On Monday, I had my first Beginner's pole class. After doing pole dancing at my Hen's night earlier this year, a friend and I decided that we wanted to take a class. After some issues with timing, we finally got around to booking it and Monday was the first session.
We got there pretty early, not really knowing what to expect. After waiting around for a while some other students came in, mostly for pole but one lone person for burlesque (that would have made it an slightly awkward class I'd imagine!).
Our group had a mix of people - my friend K and I, some uni students, some women who were back for another semester of beginner to try to improve, one who was on a dare, and another who was a roller derby chick who can't skate anymore so thought this would be low impact. There were a range of body shapes from thin to large and everything in between.
Our teacher Jacqui is pretty cool. She looks like an aging stripper and is awesome. I like her a lot. Her pole is named David (as in Beckham).
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| Our teacher Jacqui |
On to the tricks! We learnt how to to do Round About (which is basically walking around the pole in a very sexy way), and Carousel, which is spinning down the pole. It's easier to do if you don't have a cut in the middle of your hand that opens every time you spin.
It wasn't as hard as I thought, and we didn't end up doing as many things as we did at the Hen's night. Class was only an hour though, which wasn't long enough. I'd like 1.5 hours - an hour for stretching/conditioning and an hour for practice. It's also important to do the moves correctly, as it ends up being a sequence.
All in all, it was fun. I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks when we'll be climbing up the pole and doing awesome stuff. I only ended up with one bruise on my foot, but am anticipating a whole lot more in the next 7 weeks!
