Pole Dancing Lesson

Pole Dancing - Flag

If you didn’t know by now, I like to do things that many might consider, uh, a little “out of the ordinary.” But then again, the title of my blog is “An Alternate Route,” because I like to take a different path through life. So this should come as no surprise.

I had a private pole dancing lesson with my friend, Nia. She’s an instructor at Studio X, a Richmond pole dancing studio. Currently, they only offer classes for women, but when you’re fortunate enough to know the instructor, you get the hookup.

I’m not going into much detail, because let’s be honest, I know you just want to see the pictures & video. But I will say this…

  • I expected it to be fun. But I had even more fun than I initially thought.
  • I expected it to be hard. And it was. But, based on feedback from Nia & the other instructors that saw me, I was doing moves that I shouldn’t have been doing my first time out.
  • I had no idea it would hurt that much. I had serious bruises for several days.
  • I learned that my flexibility is not nearly as good as I thought it was. Working on it…
  • I loved the challenge of trying to do new moves, and to do them with more grace, smoother, etc.
  • We didn’t even get to any spinning tricks or dance moves/choreography… and I still find myself wondering, “When can I get on the pole again?”

If I had a pole in my house, I’d use it several times per week. And I’d love to continue practicing. My dilemma is the same as it always is when I learn something new. When/where can I fit this into my life? There’s just not enough time to regularly practice all the things that I want to. And that’s because I think almost EVERYTHING is interesting. But I can’t do it all, so I’m still not sure where this may or may not fit in.

But, like I promised, here’s some proof that it actually happened.

4 thoughts on “Pole Dancing Lesson”

  1. Oh my goodness, look at you go! I have to give you major props for trying that out. I’ve been curious about those types of classes since I hear how great they can be for strength, flexibility, etc…looks like you have some skills! 😉

  2. Thanks Katie. You should DEFINITELY give it a try. I’d be interested to see how your experience differs from mine, mainly because of the male/female difference. I know there are plenty of male pole dancers out there, but in our society, it’s still highly associated with women. I’m curious whether you’ll feel as “outside of your comfort zone” as I did, especially if you do a class with 5-10 other women.

    It’s definitely challenging, though. And will probably be unlike any other workout you’ve done before. It’s not a ruffle or a truffle, but I bet your blog readers would love to hear about it.

  3. I feel like I hit the realization of “I’m in my late 20s, I need to start caring about my physical fitness” a year or so ago, so trying to explore a few new things has been fun. I never would have guessed I’d fall in love with weight training, so who knows – maybe pole exercise could be added to the list? It definitely would be blog-worthy, ha! I think the insecurity issue/comparing with others in a class could be the awkward part of the experience…assuming the others are strangers and not friends. I haven’t been big on group classes in general; maybe that is because I wasn’t a part of any team sports as a kid? I was always involved in the individual sports; ones I could become skilled at on my own and THEN perform in front of others. Perfectionist much?

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