Ballet for pole dancers

When I started pole dancing it soon became clear that alignment would be one of my biggest challenges. My fellow pole students immediately learned my name as the teachers kept making remarks "point your toes, Päivi!", "straighten your knees, Päivi!". I suggested they simply write NILKAT!! (Finnish for ankles) on the classroom wall to save them the trouble. While I appreciated quickly being on a first-name basis with the other polers, after a year of pole dancing it started to get a bit old that I just wouldn't learn to point my toes.

Pole4Fit offers a weekly ballet class and even though I thought I might hate it, I still went. And hated it. I despised the piano music and ballet was even harder than I had thought it would be. At that point I had taken dance classes for three years, but ballet technique is a different story altogether. Don't get me wrong, I've always been a ballet lover - as a spectator. I just thought I was doing a terrible crime to the whole discipline of ballet with my futile efforts at it.

I still decided to go back next week, as Miss Maleficent Simona Martini was guest teaching. What a waste of talent, Simona Martini teaching me ballet. When she puts her feet into fifth, it's difficult to tell which one is right and which one is left. Makes it quite challenging for a beginner to follow.

I hated ballet, but I hated the idea of quitting even more, so I kept going back. Even though the teachers at Pole4Fit were super nice, not like the ones you see in ballet movies, I still hated it for about six weeks. In six lessons I learned the very basics: the different positions and the most common terminology in French: Plié, Rond de Jamb, Fondu, Croisé, Grand Battement, Pas de Bourrée... Finally some use for all those French lessons in high school! I learned to tolerate the piano music and ballet lessons became somewhat indifferent to me. I didn't think about it much, I just went every week. There was a stretching class after ballet and ballet was good for warming up.

After six months, in the middle of a ballet class, I suddenly found myself rather enjoying it all. Ballet is structured and disciplined, and I knew what was coming next. I knew the song, I knew the routine, I knew what it should look like. And my interpretation of it was recognisable. Not beautiful, not feather-weight, but recognisable all the same. Ballet had made it's way into my comfort zone.

I've been taking those ballet classes for over a year now. I can honestly say that I love them. In pole class, I even remember to point my toes every now and then, at least as long as I'm doing something that I'm familiar with.

When pole dancers put their strong arms up, it doesn't look like your average ballet class. 

I think we also have more fun than one's supposed to.

I'll share a secret dream with you: I have a pair of pointe shoes waiting in the closet.

Baletin harrastamisesta on hyötyä tankotanssijalle etenkin linjausten kanssa. Kesti kuitenkin puoli vuotta ennenkuin opin pitämään balettitunneista.

Posted in: ballet for pole dancers, me, pole dancing classes, Pole4Fit