Though pole competitions are not the end goal for many of us who pole dance, we need to acknowledge that competitions can help a sport develop. In the world of pole, comps have assisted in legitimizing pole as a real sport, structured how pole should be judged (such as on a stationary pole and spin pole in competition), made participants take a hard look at the different sides of the sport (dance versus aerial) and pushed competitors to try trickier moves and more sophisticat

Pondering the origins of pole might not be the first thing that comes to mind when attending your pole class. However, every sport has to start somewhere. Our sport started with innovative people who dedicated themselves to the art of trying something new. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you know that most of pole came from strip clubs. However, it’s likely that a google search of “pole dancing” you may have done ended in reading about the history of pole on Wikiped

Looking back at pole over the last ten years, the sport has grown in a million different directions and thankfully, so has pole clothing. As Bad Kitty® celebrates ten years in the business of making pole and aerial clothing, a quick glimpse at the pole clothing options in 2008 shows just how far pole attire has come. Poling in 2008 involved a lot of unexplored frontiers. First, we had no clue where pole was going except that Felix Cane’s 2008 Miss Pole Dance Australia YouTub

As an athlete, being injured and unable to participate in a sport is devastating. For those of us who pole, it's about the social aspects of class, the stress relief of the workout, the health benefits of fitness and the mental health positives of being at a studio. Preventing injuries in pole starts with education on how the most common pole injuries happen and how to prevent these injuries from happening. Being injured on both a muscular and a joint level are the most commo

Our current culture tosses around the term narcissist flippantly, pointing out self-absorbed or selfish behaviors and then quickly labeling them as narcissistic. With the rise of social media we are frequently barraged by a deplorable amount of Instagram selfies, Facebook statuses and pole videos. There needs to be further exploration into what is healthy behavior on social media and what is not. This is particularly important for pole, which has both grown and thrived as a c

For some people January means newness, fresh starts and hope. For others it's the dreariest time of the year and stagnation comes in the form of unfulfilled goals. Ok, maybe not that bad, but I have never been a believer in trending with the masses and setting New Years' Resolutions. However I do believe that there are ways to destroy stagnation, especially with fitness. January is a great month to try new fitness programs or change up what you are doing in the gym. First off

New Post with Bad Kitty USA! Learn three classic burlesque moves that you can incorporate into pole routines and choreo. http://www.badkitty.com/news/classic-burlesque-dance-moves-pole/ Video of Classic Burlesque Moves! Pole’s heritage comes from diverse sports and dance mediums and shares a common history with burlesque dance. The Burlesque dance in the United States began with hurly-burly girls of the 1860s, dancers and performers who provided entertaining social commentary

Aerial hoop like nearly all cirque apparatus has a bite, a painful bite that can leave bruises, soreness, pinched skin and tight muscles. For many new students in the hoop, the pain is intolerable and some students may choose not to come back. Retaining students and cutting down the pain are great goals for aerial hoop classes. Here is a collection of quick ways to reduce pain in the hoop. Proper Dynamic Warm-up A dynamic warm-up targets all major muscle groups and prepares t

There are now three posts about the Thrower's Ten on this blog, but I promised I would write a post on the actual Thrower's Ten PT moves that I use for injury prevention in aerial arts and pole. The Thrower's Ten is a series of physical therapy rehab moves that strengthen and stretch the shoulder girdle. The moves were developed to rehab athletes coming from throwing sports like baseball or racquet sports like tennis. For pole and aerial arts we can use this series to help st

When I started with pole nine years ago, it was the dark ages, but we still had killer moves. To this day, I still teach beginning moves that I learned when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The foundation moves of pole, the dance, the spins, lifts are often shoved out of the spotlight by bigger flashier moves. Without basics many of us could not have built the strength or learned the movement of pole. Beginning students needs the basics to get strong, train muscle memory and movem