Learn to Pole Dance
Your first Learn To Pole Dance lesson may include spins, turns and slides which aren't as scary and difficult as they sound! But of course, you need to get up the pole and hold on before you can execute any specific moves. So the first thing you’ll learn is a ‘lock’ position. You achieve this by pulling yourself up the pole with everything your upper body has got, hard as you can until your feet are properly off the floor. You then quickly straighten your left leg out in front of you, and wrap your right leg over it, bending at the knee. Done properly, this should ‘lock’ you in the position. You then ungrip with your hands, place them higher up the pole and by releasing your leg position and pulling up again, you get yourself higher up. Lock your legs again and repeat until you are at the desired height (which for a beginners, shouldn’t be very far!). Easy. Or, fairly easy, anyway. It’s very support specific - if you find it difficult to engage your inner thigh muscles you may be overusing your arms so strive for balance of muscle use if you can. It’s this move you need to do over and over while you build that vital upper body strength and leg grip which will save you from slipping when doing the more advanced moves. This is a great move to boost your confidence and if you’re getting the hang of the lock position quickly, your instructor may progress you to leaning back with one hand off the pole on your first lesson. Exact positioning of the body is crucial here – the right bit gripping at the right time in the right place. But it's great for the confidence at an early stage and of course fabulous for your physique. You may notice that there don’t seem to be many names for the moves when you first learn to pole dance - don’t worry, just concentrate on the shape and feel of the movement rather than remembering its name. But of course, it’s not all ‘up the pole’! There’s lots of work at floor level with finesse and the ‘look’ of your dance being addressed, taught and encouraged from the very start. So expect a little bit of stepping around the pole, doing a ‘ripple’ (like a body roll), lying on the floor with a leg up on pole and of course strutting around it with much shaking of booty! All this, whilst it can feel comical and embarrassing to begin with, actually does make you more aware of your body position and encourages good use of your own body space – vital for success in ANY dancing. So some moves aren’t for fitness or physically taxing at all, they really are just for show – there’s something to be had here even if you are convinced that you’ve two left feet and / or are tragically out of shape. You’ll find, probably without even realizing it, that your instructor has been gently encouraging you to do slightly more with each move, each time you practice it. Eventually, you know enough pole and floor based moves that will nicely segue into one another to form a basic routine. So that’s it - you can learn to pole dance a basic routine right in your first lesson. Not bad!
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