I'm coming out!

So I’m a slacker, I’m sorry. I can only blame the holidays so much before I just have to say “Sephy, come now you could have totally written a few blog posts… you are just lazy.” So here I am.

I hope you all are having an amazing holiday season! I know I am!  I’m 4 weeks into my 5 week beginners course and I am so happy. I am loving the changes I am seeing in my body. More strength for sure and more stamina, but what I love the most is finding out how resilient my body is. After my first two classes I was SORE for a good while after class (re:4 or 5 days after) but since then while I might be sore after class it never carries into the next day. Sure I still have a long way to go, but ever week I see improvement. One week I might not be able to ever try to hold that spin, next week I can make it about once around the pole before I land. And improvement is a good thing! I knew going into this I was going to need more time than most to mater things, and I am surprising myself on how ok I actually am at the thought of that. With week 5 approaching some of the girls will be testing out of beginner and I am PROUD of them, not jealous. Which in turns makes me proud of myself. Envy is one of my biggest sins,  and I don’t feel it at all when I think about the progress I have made.

So what if I can’t climb yet, I can mount like a champ and was the first in my class to get that. And I can hold a crucifix for a bit, who cares if it’s only a few inches off the ground. Still counts!

Also! Headstands! Which I love, but desperately need a better bar to do them in so my boobs don’t suffocate me. 

We have started to wear heels in class, just a bit, for funzies. but that helped me have this amazing conversation with my dad last night at target over these shoes:

You see we were shopping for some last second Christmas tree trimmings when I spotted them (and their gold sisters) out of the corner of my eye. And partly squealed as I ran over and started to try them on. My dad defiantly giving me a 'What is it with girls and shoes?' look while I proclaimed that I *needed* these shoes. My dad rolls his eyes chuckling a bit,

“Just what you need, to be taller.”

“No! I need them for Pole Dancing!” (I proclaimed, pretty loudly in the middle of Target BTW) Which prompts my dad to laugh out loud.

“Oh, that is what ever father longs to hear.” He then looks at me, then at the shoes, and his looks totally says ‘You are going to break your neck’ before he asks “Do they have enough grip on the bottom so you don’t fall all over the place?”  Which I then explained how the shoes being smooth on the bottom helps you spin better and we then spent a good amount of time talking about pole and why I love it and how I’m feeling very good about myself and happy that I found a fitness that I really love and he nods and says “Well that is the biggest challenge when it comes to working out, no being bored, I’m glad you found something.” Did I mention that my father is pretty much the best father? Well he is. True Facts.

Which brings me to another story. I came out  as a pole dancer to my husband’s mother.

My husband comes from a very religious conservative family, I love them to pieces they are loving and kind. But there is a sort of unspoken rule about what we can talk about in front of his parents. Not because we fear they might throw holy water on us or send us off to bible camp, no more likely they will just nod but secretly think they have failed as parents somehow and we don’t want them to feel that way, because they are amazing people, just not the people their kids grew up to become. But a few weeks back I was over at his parents’ house and chatting with two of his sisters about how sore I was from class and I see it on his sister face before I turn around and see his mom looking at me with the worst concealed shocked expression I have ever seen.  I can practically see the thoughts pass over her face ‘Pole dancing! Oh my ! She stripping? My fat daughter in law is a stripper? How could I have let my son marry this? What about the children what will they think?’

Luckily my husband was in the room playing on his phone and he just looks up and says “You have to get past the stigma mom, it’s a great work out and a really beautiful form of dance.” And then it clicks for me. I pull out my phone and start to cue up a video while explaining that I was drawn to it because it is a beautiful for of dance and gymnastics that takes a lot of strength. And at this point I can tell she is still not trusting me, but is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. But I know I have her. She used to be a dancer.

2 videos are all it took to change her mind completely. The first one I showed he was of my best friends showcase performance, because she knows her and I knew her seeing someone she knew do it would do a lot to change her mind. And after we got over the initial “So you have to wear so little?”  “Yes, because you need the skin contact to grip the pole.” She was impressed, she thought her dance was beautiful. She was starting to belive me. this isn't overtly sexual, this take talent.

 I then brought up Jenyne Butterfly’s dance to Dog Days are Over, and I had her. She screamed during parts of the video! And I swear she almost died when Jenyne did her slow air walk down she was so impressed.

And that was the end, the next time I saw her she was telling me how she had showed Jenyne’s video to several of her friends and family members.  And she keeps asking me questions about class and would pole dancing be good for someone with bad knees? Can you show me another one of those videos? How long before you started to notice a change in your body? Can you go in, not in class and use the poles for practice? I think I just need something fun to do to work out…

“I think the reason I am so interested in this pole dancing thing is because it is the closest I will ever come to flying.”

(I’ve always had a theory that his mom would be a new age hippy woman if she had not happened into this conservative life, she runs a new age healing business after all.)

So for Christmas my husband and I bought her 4 classes (1 intro class and 3 beginner classes) and I hope she loves them!  I think she will. Now what his father will think of this, that will be the interesting part.

 

The first few real classes.

So over the last few days I have had 2 more classes! One on Thursday  and one today (Saturday) and let me tell you, I don’t think I have ever felt this way before. For one thing I am SORE. But even though it kind of hurts it kind of also feels good because it tells me that I am working things that have not been worked in a long time, or ever.  But I learned a few very important things:

 1.) At this point I cannot do two pole classes with only one day between them. Perhaps one day I can, but right now there is no way. My first class on Thursday was great and I felt very accomplished. After my class today however I just felt belch. I knew I gave it my all but I really just felt very lame. And I really couldn’t do anything on my “special” side at all, at least on Thursday I was doing thing on my “special” side even if they were not very good.

2.)I need grip assist. On my class on Thursday I was getting very down on myself because I felt like I could not hold myself up at all. It was really the beginning of a downward spiral in my mind. But my teacher, Kristin, saw me and I think she saw what was going on in my head, and without even really asking she said “Hey it looks like you are slipping a lot, come here try some of this.” And she gave me some grip helper and told me to try again and I did and it was about 100% better and she just smiled “See, you have the strength to do it, your hands are just slippery like mine, really I have to use super-duper grip to even get anything done at all.” And class went a LOT better after that, and I actually did not get down on myself at all after that. Cuz I could do it.

3.) Walking into my spins is SOOOO much better than doing them from a stand still. I swear, I could be having a lot of problems with a spin and the second I walked into it I could actually do it. Momentum is a magical thing.

4.) I need to be better at the cool down. While both classes had a nice cool down I think I need to make sure I take a few more minutes of my own time to fully stretch out. More stretching out after = less stiffness after and that is good. 

Over all I’m really likening the classes even if I was a little dumb and tried to do two classes just a day apart. I really like the Fort Collins studio, its bigger and more open. The Longmont studio seems very small to me and kind of squeezed into its location. But I think for this 5 week course I am going to try to transfer from the Saturday classes in Fort Collins to the Thursday classes in Longmont because while I like the Fort Collis studio better the Saturday class today was PACKED. I mean there were more girls then there were poles, and the Thursday class was only the teacher, my friend Tausha and I. and I think I liked the personal attention a lot. What can I say, I’m selfish. But I figure if this is something I’m doing I might as well do it on a more personalizes level if I can. I’m still waiting to hear back from the studio to see if I can do that. But I don’t think it should be a problem at all since this week was the first day of the series for both classes and I did both it should be no problem to just change the day I go to class. 

Also it doesn’t hurt that that Thursday class has my friend in it. Actually that helps a lot. Not that the girls in my class today were not nice, it is just kind of hard for me to make friends while I’m still feeling super self-conscious. Being with a friend just completely takes away the self-conscious part and then I can just have fun and learn and work out. 

Spins I know how to do now:

-Closed front hook spin

-Fireman’s spin (and about 3 variations of)

-Prep work for fan legs (that one I’m not strong enough to do yet, but I am working on it)

-Open back hook spin

-Girl on top

And to finish things off Sephy’s inspiration corner!

So today I arrived to class a little early so I was just hanging out. One of the poles was a little weird so the owners husband was fixing it and the owners little girl was dancing with one of the pole’s. I’m not sure how old this girl was but I swear she could be no older the 5 or 6 and she was amazing. Just in her party dress climbing the pole (her mom and her dad had to tell her sever times “Not to high!”) and inverting and spinning and it was just amazing to watch. I congratulated her, saying that she could teach me a lot, and asked if her mommy taught her and she was a little shy but told me “No” and went on dancing and her dad chuckled “I think she just learned by watching her mom.” And at this the little girl who had been in the middle of a trick stopped mid trick and looked at her dad and in all the seriousness that only a 5 year old can have, said “No, dad, I watch her and then see how to do it in my mind and then I do it. My mind teaches me to dance.” And I think my jaw dropped to the floor.  From the mouths of babes, I swear. She just went back to dancing but it gave me something to think about all throughout class. Because I think it is just as simple as that, and just as hard.