“Beginner” doesn’t mean easy or effortless. It just means it can be part of the beginner progression once you’ve built the necessary strength and basics.
Personally, I think being able to invert should be a requirement before moving on to intermediate. I genuinely don’t understand why people get so offended by that.

Edit: Thanks for the comments and different perspectives. English is not my first language, so my wording may have come across differently than I intended. In the end, I was just asking a question… I trust the certified instructors at my studio and will stick to their guidance. Moving on from this sub and wishing you all the best !

Literally every time I see someone write this name out I feel sick. I think this must be a regional name since I've only ever encountered it on this sub. Where I'm from we call this trick "wrist seat."

I'm not suggesting we sanitize pole. I've danced in clubs when I was younger and I have so much appreciation and respect for strippers and strip culture. I just find "hello boys" to be so objectifying and cringe.

Tangentially speaking about language in pole, I'm an instructor now and I've been teaching for a few years. In my personal experience, I've noticed a big uptick in gender diversity in my students. Not just more cismen in my classes, but lots of trans and nonbinary folks. I've been de-gendering my language to be more inclusive to these students and not accidentally trigger anyone's dysphoria. For example I warn students not to smash their pubic bones on the pole when I used to say vulva. I also say "firefighter" and "super hero" instead of "fireman" and"superman."

What do you all think? Has language impacted your experience of pole in a good or a bad way? Where do you fall on the "hello boys" squick spectrum? Are there other names you wish we could banish?

I’m so curious what your big three is! My studio is full of water and fire signs!! With heavy heavy libra and Taurus influence. I am a cancer sun aqua moon libra rising and my pole friends are: Scorpio, Taurus, Pisces w libra moon, Capricorn, and Leo’s. What’s yours? What do you think drew you to pole astrologically? I think mine was my libra rising (love of beauty), aqua moon (rebelliousness & craving community) sag mars (loving a challenge/adventure/learning and loves dancing) cancer sun (loves to create a vibe and feel the music)

Edit: I’m so surprised at the amount of similarities in the comments!! Seems to be mostly water signs, air signs, Leo’s, sag, and virgos!

The answer to this question is very simple. I was cornered and destroyed by the people around me. After separating from my partner, my photos from photo shoots, art shoots and those of pole dancing were copied and put on slick content portals. The addresses to these sites were sent after my family and to my employers. I managed to unwind everything and delete the pages, but my psyche is in total disarray and now I have to focus on other things, important, more important and the most important things, namely my current Woman and our plan for life. She is quite a well-known singer in Poland, we have recorded several songs together and I want to support her in this. I took a year’s paid leave to improve my health and we will work together. We also want to live together. Have a nice day dear friends, I will come back to you, I don’t know when, but I will come back kisses

I signed up for a beginner pole dancing workshop and I hate it. I cried after my first class. I wanted to start pole to feel empowered and I felt the opposite. All the girls there already had experience pole dancing. I was the only one with no pole or dance experience. Because everyone already knew the moves, the class was moving too fast for me. I also realized I have no upper body strength so maybe I should work on that before jumping into pole dancing. I felt like I was slowing down the class and the instructor seemed to be annoyed by me so I basically stopped even trying and let them move to the next moves.

It’s a 6 week workshop for beginners. I called them before I signed up to make sure it was for beginners, they reassured me that people who signed up for these workshops are people who have never been on a pole. I guess I was deceived.

I GIVE UP!

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your support! I wrote this post right after the class so I was a bit emotional. All the moves were still considered beginner. I think the reason I felt intimidated is because everyone was able to do each move after one try and then we moved on to the next move. I tried really hard to keep up but my body was not helping. I decided the buy a pole and try it in the comfort of my home before going back to a studio.

EDIT: thank you everyone for your responses. You've greatly helped and I will look into my options based on your ideas.

---

I heard you are all very lovely here. So here goes nothing.

I lost all my muscle mass in some pretty serious health issues a couple of years back. I'm still not fully done with healing that, but I want to live my life now. It's been like five years. Three of which I actively held myself from starting pole because I knew I couldn't do it.

A studio opened up right next to my home. No more excuses.

It's been two years of physiotherapy. First three months where I'm in the normal BMI (as opposed to underweight). I've started training with small weights now. I thought I'll learn on the go, you've got to start somewhere. My core, ironically, is my weakest link. The pole was supposed to help with that.

So I go to the studio, and I expect to fail, but I also expect others to fail at least a little. They're all there first time.

Except now it's been two classes, and EVERYONE came for their FIRST TRY (new people keep coming), and I've seen literally 15 women do six different moves on their second if not first try.

I don't know the names of the moves, but everyone can go the 90/90 leg spin first try. Everyone can do the diamond spin or whatever that's called (where your legs are behind you and you're facing the pole). EVERYONE can sit or perch on the pole within 10 minutes AND THEY JUST SIT THERE.

I still can't do the first fireman one they start you on. My knees just won't let go of the pole, and my ankles are somehow in the wrong place, and nothing works.

Also, my hands are slipping so bad where other women make 4 circles and I make 1 before I'm ass fully on the ground. I asked the teacher about this, and she said I just need to learn and to not use helping aids for that (how do I learn to not sweat on my hands??? I mean I've been learning that for 38 years so it probably won't change?)

I would be fine with my own failure. I know I'm weak, but it's just so depressing when you see other people look at your with pity and avoid your eyes. The teacher won't even help me because I'm so hopeless, she goes to help others but leaves me to struggle alone because I assume I'm beyond helping. She also introduces 3-4 new moves every class, but I can't even do the first one yet, so I don't understand, is this a normal pace?

I haven't had as much trouble with my core or my posture since I started. In fact, even my prolapse issues seem to be retreating. These are all things I hoped to achieve.

However, it's crushing out there. Most of the class I stand heavy breathing or just trying to not look at the pity glances, or how everyone's ignoring me. I thought bullying was hard when I was a child - actually, pity feels worse? It takes me about 20 minutes to leave the dressing room because of the way it just crushes you.

Moreover, my teacher said it's normal that women within 3 months (of once a week) are doing upside down. Which I just... What? Like, for real?

Is it like that everywhere? Or is it just my location? I'm wondering if I suck beyond sucking, or is it just that only the craziest gym freaks are signing up to this school?

How do I go on? Did I start too early? I just want to cry after every class :(

Hi all, I'm quite new to the pole, and just want to ask if there are many enby-polers here. I'd just basically would looove to hear anything about your thoughts on pole: clothing, pronouns, the joy, anything. Where I live, we have a language that doesn't have gendered pronouns, and thus the pole spaces tend to be quite neutral in that way BUT it also erases the gender discussions to some extend (i.e. everyone might be assumed female, if there are only AFAB's in the class etc.). I feel like I would like to still enforce (EDIT. by this I mean "to make visible, to implement", English not my native language) my Nonbinaryness somehow, maybe putting rainbow flag to my clother haha. I don't know, sometimes I just feel a bit unsure as no one has ever blinked an eye to the whole gender thing in our studio. So I'm guessing (!) they read me as a woman. I might be wrong, I hope I am. Anyway, this was a bit ranty, not very structured. I just am very much in need of peer support and sharing :)

EDIT. Thank you for all enby's and trans people and allies of your joyful, thoughtful comments. I really value you all replying <3 just a quick TRIGGER WARNING for fellow queers in search of peer support and sharing: some of the most liked replies seem to be from people who have not understanding of the queer experience. But most replies are sharing the queer experience as requested.

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/poledancing/s/hC4ZgjKQ7g

I think I’ll make a new post, as I’ve had time to process everything.

TLDR: I love to see people enjoying this hobby, but I’ve had such a bad experience I’m quitting. Also to any beginner who is being offered discount for beginner + intermediate combo, do not take it. The hobby is hard and if you don’t have athletic background you can’t move from one level to another that quickly.

So, a longer version. I joined pole classes, did two courses (5 lessons each) of “beginner level” and got pole home so I could train. After the lessons and training, I can’t do even the basic spins, while the studio assumes you’re capable of inverting and doing all of the athletic stuff on pole. As someone with no gymnastics/ballet background, that feels overwhelming and way too hard as a beginner.

I cried after lessons, was anxious beforehand and pushed through as I had paid for them. After the beginner course, I was supposed to continue to intermediate level (with complex spins and more inverts). I had paid for both classes, and after the last lesson talked with the instructor that i didn’t feel comfortable continuing to the next level. She was super understanding and told me to contact the studio to join beginner classes once again.

Come the studio owner. I contacted her, and got an answer that due terms and services, I can’t join beginner class, and have to join intermediate instead. They told me they had already been accommodating when they allowed me to join beginner twice (I paid for both of them). So now my options are to join intermediate and cry more, and have more anxiety, or quit the hobby. For me the answer is quite clear. I have no energy to battle with the studio, so they can keep my money. If pole makes me feel like a failure, I rather sell my equipment and do not think of it again, even though with more time and practice in a nice studio I could see myself really enjoying it. Now the only question is whether I go to the remaining lessons, and either drain all of the instructors attention and time by not being able to do stuff, or just sit at the corner and make other participants uncomfortable by being there.

I haven't started pole dancing, but I really want to get into it. It looks like a great way to exercise and is a lot of fun. That being said, I know that pole dancing is routed in sexuality. I don't want it to be over explicit or anything, just simple, fun dancing.

I am not trying to shame anyone either for dancing sexually, it's just not my thing :)

Edit: just to be clear, I am perfectly content with strippers. I in no way want to shame anyone, and I fully respect and acknowledge that pole dancing has sexual roots

Pole noob here. Please help me figure this out. I'm in a class with someone below 15 years old. There were a couple of moves I was taught solo because they were too "adult". Is it fair on adults to have to neuter their routines because an underage person is present or should there be under 18 only classes or can we view this art as JUST art that anyone can practice? Help. I'm trying to arrange to be moved to a different class with 18+ people or even move from my current studio altogether if that's not feasible.

Edit: Thanks for everyone's input. I can't be ok with this. I don't think under-age people should be pole dancing regardless of their parent's consent or supervision. It's inherently a sexualised form of dance, like burlesque or striptease. A kid wouldn't know how to perform like that because they fucking shouldn't. If I can't be reassigned to an all 18+ class, I'm switching studios.

So me and my baby father, we don’t live together. I have been with him for six years.
Before I knew him I used to pole fitness and I used to model but since having two children I’ve lost all my confidence so I decided to start my pole fitness again in the comfort of my own house not to put online not to show anybody just for me. when my baby father found out that I put the pole up, he wasn’t happy he thinks I’m a hoe but I’m really honestly doing it for me and my confidence of myself worth not for anybody else. he’s asked me to take it down, but I don’t know what to do whats everyone else else’s opinion, please?

I recently competed and had a great time, but my competition video only got 8 likes. It's not surprising because I don't try to get discovered, but it still made me feel a little sad because it reminded me of how few pole-friends I have these days. When I started pole, I had a studio I went to and community. Then I moved to a more suburban area and lost all of that. I mostly train at home now and pop in to classes at "local" studios (not easy for me to get to) when I can.

I know it's silly and that I must sound so whiny, but I feel like the only one at my birthday party lol. And at the end of the day, that's enough because I pole for me, but boy do I miss community/people to share with.

Anyway, sharing here even though I'm a bit embarrassed after everything I've said. Thanks to anyone who has read my TED Talk to the void and have a great day!

I’ve been pole dancing for like 2+ years now and I have definitely improved and gotten so strong over this time! But I have friends in pole who have done it as long as me and are a whole level(maybe more) higher. I go to class more than some of them too, and they don’t even cross train. I feel so dejected by this. Any similar experience or validation?😭

I'm a total beginner, and I haven't been on the pole in 3 (almost 4) months due to pole completely screwing up my nerves, as well as giving me tennis elbow. Honestly, I am frustrated because I have no idea how much longer I have to deal with what pole did to my body. Pole quickly became my passion when I started, but it was just as quickly taken away from me. From me being STUPID.

I had no prior strength or exercise when I started. I stupidly thought "Heck yeah, I'm gonna spin. And spin! And spiiiin." without actually considering my body's strength. That's exactly how to f---- up your body. Since I took a break from pole, I've been seeing a personal trainer who has been helping me so much with getting strong in a safe and efficient way. I noticed that two of my pole instructors were also regularly lifting weights at the gym. I also realized that the only way to actually progress in pole and do the moves you wanna do is to strength train off the pole. Nobody wants to hear it, but you gotta do it. It's probably more important than you loving spinning, posing, and dancing. Otherwise, you risk f---ing up your body like I did, or you might never achieve that move you really want to do.

Us pole babes also gotta be gym babes. Our body ain't going to magically be able to hold itself onto a pole properly without gaining that sweet, sweet strength through other means.

Edit: My personal trainer is swole as heck (lol) and he tried pole once to see what it was like. Because he's already swole, he was able to do advanced moves right away without hurting himself at all. Meanwhile just the beginner spins caused me nerve pain, nerve irritation, and tennis elbow.

Edit 2' Thanks for all the input. I'm sorry if I stirred people up. I didn't mean to do that. I meant for this post to warn others who might end up in the same situation I wish I never ended up in. It's always a possibility. I have hypermobility in most of my joints, so my journey might have looked a little bit different than others and I understand better now that everyone's body is different. I know for myself, if I don't work out, I just wouldn't be able to do pole. And I can't go back until I build strength around my hypermobile joints and get rid of TE. Sorry again. I'll still keep this post up in case someone feels like it's helpful

I’m really interested in pole fitness mainly as a way to move my body more and engage in physical fitness. I am overweight and I am autistic and intersex. I’m not sure if any of that would impact my ability to get what I want out of a class? I would appreciate any advice and suggestions! Please be kind in the comments.

Hi everyone! I just took my very first pole dance class, but I’m feeling super frustrated. As soon as I try to lift myself up on the pole with both hands, I can’t lift my body weight at all. Even when I try using one leg to help, I still can't manage to lift the other off the ground without my arms giving up on me. I wasn't sweaty, nor in covering clothing...

Sorry for my English and welcoming all tips. I'd like to be on the pole not just near 😂

So I have been pole dancing for a while now and I would like to get my own pole.

But the problem is that we have an old house and my dad is concerned that our house would break if I would get a pole.

I on the other hand dont believe that a pole would break our house. So what do I do, and how do I convince them to get me a pole?

I’m a software developer and that pays a lot of money. I hate my job though, the work is mentally challenging but the people are really awful.

It doesn’t help that this is a male dominated field. People constantly question my credentials or hit on me as if I were some rare creature that they’ve never seen before.

Anyway, that small rant aside, I’ve been doing pole for 4+ years. I’ve performed before, but only in low level stuff that was for fun. I’ve been thinking about getting out of software, just doing this and teaching.

I’m wondering if anyone has any advice? I’m thinking about it because I’m very well connected to my community but not with anyone that knows a lot about this. And I’ve heard mixed things about it

Never been on one in my life so I can barely even hold myself up. & my hands keep getting sweaty. Any advice? This is completely discouraging me & I was so ecstatic to learn pole dancing :(