What is a Pole Class?

Abstract

Most people have some idea of what they think pole dancing involves, certainly they have a picture in their heads about how it must look. The most common image is of a young, nubile, slim woman, moving seductively from a standing to a squatting position, with the pole between her legs. The slight variation of this image is of the same woman hanging from a vertical pole in a seemingly impossible gravity-defying position, while wearing little or nothing — this latter image is less common although it takes more skill. Muscular endurance and coordination are aspects of pole dancing least likely to occur to people; as are balance, hours of practice and feats of daring. I did a double take on reading Anna Aalten’s (2004, p. 267) description of ballet because it could so easily have been written about pole; replace ‘ballet’ for ‘pole’ and the whole paragraph still makes perfect sense:

Openness, verticality and stylization are the basic aesthetic principles of ballet. The beauty of ballet is created by the straight lines of the extended human body going outward and upward and by the artificiality of the movements. Ballet dancers produce a spectacle in which upward-aspiring straight lines and an illusion of weightlessness are central elements. But human bodies do not consist of straight lines and they are inevitably subjected to the law of gravity.

(Aalten, 2004, p. 267)

It is the most loving, feminine, supportive environment that I have ever come across.

(Lilia)