndeez, a product that bills itself as “underwear for your feet.”

This is OC Pole Fitness, a company started in Aliso Viejo 21/2 years ago by Kakuk, who recently opened a second location in Huntington Beach.

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Want to take a pole fitness class and don’t quite know what to look?  This article should help you get a spinning start!

First and foremost, make sure the instructors are all AFAA (Aerobics and Fitness Association of America) certified. Secondly, seek a safe practice environment, with plenty of privacy. Also, make sure that poles are securely fastened to the ceiling and floor, without a lot of movement to them. Note, however, that the taller the poles are there will be some movement. As well, the beginner student should start on a static pole versus a spinning pole. Gripping a spinning pole while trying to do a pole spin or trick is more difficult and can cause injury if not done correctly. Also, learning on a static pole requires more effort, which is where the “exercise” part comes in and should be done first. Perfecting ones technique, balance, and strength is best done on a static pole before moving on to a spinning pole.
Classes should be broken up into several groups, starting from a basic class, for new students. Then advanced levels, where spins, pirouettes, and transitional dance moves are combined; to put together a routine. Intermediate level and beyond is for those who have built up the knowledge, practice and strength required to do more of the aerial tricks portion of the pole.

All classes should start with a minimum of a 5 to 10 minute warm up, which includes stretching, conditioning and a cool down portion at the end of class to bring the heart rate back down to normal.  A potential instructor should also explain what and what not to wear in a pole class. Shorts are the best way to go along with a comfortable gym top or light t-shirt. Pole dancing requires a lot of physicality, so wearing the type of clothing that allows the skin to breathe is important. As well, not wearing any lotion or oils on the body, especially the legs and arms is crucial. In order to do the spins and tricks safely on the pole the skin needs to make contact with the pole on various parts of the body. Lotion can cause you to lose your grip on the pole. Often times when you are a beginner the adrenaline and nervousness can cause your hands to sweat so the combination of lotion and sweat, can all lead to unnecessary slipping, tripping or even falling which can lead to injuries. Because there is a lot of gripping with the legs, the same rules apply.

Whether to wear the high heel platform shoes or not is also a constant debate among experts because of the potential injuries that can happen. Lots of women enjoy wearing the platform heels and shoes make it easier to perform a variety of moves. Not only that but they build calve muscles and make the legs look nice long and lean. Every type of dance and sport has certain shoes that are designed to enhance performance. If taught how to dance correctly in the shoes by the instructor, injuries can be cut down to a minimum. However, it should always be the student’s decision whether they want to wear the heels. All pole moves can be preformed in bare fee, mainly on the tip toes. All inversion moves should first be done in bare feet until the move is perfected because the shoes add extra weight to the body.

“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.”

Source: Examiner

Women are abandoning the gym in their droves to take up pole dancing. And leading the way in Calderdale is Kim Beech who has just opened her own removable pole dance studio

When the Eurythmics sang Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves they could have been talking about pole dancing.
Because pole dancing has successfully shimmied out of its sleazy image of the past and into the mainstream pole fitness world.
In the past, it has been largely confined to the world of lap dancing bars and night clubs. Shaking off that image has taken some time but it’s got there, thanks in no small part to the likes of 28-year-old Kim Beech, of Sowerby Bridge. (more…)

Yes, you read the headline correctly, Pole Fitness enthusiasts want Pole Fitness to be a contender in the Olympics. And by all indication, they will keep fighting until this eventually happens.

A worldwide online petition was started late in 2008,  to have Pole Fitness considered by the Olympic Organizing Committee as a contender for the 2010 Olympics. www.omninerd.com/articles/Pole_Dancing_An_Olympic_Sport

And why not when you consider that curling is an Olympic sport.

In recent years BMX racing and Snowboarding have been added and now there is talk about adding skateboarding and hopefully Pole Fitness.

There is no denying that Pole Fitness has gone mainstream. For those unaware, Pole Fitness has grown well beyond the $1million dollar stage and has expanded into an organized worldwide competition for prizes. “It really isn’t that different from a training perspective, it’s that this just happens to be vertical”.

People that have never been inside of a Pole Fitness studio don’t understand the parallels between gymnastics and pole tricks. If Pole Fitness were presented at the Olympics this would help break down those barriers (Not to mention boost ratings that have reportedly been declining in the past years), and prove what pole enthusiasts all over the world already know. Perfecting the pole is hard work that gives the participant tremendous confidence.

Pole work involves a lot of gymnastics and requires a gymnasts discipline because of the time it takes to acquire that type of agility and flexibility. Generally speaking most women get involved in PoleFitness because they are traditional gym goers or even gym junkies, who enjoy the fitness challenge of mastering pole spins and tricks. It is quite common to hear “Wow I didn’t realize pole dancing was this hard” from women taking there first pole class. Those that have the patience and passion to master the art of pole pleasantly surprise themselves (and others) with the pole tricks they have learned.

Pole enthusiasts liken themselves to skilled athletes, not much different than an ice skater, or gymnast that you see at the Olympics. It has been argued that if a pole athlete’s pure strength, flexibility and artistry was seen performing on a pole, during the Olympics, it would “officially” be recognized worldwide, as a serious sport.

With all the hard work, hours, dedication, application and passion women put into their pole workouts they naturally want to the art and mastery of their craft to be shown. What better place than the Olympics?

Perhaps Pole Fitness won’t make it to the 2010 Olympics but its contenders say they will keep on pushing for the year that it will be recognized by the Olympics as the true sport that it is.

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.

Regarding the letter “Pole dancing debases yoga,” (April 30) in response to Kylie Mendonca’s article about the Yoga Centre (“Move your body,” April 16), Mendonca reported that yoga was being made more accessible, not by offering pole dancing, but through the Yoga Centre’s new Yoga Therapy programs, as people with chronic pain, illness, disease, and injury find a typical yoga class in this town is not possible due to their condition. The fact that the Yoga Centre has chosen to offer pole-dancing classes is no different from my choice to offer various forms of movement weekly, including women’s ecstatic dance, aikido (martial art), gyrotonics and gyrokinesis, as well as various forms of yoga: pregnancy, intro to yoga, vinyasa yoga, beginner yoga, and yoga therapy.

Pole dancing in studios today is a movement form, instructed and presented as a Pole fitness activity. Just as gymnastics use horizontal bars or aerial dancers wrap themselves in fabric into beautiful shapes, pole dancing has transformed itself and empowers women to hold their body weight, and improve strength, balance, and body mechanics. There are national and international sport competitions and pole dancing is up for approval for the Olympics. I was raised in San Luis Obispo and being a local business owner consider it a gift and opportunity to provide people a safe place where they can attain their ideal health, both mentally and physically. It would be out of the question that I would offer a program that would debase yoga and its tradition or “perpetuate the culture of pornography” or “objectify women”.

Layton » It’s like gymnastics, said pole fitness competitor Becca Butcher.

But instead of a balancing beam or parallel bars, there’s a pole.

And it was that last feature that stirred a slight controversy over whether Saturday’s Pole Fetish 2009 competition should be canceled.

Davis County owns the Davis Conference Center, where the event was held, and several weeks ago, county commissioners were concerned the performances might be closer to “adult entertainment.”

But the private contractor that manages and books events at the center met with Pole Fetish 2009 promoters and the event continued.

“They felt comfortable in allowing it to go forward,”

Nichole Smith competing in Pole Fetish 2009 Saturday at the Davis Convention Center. The competition was billed as Utah’s first pole fitness competition. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune)

said Commissioner Bret Millburn. “Hopefully, it is what it is.”

And that’s an amazing way to tone your body, said Butcher, a mother of two who has also studied martial arts for about 20 years.

“Hopefully, tonight will break a lot of misconceptions,” she said .

Her family is very religious, she said, and her father, mother, brother and sister-in-law came to the event because they support her and “see it for what it is.”

Ogden’s Adult Dance & Fitness, along with Studio Soiree in Salt Lake City, sponsored the event — the first of its kind in Utah, said Meagan Burroughs, owner of the Ogden studio. She hopes pole fitness will become an Olympic sport.

Burroughs teaches pole fitness along with ballroom, hip-hop and other dancing.

“They always come back,” she said of people who take the pole aerobics workout. “I’ve never had someone go into a program and think they were stripping.”

And there were a few ground rules for Pole Fetish 2009:

“We don’t want any catcalling. We don’t want any tips,” the night’s hostess, Debra White, told the audience. “Let’s keep this clean and have fun.”

Performers were required to keep on the same clothes from start to finish, as well as wear something that covered breasts and buttocks. Most performers wore shorts and sports bras. Footwear varied from nothing to ballet slippers and even plastic platforms.

West Jordan resident Susan Hintze had associated poles with more exotic activities, but changed her perspective after taking pole fitness classes. She came to Pole Fetish 2009 to cheer on her instructor.

“I’ve gained such a respect for the beauty of movement and self-expression.”