Written by Veronika Rakli
You have seen a beautiful pole dance performance on youtube or just a short video on instagram. You say „WOW!”. You think: „I wish to be like her/him”. You act: „Let’s go and subscribe for a pole dance taster class.”
Well done! This is how we all started.
You are so excited about your deceision, maybe you don’t want to admit to your family/mum and dad/boyfriend that you are taking up pole dance classes as it still has it’s stigmas (…about stigmas in an other blog…), or even opposit, you are so proud of your activity choice that you ask a friend to join you to the same class.
You are very determind about the class, you hope to take soon beautiful pictures and post on social media, hanging upside down, widly open legs in splits, going into bridges, do a handstand next to the pole of course with grace. And the big day is there, you arrive to the class and you face the reality: oh God, the pole is slippery, so difficult to hold up your own bodyweight in your hands, and you might even bruise yourself. Most people give up at this point with those words, „Oh, pole dance is not for me. It hurts too much…The teacher performs the move so easily, how come I can’t do the same?”
Here, let’s pause a bit! Your teacher does the moves so effortless, as she has been doing these excercices 1000 and 1000 times by now. And you will do so as well if you give a chance for pole. Without practice you won’t get anywhere.
Once you enter a pole dance taster class you have to know, that those performer who you have seen on youtube/instagram/facebook performing beautiful routine, they all went through this first trial class. If you stop because you feel incompetent in the first class you will never know your boundaries or where your body really can take you. And this is what I think pole is about.
You will learn to respect your body, your real capacity and you won’t even realise as first but your body will honor you. First you will feel this in your arms and hands, then shoulders, abdominals, your butt and your core. You will feel lighter, toned, more helathy, full with energy. You will find friends, likeminded people, boys and girls, younger and elderly, you will see that not just perfect body exists, yet to be able to perform high level moves with it.
However, for this you need to come to classes. You need to come to classes, at least once a week. If you wish to achieve more than fun and leasure: twice a week. Only to dream about it, won’t work. This is not negotiable. Full stop.