Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

& Strength">Pole Dancing: A Feat of Athleticism & Strength

What do you think of when I say the words “pole danc­ing”? Chances are, you’re think­ing about sleazy “gentlemen’s clubs” with women of dubi­ous repute danc­ing around a pole to tit­il­late men (and relieve them of some of their money). There is, how­ever, noth­ing intrin­si­cally sleazy or even sul­try about danc­ing with a pole. Pole danc­ing is slowly com­ing into the main­stream con­scious­ness as a fit­ness activ­ity, which is some­thing it truly is.

The first time I came across a pole danc­ing exhibit was actu­ally at a wed­ding show. A local pole dance fit­ness club was try­ing to gain aware­ness amongst brides-to-be who want to be fit, svelte, and sexy for their big day. I have to admit, I felt odd around that booth and walked by it as fast as I could with­out look­ing like I was try­ing to get the hell out of there.

Pole danc­ing can indeed be used to seduce, arouse, and tit­il­late. Sure, I won’t argue against that. But have you actu­ally seen a pole dance per­for­mance? Indeed, some of the hold posi­tions can have sex­ual con­no­ta­tions, but my over­rid­ing impres­sion is “Holy cow, that is incred­i­bly athletic!”

I think that per­for­mances with high heels on are pretty stu­pid, but take a look at the fol­low­ing video and con­sider the strength, endurance, and flex­i­bil­ity involved.

It can be artis­tic and grace­ful, fem­i­nine with­out being crude.

I think that it is entirely rea­son­able to state that, if done with such intent, pole danc­ing is as much a sport as com­pet­i­tive danc­ing is a sport.

Pole danc­ing will never be fully divorced from its sul­try asso­ci­a­tions, and it does not need to be. Danc­ing of any kind can be sex­u­al­ized because danc­ing by its very nature involves phys­i­cal move­ment and expres­sion. It is the intent behind the per­for­mance that deter­mines its impact. Some­times the sul­tri­ness is a good and appro­pri­ate thing, and some­times it is a com­pet­i­tive, ath­letic endeavor — just as even ball­room danc­ing spans both ends of that spectrum.

Here’s pole danc­ing — or more appro­pri­ately, pole acro­bat­ics — as pure performance:

The roots of pole danc­ing are in acro­bat­ics and gym­nas­tics. Indeed, such acro­batic & gym­nas­tic per­for­mances are known as chi­nese pole per­for­mances. Like gym­nas­tics in the Olympics, the chi­nese pole — danc­ing with and on a pole — is an activ­ity pur­sued by both men and women. The move­ments & hold posi­tions are dif­fer­ent — for women, the empha­sis is on lines & fem­i­nin­ity, and for men, it is on strength and power.

Pole danc­ing comes from the world of gym­nas­tics and acro­bat­ics, and how­ever it is pre­sented today — as exer­cise, as gen­eral per­for­mance, as pri­vate seduc­tion, or as sul­try adult enter­tain­ment — it remains a feat of ath­leti­cism and strength.

I hope that if you dis­missed pole danc­ing — like I used to — as some­thing nec­es­sar­ily smutty, that you can now admit at least to your­self that it is not nec­es­sar­ily so.