Pole dancing

I can't dance. There has to be a word for physical stupidity; I don't mean mere clumsiness, add to that a lack of co-ordination and just a kind of strange spatial unawareness...

I had some glimmering comprehension of my inability before, at belly dancing classes attended in the company of lovely velvet_the_cat. I could move my hips but somehow, I just didn't grasp most of the techniques. Ever since november_girl's fantastic hen day, where a gaggle of us drank wine and tried pole dancing techniques all afternoon, I've been interested in this form of dance, not least because it seems like a ferocious enemy to bingo wings and flabby thighs. People who train loads in it are very toned.

Our teacher last night was one of these tiny toned women, balletic and bird-like. It was not in comparison to her I felt my first moment's despair. Looking around the room, I was definitely one of the heaviest there. Darn larians and his venison pies, duck a l'orange and apple crumbles! I have put on lots of weight again.

As to technique: Try 'The Swan'. Not a pub, though two minutes practice found me fervently wishing it was. There's your pole; stretch up and grab it, strong hand above the other. Now hang there, pressing your hips against the pole, lifting your bottom and legs horizontally out behind you in a diamond shape, crossing at the feet. Stay there. Unless you have a very mighty grip, your hands will slide down the pole, and you will crash into the floor with your knees. I was honestly elephantine, people wincing as they watched.

But this was not my greatest debacle. 'The Backslide' is not a tough move physically but you have to get your hands right, and I just could not, because and the move is very right hand led and I'm yer genuwine southpaw. I felt like Zoolander. The teacher showed me twice, and it just wouldn't stay in my head.

Imagine:

You are standing to the right of your pole, with your left arm outstretched, grasping said pole.

Bring your right arm across at an angle of 11 o clock, and turn anti-clockwise towards the pole.

Grab the top of the pole with your right arm, letting go of your left arm which you curve across your body and cup at the small of your back while you complete the circle. You should now be standing in front of the pole with one hand behind your back and your right arm in a tangled mess grasping the top of the pole.

You slide down.

Or maybe you slide after having dexterously* manouevred your right hand so it grasps the pole from behind, thumb pointing down.

At the bottom of the pole, you change the hand back to another position I just cannot get right. Basically, there are two, one is uncomfortable and the other really hurts. You want** the one that really hurts.

Recross your left arm across your front.

Grasp the pole with your left hand.

Keeping both hands on the pole, gracefully stand up to the side, curving your bottom as you do so.

I can stick my bum out. That's about it. And I must confess, I knew how to do this before the class started.


*Hah!

** More hah!