I Don't Want to Make You a Pole Dancer...

Allow me to re-introduce this space

Yes, there are poles, but they're not the magic...

Coming off this full moon death/rebirth energy, I thought this is the perfect time to share this. And yes, it's a long one. And yes, I might lose some of you after this, and that's ok too. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the studio. Particularly the vision I have for this space, to create something more pole-adjacent than deeply embedded in the “pole community”. A space where the pole is an apparatus and a tool for deeper, authentic, embodied, sensual connection. Where the pole is an option even, you can have a beautiful meaningful practice with or without it.

It would be entirely easier to have opened just a pole studio, where you all come in and we tell you what outfits to wear and what choreo to do, keep up with the newest super cool instagram pole moves and tell you doing all those things make you sexy and empowered.

Easy day right? I mean that’s what we’ve all been told makes us sexy: striving for a particular aesthetic, going with the program, trying our very best to fit into a standard that has been set by someone else.

I can’t do that. It’s just not in me anymore. I think we’ve all been there at some point. I used to try to fit in, shapeshifting from one relationship to another, whether it be romantic or just wanting to feel accepted by peers or family. Not one moment of it felt sexy or empowering or liberating. Why would that feel sexy or empowering in a movement space?

The more women I’ve worked with and had conversations with, the more I realized I wasn’t alone in this at all, in fact most have had similar experiences throughout their lives. We just don’t really talk about it with one another.

It’s understandable. Thinking about it is vulnerable, let alone sharing it. For me it brought up feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment. Which are all feelings that are all too familiar when it comes to exploring sensuality and sexual energy.

To be brutally honest, being objectified and performative can absolutely be our comfort zone, but I won’t get into that right now. If you feel triggered by that statement, it’s ok-I would’ve been too several years ago.

For me, I got to a point in my life where the guilt and shame and embarrassment were worth facing because I realized I didn’t really know myself very well anymore. I couldn’t even remember the last time I felt completely myself just for me. 

I imagine this is the point where you all expect me to say that’s when I took a pole class and it changed my life instantly. I walked out the door a fully empowered unstoppable goddess baddie and I can do the same for you if you sign up for class…

That’s not how it works ( I wish it was that easy)

We don’t have time to get into what’s happened from that first class 10 years ago till now or we’d be here for a week. Long story short, it started me on the path to come back home to myself, being curious about how much more or myself there was to find, and hold grace for that process even when that home was feeling like a hot mess. And there was much more to that process than pole dance alone.

And I thought, if someone like me could find healing and joy and pleasure and freedom in my body through sensuality and movement, others could too. That's what I wanted to bring to people.

Over the years I've seen people devastated over pole tricks. Crying, calling themselves weak or stupid, training to the point of injury , even training while injured to get a damn pole trick because that's how being a "good" pole dancer is measured. There are plenty of studios to get that experience, This is not one of them. 

Yes, pole tricks are cool, having people clap for you is cool, yes our egos still crave little dopamine bursts of outside validation, but what’s really fucking cool and magical and life changing in ways beyond your wildest imagination is coming back home to yourself.

Finding pleasure and comfort and love where you used to find shame. Knowing if not one person was around to clap for you or tell you you’re sexy, you still feel it with every bit of your being. To embody and prioritize your sensuality and pleasure and sexual energy that it becomes your way of life, not something to be performed or given to others first. 

Over the years when people ask me about what we do at the studio, I don’t sit there and tell people how many pole tricks you all have accomplished.

I tell them about you as humans, not pole dancers. Your careers, how I’ve seen you leave shitty relationships, start businesses or new jobs, how I’ve seen some of you go from wearing the longest shorts possible to proudly and shamelessly shaking your asses around the studio and loving every jiggly bit of yourselves. How I’ve seen the most rigid bodies (and concentration faces) soften over time.

How I’ve seen you all discovering new and beautiful things about yourselves. How your eyes light up the first time you see yourself in the mirrors with the colored lights or a new pair of heels. How the studio is full of women celebrating and genuinely loving and supporting each other. How all of that is vulnerable as fuck but we show up for ourselves and each other week after week. How no one has to pretend they’re having a great day, whatever we’re going through we’ll move through it together. How your voices matter and I fucking love when you tell me you hated a song or a certain move because your voice gives every other woman in that space a reminder hers is just as important to be heard too. I could go on and on…

And fuck, that is all so much more precious to me than teaching you all the pole tricks everyone else is doing on instagram. That stuff? That’s grown ass woman shit. And yeah, I know we’re not all ready for that.

I want more for us.

This is a space where messy, authentic, and real will be the most beautiful thing you can be. The pole just a pole, not a measure of success or worth. 

The only goal is to show up and see where the day takes you. To honor and explore and express yourself, mind/body/soul. That’s not for everyone and that’s ok. If you’re seeking something more, something deeper, something raw and real and authentic, you might love it here. Better still, you just might fall in love with what’s to be discovered within yourself.

XOXO,

Andrea