Express The Sensual

Last weekend I was invited to a Pole Room Consecration, meaning there’s a new studio in town and I got to be one of the first to play on their fabulous new poles! Needless to say I was excited, especially since 5 of those beautiful, shiny phallic symbols spin and go 12 feet up. (AWESOME!) However, after dancing my ass off into the wee hours of the night and then throwing my exhausted body into bed, I woke up with a little ache in my neck and back.

Don’t Whip It Good!

Now, you all know I’m a huge safety nut (what exactly does a safety nut look like?) But I still love to let loose and play… unfortunately when I get REALLY excited, I sometimes whip my head a little too fast. In my imagination, this move makes my hair look “fabulous” for about 2 seconds, when in reality it’s more of an accidental headbanger moment.  It’s a little habit I picked up before I understood some of the finer points of injury prevention, and something I don’t encourage in any of my students.   Some studio’s call this an “accent,”  I call it a guaranteed headache in my future!

So, needless to say I woke with a lovely post coitus polgasm, but a sad case of headbangers regret, which did not improve as the day went along.

Now, I am a woman of many tricks (which you’d know if you tweeted me once in a while, *Hint* Hint*) and I’m certainly not above using my feminine wiles to get a lovely massage from my boyfriend.  But, he was off at work and my throbbing neck was not willing to wait.  So instead, I put on my massage therapists hat (well, it’s more like a box filled with pressure point balls, massage books and aromatherapy candles) and decided to fix things myself.

First I took a quick look at the Acupressure Potent Points book for neck and shoulder pain (this is one of my favorite books for knowing where to massage according to the meridian and energy systems of the body).  Then, I took a nice hot shower to get my body warmed up and ready for massage.  Warming up the area you want to massage is really important.  It’s one of the first things a massage therapist does to help you relax so your body can release it’s tension.

Next, I pulled out a box of tennis and racket balls.  No, I wasn’t running off to the gym.  I use the different sized balls to roll around on the achey areas of my body.

Get Tingley

Basically, it works like this; you lay down so that the racket ball is positioned on one of the sore spots in your shoulder or back.  Then, with your legs bent, you can roll around so that the ball pushes into the knots. If you find a super sore spot, you simply lay quietly and relax as the tension is slowly released by the pressure of gravity.  The smaller the ball, the deeper the pressure.

I love deep pressure, so for my shoulder pain, I used my favorite Foot Rubz, which are small balls with plastic nubbins that stick out.  And I literally rolled around on the floor for 45 minutes.  It was like heaven on earth as I felt my neck pain slowly dissolve.

Your Pain Prescription

Seriously, if you’ve ever woken up with pain from overly enthusiastic pole dancing, or any other sensual night time experience (*wink*), you might want to consider trying this remedy too.  It’s only got three steps:

1. Take a shower to get the body warm (& throw on a comfy long sleeve shirt & pants so the balls can slide easier)
2. Lay down with a ball right under the achey parts of your body
3. Roll around until you feel the tension in your body start to release

I’ve even used the balls to roll along the energetic meridian points that release all sorts of interesting ailments, like headache, nausea, and stomach cramps.

However, I still managed to coerce my sweetie to give me a lovely shoulder massage after he got home.   A girl’s gotta keep her feminine wiles in shape, which means practice, practice, oh sweet practice. 

How do you take care of yourself after headbangers regret?  Or perhaps post coitus polegasm? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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

Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!

I have a confession to make… the reason I haven’t posted here for months (YIKES!) is because I finally gave up on trying to resolve the conflict I felt (and still feel to be totally honest) about the direction the pole dancing industry has taken.  I regularly feel alone, as if I’m the only pole dancer in the world that actually wants to watch and experience the true sensual nature of this glorious movement.  And I have to confess that I gave up. 

I quit.

I simply couldn’t take feeling like I was slowly being left behind by the art form that had changed my life so much.

And by quit, I mean quit.  I canceled all my pole dancing and booty popping workshops and let go of all  my private students except a few die hards.  I even tried to give up pole dancing completely.  I took down my pole at home and sold two of my extra poles.  I became a gym rat and an extreme yogini.  I even considered going into yoga teacher training.   But, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to shake the need for sensual dance.  I started developing new sensual pelvic, hip, and arm movements (much to the chagrin and possible pleasure of other gym goers).  I started playing with the more tantric aspects of yoga (at home, because these can get pretty naughty .  I started looking with longing at the space where my pole used to be.

I realized I had to come back to sensual dance.

I had to come back to pole dance. I had to accept the fact that even if I was the only woman in the world who felt the joy of sensual movement, I still needed it in my life. So I put my damn pole back up and danced, soared, twirled, and flipped until I remembered why I came to pole dancing in the first place….

I wanted to feel sexy, I wanted to feel like a woman, and now I do again.

Intellectually, I know I’m not alone.

I still have some wonderful pole buddies, as well as my phenomenal pole students. (some of whom, I am supremely proud to say, have gone on to be phenomenal pole instructors! woohoo!)

But when I look around at all the pole studios this art has helped create, I see so many of them ignoring the sensual dance aspects, deliberately! Meaning, they actively look for ways to eliminate the sexual aspect of pole dancing.  They “cleanse” the sensuality from their own movements just so they can appeal to a larger part of the population.

And yes, I get it.  Pole Studios have to make money to survive. The more students you can get in the doors, the more likely you are to keep those doors open for business.  But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give those students the OPTION to experience their own sensuality through dance. Just because most people like vanilla ice cream doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be given other choices like chocolate, or tin roof sundae, or even rainbow sherbet.

I know that some of the senior instructors at many studios were once strippers themselves, or trained by strippers, or friends with strippers.  They know how much fun it is to dance playfully, charged with the sexual power of their own bodies.  Once you’ve experienced that, how can you ignore it?  How can you marginalize it?  How can you pretend that it doesn’t exist?  It’s like discovering how awesome an orgasm feels and then someone tells you sex is dirty, so you don’t ever have sex again. Seriously, that’s fucked up!

Is the truth so difficult to bear?

I am not saying that pole fitness is wrong and sensual pole dancing is right.  That’s like saying gymnastics is wrong and Cirque Du Soleil is right.  They are all legitimate, all beautiful, and all amazing.

I am saying that pushing your sensuality aside, ignoring the sexual aspects of pole dancing, or pretending that the whole pole industry didn’t start because a bunch of woman asked a bunch of strippers, “How the hell do you do that sexy upside-down shit on the pole?” is stupid. And it really hurts my feelings.

So here’s what I want, no let me rephrase that, here’s what I’m doing….

I’m going to keep trying to talk about this.  I’m going to keep trying to post my feelings about this.  I’m going to keep bringing up sensuality, sexuality, body acceptance, celebrating your cookie, and being the honest sexy woman that you already are.  (I’m even going to throw in the obvious phallic nature of a metal pole just for kicks).

But, I’m asking for something in return.

I’m asking for your help. Because I need to know if anybody else in the world gives a shit about feeling sexy.  Do you want to feel sexy?  Do you want to experience the world sensually, in a way that makes all your senses tingle with excitement and anticipation?  Do you want to be able to accept yourself and your life exactly as it is and learn to change it by playing with it?  Or do you want something else entirely?

What you want from pole dancing is really what you want from life, and I’m dying to find out if what I have to say can help you…

So if you’ve got a minute, can you leave a little comment and tell me what you want from pole dancing, or pole fitness, or life as a woman in general… because we all need to know that we’re not alone.

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

Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!