Jun 30 2010

Please, Be A Tease

Yannori

Last night, I put on my thigh high zebra socks, a teeny tiny skirt and matching triangle bikini top.  I slid and dragged, lifted and popped, circled and shook — until the air shimmered with my warm breath.  The room was dark, tinged with red.  The music was heavy, beating with the rhythm of the earth and my heart.  The pole was shiny and glorious, as it should be.

The rest of the world fell away.  No more worries.  No more bills.  No more work.  No more drama or bullshit.  Just me and the heat of the moment.

The where, the when, the how, and especially the why — don’t apply anymore.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This is my time to tease life into being. A time when my body knows exactly what to do and my brain disappears in mindless movement.  It’s my time to be a woman filled with soft thoughts.  To be a rocker chick who just needs to shake her hair.  Eventually, time disappears, lost in translation between body, soul, and dance.

I let my toes drag and take a step, shifting my weight to settle against the walls.  Slowly, slowly, letting my body drip down to the floor.  I move along every surface, letting my fingers barely touch the edges.  I paint the room with my essence and settle into my true self.  It feels as if the dance becomes me and we disappear into each other.

Sensual dance arouses your true self out of it’s logic bound cage.

You feel compelled to explore the world around you, though sensation, through experience, through sound and motion.  Without the prison of thought, life becomes an infinite moment extending out for eternity, with the joy of your senses to guide you step by step.  You realize that you can’t force your sensual nature, you must tease and tickle it, hold it in rapture with a nuzzle and a wink.  If you are willing, you can open your body to the dark places in order to find the light within.  It’s hiding because it likes to play, counting the moments until you find it, with a delicious pounce and a barrage of giggles.

You can’t depend on someone else to discover your sensual self.

It’s a game where nobody but you knows the rules.

Anyone can show you the technique. Anyone can demonstrate the trick. Anyone can direct your body and guide your thoughts…. but only you can accept the emotions that arise.  The power of life is to show you the puzzle and ask if you wish to solve it.  It takes courage to embrace and accept every part of your true self because there will always be parts that you don’t know…. yet.

You can’t know the future.  You can only see the glimmer of your soul when you let go of the past, and give in to the full experience of this moment.

What are you waiting for?

This is your personal invitation to dance, to live, to beckon and blow kisses in the wind, to tease the world until it gives you exactly what you want.

It’s time to throw on your silky thigh high nylons, your red heels, or nothing at all and wink back.   It’s time to dance, NOW!

How do you tap into your sensual nature & what does it feel like? Please share your opinions in the comment section.

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Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!

6 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Exotic Dancing, Sexuality, Writing, Yannori's Story

Jun 17 2010

Pole Cliques Suck Red Scrunchies!

Yannori

I’ve spent the last 6 months in a partial Pole coma.  I pulled back from the glittering visions of pole performance after pole performance.  I stopped going to conferences and competitions.  I stopped watching hours of pole dancing on youtube.  I stopped paying attention to who was opening up which studio where.   I also almost stopped teaching completely, although a couple of my die hard students refused to let me go.  (Thanks ladies, you know who you are) All because I didn’t want to deal with the intense drama anymore.

I have felt so blessed to see the awesome art of pole dance grow and blossom from a fire in a few woman’s beautiful bellies into a fabulous movement…. but when it transformed into an exercise industry, I felt a little betrayed.  As if the love and attention I’d showered on it was being thrown away.  I watched, with fear, as pole dancing moved from a shared experience between friends into hidden pockets of sometimes vicious fights between jealous cliques. Cliques I didn’t want any part of but couldn’t seem to ignore.  (I’ve never been much of a joiner).

You already know that I wholeheartedly believe and encourage the different styles of pole dancing.  I’ve got my own opinions about teaching methods, pole dance, pole fitness, exotic dance, and being a woman in general.  Obviously I’ve voiced some of these ( Pol’ympics, Pole Dance vs Pole Tricks, Why The Other Side is a Pain in My Ass).  But it makes me very angry when I see individuals or groups acting as if they invented everything related to pole and that their way is the only way. As if pole dancing doesn’t have a rich and awesome history from every walk of life.

Can we really deny that the pole dancing we all enjoy today came from belly dancing, yoga, circus and most importantly stripping? Yes, I said the dreaded S word– STRIPPING. You know, where women take their clothes off in a sensual manner for money. Are we really so frightened of our own vagina that we have to pretend pole dancing doesn’t have a sexual undertone? Are we really going to pretend that a shiny metal pole doesn’t remind anybody of a man’s tallywhacker?  Not even a little bit?

I’m not saying you HAVE to dance sexually.  I’m not saying that you HAVE to take off your clothes either.  I’m saying that we need to stop undervaluing an entire part of our collective woman’s history, and celebrate the beautiful pole dancing art form that came from it. We don’t have to belittle our sensuality and our sex to bring pole dancing into the mainstream world.

Secondly, do we really believe that only one person discovered all the varied and beautiful tricks that we perform with our shiny poles, and hence only one person should get to name that trick for the rest of us? (I understand having a common language, but it doesn’t mean this name is THE ONLY NAME) Can we honestly say that there is only one way to perform or teach a trick?  Should every woman ignore the length of her arms & legs, avoid the gracious curve of her hips, or beat herself up over the size of her thighs & booty?  Does every woman really have to torture herself to get into the trick of the week instead of finding the movement, transitions, and tricks that complement her body and her style?

As a teacher, this one seriously pisses me off.  Personally, I believe that there are many performance level tricks that should never be taught in a regular pole studio group class environment.  They are too dangerous and too damaging to the body unless the student’s aspirations are to compete and perform at a professional level.  But ignoring that, I believe it is critical that students understand that every woman’s body is different.  Some of us have large hips, some of us have large breasts, some of us have small feet and short legs.  Physically (and by that I mean the Laws Of Physics), this changes the way we have to balance our body and grip the pole.

We shouldn’t belittle or demean ourselves if we can’t do a specific trick exactly like HER (meaning whichever phenomenal pole performer you are watching at the moment).  We should celebrate it.  Instead, try to be playful and joyful as you experiment with the different ways your body can move.  I love helping a student tweak a trick until it clicks,  and she finally finds a way that works for her. It’s as if her body heaves a sigh of relief and her entire movement changes from challenged to blissful.  Don’t force yourself into the “Perfect Trick” (a statistically impossible falsehood) and deny the experience of your body in luscious movement and harmony.

Grow beyond your own boundaries and expand your strength and skills, but do it your way.  Don’t let the cliques or drama queens of pole, force you to betray your own bliss, your honest and authentic sensuality as a woman and as a pole dancer.  Let them know you’re not buying their Bullshit anymore.

Don’t wear the red scrunchie! Don’t drink the drano!

Your body is the temple where your soul abides. Use pole dancing to express your authentic sensuality as a woman, to cherish your inherent individuality while being exactly who you are right now,  to move and be and live as your true heart desires. And you can bet, we’ll all be there, cheering you on!

Does the sensual aspect of pole dancing turn you on or off? How do you feel about pole cliques? Please share your opinions in the comment section.

If you enjoyed the article, please subscribe to ExpressTheSensual and share it with your friends.

Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!

11 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Sexuality, beauty, community

Jun 14 2010

Learning To Fly

Yannori

I was listening to Tom Petty the other day and got more than a little nostalgic when he crooned:

I’m learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing

Yes, I am a child of the 80s & 90s, but more importantly (and less age related), I was thinking of how luscious it felt to fly around my pole for the first time (and every time thereafter).  I remembered how much time I spent trying to force something that now feels effortless and filled with joy. Before, I would fight through my entire practice session, kicking and jumping into my flying tricks (a painful & damaging mistake)… with the result that I looked more like a fish flailing wildly through the air, instead of the beautiful undulating ribbon of a woman’s body that I envisioned.

Now, I happily take flight as gravity begs for mercy (depending slightly on pole grip).  But I feel a little sorrow when I think of how much energy I wasted frowning, stomping in frustration, and soothing the never ending bruises from bashing the pole in my arm, back, or butt AGAIN.

And I want to save you that frustration if I can.  Needless to say, flying is different depending upon the specific trick, whether its a one handed front hook, a reverse plank, or a flying dragon… But let’s consider it from both a physical and a philosophical viewpoint.

Physically, you need strength and lots of it.

To fly, you need strength to hold your shoulders down.  Strength to support your body with your rhomboids.  Strength to maintain a solid abdominal core that protects your spine while your body swirls and curves around the pole.

You also need control.  Control in your hands (because the death grip you’re using now is only going to strain your forearms).  Control of your hips so you know when to sweep your legs and when to stop.  And control of your fear.  Because fear is the little death that kills your dreams slowly. Fear wants to be the star of YOUR show.  But, YOU are the main attraction here.  Your fear isn’t even the understudy.

Accept your fear, but don’t be impressed by it, and it will dissolve into the background.

Your instructor should be able to help you with everything physically.  Whether you are working with a live person or a video, she should address all of your questions about technique, strength, and control.  Plus, she must discuss fear; how to recognize it and how to work beyond it.

Because, You won’t learn to fly until you realize you can.

Philosophically you need to release the outer world and become comfortable with your inner world…(Um, what the hell does that mean?!)

Consider a bird in flight.  As a bird begins to fly, it flaps it’s wings with strength, control, and technique.  Then it spreads it’s wings as far as it can and lets go.  It doesn’t fight the air currents, it finds the air currents and glides on them. Allowing knowledge and instinct to work together in harmony. The bird in flight recognizes the outer world (air, wind speed, height, etc) and rests in the deep seated internal belief that it has flown before and it can fly again.

You need the same belief.  The funny thing is, I know how close you are to flying right now.  It’s moments away, locked in your mind behind your fears.  Maybe you need to polish your control or build your strength a little more… but once you start to believe in yourself– strength, control, technique and flight will be close behind.

But you can’t force yourself to believe, because resistance only creates more resistance.

So what can you do?

You can pretend you believe until you convince yourself (not my favorite method, but some people have success with this one) or

You can recognize and celebrate every small step you take.  (Progress is progress whether your inner critic likes it or not.  And every small step proves that if you continue to follow the path you’re on, flying is an eventuality) or

You can just say fuck it.

You can set aside an hour to dance with joy and stop worrying whether or not flying tricks are in your future.  You can enjoy spending time with your shiny pole, knowing that you are a woman, tits to toes.  You can start giving in to the sensual nature in your heart.  You can start touching that inner world, feeling the comfort and freedom of resting within yourself, being whoever you are in that single, perfect moment. You can experiment with the external world of control, strength, and technique and simply invite your soul to play along.

Practice is what you do with your body, while your mind and soul learn to fly beyond your fears.

Are you ready to soar?

How did you overcome your fear of flying? What’s your favorite flying trick? Please share your opinions in the comment section.

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Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!

5 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Personal Development, pole dancing