I’ve been feeling a little cranky lately because it only just occurred to me that as an English teacher – I work during the time when pole dance classes usually happen. I feel like I can’t win on the pole front! First I live in Laos – the land of no pole dance, and now I have access to at least 4 different studios and almost all the classes are in the evenings. I’ll figure something out, but I started reflecting on my first and only pole performance and how it influenced my recent performance – By Product.
I worked really hard on this routine, I trained for weeks and spent hours analysing and researching different dance styles. Sometimes when I watch the video I feel super proud and other times I feel super embarrassed imaging all the ‘real’ pole dancers judging my scrappy style, lack of tricks and most unpointed toes.
I felt disconnected and a bit left behind when I left Adelaide a couple of months after performing this and moved to Laos, all my old classmates got better and better and kept posting videos of the incredible things they were doing. Meanwhile, I was unlearning all the fundamental moves and sweating all over the floor.
I eventually realised that I should focus on myself and what I had and what I could do. I started doing more freestyles and more dance and tried to just have fun. I became a lot more comfortable in my own style and abilities and realised that just because there are pole dance ‘rules and styles’ I could pretty much do whatever I liked and it didn’t actually matter. That’s where By Product comes into it, I really wanted to do something that no rules or boundaries.
This routine was very fun to make but it was tough because a little voice in my head kept saying I had just gone for this weird style because I was too shit at proper pole dancing to do something elegant or sexy. But it was also so much the right thing for me, I really like trying to dance in an exotic or contemporary style but I also think its really important to challenge people. Plus, to be honest, I love pole but like 20 routines in a row can get pretty tedious, there needs to be some kind of freak in there somewhere to shake things up a bit.