Posing on the Pole

By Tonia

I’ve been hearing how pole dancing is such great exercise. It’s endorsed as a performing art and there’s been talk about adding it to the Olympics. It's also a popular stage performance at….uh….a certain kind of club.

So I decided to try it. Why not? Ya gotta’ love a sport where the gym shoes are high heels! Besides, I needed some new blog material.So I invited twelve girlfriends and booked a pole dancing party at Tulsa’s Studio 7.

But first, let me say, I am NOT a coordinated person. Bruises mysteriously pop up on my body like zits on a teenager’s face. I walk into door frames; I fall walking on flat surfaces; I break things by simply carrying them. Growing up, sports were out of the question for me. My high school couldn’t afford the liability payments. And PE was my own personal hell - detention was less of a punishment.

But what could go wrong with pole dancing? I mean, you’ve got a pole to hang onto, right? Kind of like the safety bar in the bathtub. Just hang on and step safely.

The first part of our lesson wasn’t even on a pole – it was a lesson in lap dancing. Seriously? I love my girlfriends but this took on a whole new meaning.

Some places in the US enforce a minimum distance between lap dancer and lap dance-receiver but, with my coordination, I was bumping and jarring my partner the entire time. If penalty flags had been dropped, there would have been no floor space.

So we moved quickly to the poles. Some of the moves we learned were:

THE BODY WAVE. You straddle the pole and push your chest forward onto the pole and your hips away from the pole; then you move your chest back and your hips forward in one fluid motion. Uh, my back and forth movements pretty much looked like I was trying to dry hump the pole.

THE BACKWARDS WIGGLE. You stand with your back against the pole and reach up behind your head to grab the pole with your hand. You slide down the pole with a sexy wiggle until you are crouching with your knees apart. Then you’re supposed to go back up the pole. Getting down worked OK but getting back up was a NO GO. I finally just decided to have a seat on the floor and do my nails while the others were wiggling up and down their damn poles.

THE FIREMAN SPIN* (*no firemen were harmed in the performing of this move). You wrap your legs around the pole and give yourself a spin. And, if you’re lucky, you don’t throw up on your way around.

At the end of our evening, our instructor did a fabulous demonstration of her skills and then let me copy her upside down move. I think I nailed it (see pic).

So, for your next girlfriends’ get together I highly recommend a pole dancing party. It's great exercise and good for some laughs. I think I'm going to go back (if they'll let me)!