Steve Jobs Should Inspire Your Pole Dance

What can a college drop out teach you about success--or about pole dance, for that matter? I wonder if you knew Steve Jobs dropped out of college and lived on his friends' dorm room floors. That he aimlessly took classes, "dropped in" on classes, based on whether or not he found them interesting. He did, in fact. And there is a powerful message in that for us as dancers as we go into a new year.

Flexibility Rollercoaster and A Few Surprises

Talk about a whirlwind!

This year I got my front splits!
And then illness hit and I lost flexibility and learned to deal with it.
Then I got my splits again!
But had to boycott them.

I stuck with what I am best at, backbends, of course.

As much as I love my splits, wherever they may be hiding, losing them twice was worth it. Yep, even worth not having pictures of splits in front of the tree after two years of trying for Xmas splits. That reason is sleeping as I type these words.

Meet my flexy little baby, here at one week of age and already too big for this newborn outfit. This was taken around November 19th and he's already a month and a half!

2013 was a chance for me to be inspired by some of the most amazing, strong women I have had the privilege to know (and a few awesome men too). In the Pole Dancing Bloggers Association we share ideas, critiques, frustrations and all together support and inspire one another. This blog post is part of our many #PDBloggers blog hops and our way of bridging the pole world and making it stronger--you can check out everyone's "Best of" posts at the bottom of this. Some of my best Weekend Crushes were my fellow bloggers for this very reason. The best surprise was that despite how awe-inspiring these ladies are they are also expremely helpful and humble.

Speaking of blog posts, one of my most popular posts surprised me--who knew so many people would find my little corner of flexibility and pole dance bliss searching "dog peed on yoga mat?" Err... good to know. A lot of people were also curious about pole dance.

As a site you may have noticed a few small adjustments but there has been so much percolating in the background, ideas that I hope to fully develop in the coming new year... but that is a post for tomorrow ;)

Why I will always defend the "Sexy Side"

I don't own a single pair of clear heels. The stilettos I have are babied and would never come near my treadmill so they would never be part of my pole workouts or dancing either. Yet when I read about certain organizations trying to strip the sexy side away from pole I speak out. Go sanitize anything else you want but pole--there are so many reasons not to.

Weekend Crush: Pole Dancing Professor, Lisa Faulkner

http://www.inherimagephoto.com/

Lisa Faulkner, PhD, embodies a lot of what Flexines is about. She definitely brings her dash of sexy to the pole world and has just the right touch of nerdy pole dancer. I love that there is a constant undertone of deep thought and empowerment to everything she writes on her site, poledancingprofessor.com. In fact, I think she is the perfect example of who pole dancers are. There is a recurring thread on StudioVeena about what we pole dancers do for a living and the responses are resoundingly both diverse and impressive. We are doctors, machinists, nurses, social workers, and yes, pole dancing professors.

Here's what caught my attention: the call of the Siren. I first noticed Lisa's celebration of herself and this playful, sensual spirit in the images she shares on her Facebook page. What is a siren? What is the call of a siren? I think this image

YouTube: worst and best in pole social media

I found out about pole dancing through YouTube, yet I think YouTube is the worst social media platform for pole. There are a lot of really great aspects of pole that YouTube promotes but what currently stands out most are the ones that make me click away as fast as I can. It's a great resource (more on this in a bit) but it reflects heavily on what society thinks of pole and perpetuates a lot of the stereotypes out there.

The worst? The title "Stripper dance" in so many pole videos. It is so often tacked on regardless of whether they explore the sexy side of pole, the acrobatic, or pole art. Stripping has its own raw beauty and sticking it like a cheap label all over anything with a pole is really sad. Also, not everyone that pole dances would ever strip for whatever personal reasons. Hardly any of the polers are taking off any clothing, is that not part of what stripping is?

Then there are the comments, oh the comments! Every wack job out there seems to think s/he has the most authoritative take on pole, from criticizing it as too sexual to letting the dancer know "I want to eat your socks." Seriously? First of all, when did we become so afraid of sex? Secondly, other work out videos like yoga or lifting do not get this same treatment and yet they use the same clothing coverage. When I see comments like this I just shudder to think of the impression it gives of pole. Monkey see, monkey do. The more people see pole disparaged, the more they will do it themselves.

So what can we do?

The fact of the matter is that the pole community is completely different from the rubbish you have to plow through to watch a pole video. We praise each other, focus on triumphs and progress, and we uplift. It's what keeps me involved in pole even with how uncoordinated I am slowly I'm progressing. This is what we need to present, and yet it so often gets drowned out in social and mass media.

I challenge all of you to promote videos that really represent pole. Subscribe to fellow pole dancers videos and share them. If you're friend/coworker/partner is concerned that pole will make you "look bad" inbox them a video that showcases what you love about pole. One of my favorite videos is Jenyne Butterfly's dance to the Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Machine. Every time I would search for it a few of the top posts on YouTube included "stripper dance" in the title. While I've seen some really wonderful videos with strip elements, for example by Felix Cane or Alethea Austin, the video I'm talking about seems to be about childish fun. You can't call that a "stripper dance"--you're doing strip (like taking off clothes is all there is to stripping) and Jenyne's dance an injustice. It's just a tactic to boost their appearance in search results... yawn. I checked it out and we must have been doing a good job because the top results I found this time described it completely.

The good

I love that YouTube is such a great resource for pole inspiration, tutorials, and introducing people to pole. I found out about StudioVeena through Emotioncatcher's videos, which I found after a search on pole. The only reason I was searching YouTube for pole videos was that I saw a recommended video of Anastasia Skukhtorova and loved it. You definitely have to wade through a lot of crappy comments and pole stereotypes to view them, but you can find a lot of good out there. For instance, a lot of home polers can progress by watching tutorials on all sorts of moves from beginner to advanced. Then there are pole related moves like Aerial Amy's awesome booty bounce tutorial. Maybe with enough posting and sharing this will be the main thing we see.

So vote with your clicks. Share what the sexy side of pole means to you--or the acrobatic, or pole art, or you own style. The more we get our voices out there the better social media will reflect that pole includes so many styles and how valuable each one is.

Flexines A Day in the Life: Flexy, Pole and Life

A typical day in the life of a Pre-Med, pole dancing, flexy addict begins with a mental alarm clock. It's the feeling of impeding doom if--I don't get my butt out of bed and set at finishing school work. On tap today: a three hour manic session of Statistics for Medicine.

No, I didn't procrastinate (this time), lol! As a pole mom a fun chunk of my time goes into frantic potty runs and cuddle time, then a bit more to the inevitable fatigue. Cue a quick bathroom run with my two-year-old in the middle of a particularly frustrating Probability problem--I wouldn't have it any other way! Next comes