Pole dancing in Tallinn

Pole Dance - It's Not Just For Strippers Anymore - holds true also in Tallinn. There were no platform heels or feather boas in sight at City Dance.

I travel to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, a couple of times a year for work or just for fun and when a friend mentioned that she wants to check out the pole dancing scene there I was in. Elina goes to classes at Pole4Fit in Helsinki and also teaches there every now and then and she was looking for a place to work out at while studying in Tallinn.

Pole dancing, at least it's athletic variation, is only gaining popularity in Tallinn. City Dance was the most promising school we could find while searching online. The studio is only a 10-minute walk from Stockmann's, but it might be a tad difficult to find. I know this sounds bad, but when you see red lights, you've found the right place. The lights are architectural; inside it's fully lit and like any fitness center.

The school offers only two levels of pole technique classes, level 1 and level 2. We had no idea what they might include, but headed straight to the weekly level 2 class. The teacher, Oksana Veselova, apparently brought pole dancing to Estonia. After warming up we started doing one trick after another in quick progression: cupido to butterfly, shoulder mount to superman, scorpio-gemini-scorpio-scorpio-switches, iguana, bow and arrow, handspring, cartwheel mount - all on a spinning pole!

That's right, all the poles, eight in total, were 42mm spinning poles. They couldn't be made static at all, which turned out to be really good practice. But I still think it would be safer to practice new tricks on a static pole first. The ceiling was so low that I could touch it standing up and accidentally managed to kick it a couple of times.

I won't be surprised if City Dance soon features Elina as a workshop teacher!

There would have been a strip tease class right after the pole dance class, but unfortunately I had to catch the last ferry to Helsinki... I realized that I should have spent the night, had a nice dinner, stayed at a nice hotel, maybe had a massage the next day - Things that are still considerably cheaper in Tallinn than in Helsinki.

The Estonian Open Pole Dance & Fitness Championship 2012 will be held in May. The organizer is Estonian Pole Dance Union and they promote Papillon Spordiklubi which apparently has only recently started offering pole dancing with three poles.

When a pole dancing school advertises: "Surprise your man, learn sexy chair dance!"  you don't know whether you should take grip aids or fishnet stockings with you to class. Grip aids were the right choice for the pole technique class.

Tankotanssia voi harrastaa Tallinnassa City Dance -tanssikoululla. Kaikki kahdeksan tankoa ovat pyöriviä ja huone on hyvin matala, mutta 2-tason tunnilla tehtiin jo melko vaikeita liikkeitä - eikä kenelläkään ollut korkkareita!

Posted in: me, pole dancing classes, tankotanssia Tallinnassa, travelling for pole dance