Express The Sensual

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I was reading an article from my sweet friend Poleskivvies about how posting videos to Youtube has made her suddenly body conscious and feeling the need for therapy. And I felt compelled to plunk my big ass down on the therapy couch right next to her.

Jennifer says…

“God, how I hate telling you this. Why? Because it’s a body image thing. And I’m supposed to be over that. I’m supposed to be all confident in how I look and never have a weak moment about it. Yea, right.”

Now, you all know how much I love my ass.  I talk about it all the time.  How it used to be bigger, and now it’s a bit smaller, but still rather curvy.  And I freaking love how it makes me feel like a real woman.  Sometimes I even wax poetic about it (although I usually keep most of my ass poems to myself).  But I want to share how I feel about my ass (and my body) when I make a video.  The process goes something like this…

[before making the video]
Yeah! I’m going to make a video tonight.  I’m so excited.  I’ve got my camera and lighting set up.  And a new playlist to help me fly around that pole.  Ready, Set, Go!

[while making the video]
I’m dancing and I don’t care if there’s a camera over there.  Fuck that camera.  I don’t have to post this.  This is for me.

[after making the video]
ooh, that felt so awesome. I can’t wait to watch it.  I want to watch it NOW.

[2 seconds after starting to watch the video]
Jeez.  Why didn’t somebody tell me that I suck.  I mean, seriously, look at my butt.  How many freaking biscuits did I have to eat over the holidays to make my ass look so damn huge.  And that invert was awful.  Dammit.  I knew I wasn’t doing enough ab work lately.  I hate my abs!  They look so mushy.  ugh.  I can’t post this shit.  Forget it.  I’m never making another video again.

At this point in the process, I pretty much hate everything I see

I usually roll my eyes, stand up from my desk in a huff, and go take a shower to calm me down and clean off the sweat from (what I thought before I saw the video) was a great pole session.

And then epiphany, self realization, I kill the Buddha

After the shower, I realize that I just spent 2 hours dancing, flying, twirling, and whirling.  That it felt pretty damn good to challenge myself.  That I love being creative, even if it means messing up an old trick because I’m trying to do something new.  And that I’m definitely going to do all that awesome shit again, because I’m totally fucking addicted to playing on a 9 foot tall metal pole. This is when I watch the video a second time.

[after the epiphany]
Hey, I love the way I transitioned from that new spin into an invert.  I want to practice smoothing that out.  Hmm, I might want to add some more lat and shoulder strengthening moves into my workout to help me accomplish that move.  Damn I love how legwarmers make my thighs look thinner.  Ooh, I got a bit racy at the end when I took my tank top off.  I’d rather cut that part and keep it in the private vault.

A bunch of learning happens

Not everything makes it to the videos I post.  In fact, I have (literally) years worth of video that will never, ever, see the light of a computer monitor because I feel self conscious about my body.  But I love the immediate feedback I get when I watch these videos.  I can use these videos to fix things, discover new movements, and decide how to keep moving my pole dancing practice forward.

But I still have doubts and fears.  Doubts I don’t always talk about, fears I don’t always show.

Society says I’m “supposed” to be a strong woman and maintain a positive body image at all times.  But can I really trust such a conflicting message from a society where a supermodel can be fired by Ralph Loren because she isn’t a size 0 and doesn’t fit into their clothes anymore? Where almost every picture, ad, and poster of a woman we see is colorized, fixed, slimmed, and retouched?

The more playful I become in my pole dancing (and my life) the more I realize that every “should,” every “supposed to,” every “rule” society lays on me is total crap. I’ve lately decided to start testing all these “rules,” sometimes tentatively, sometimes ruthlessly.  I keep the ones that fit around my womanly curves and chuck the ones that don’t.

Rules I’m Chucking

1. I have to make myself beautiful everyday, all day long CHUCKED for (Every woman is beautiful and has the right to look like a Raggedy Ann doll if the situation or her sleep schedule calls for it)
2. I have to be a strong, successful, business woman that kicks ass all day long CHUCKED for (Many woman feel the strongest when they recognize & celebrate what some people might define as weaknesses including wanting to be a mother who takes care of a couple of kiddies instead of kicking ass at work. I certainly do.)
3. I must prove that I’m as good as any man CHUCKED for (No woman has to play a man’s game to be phenomenal.  She doesn’t have to prove her womanhood because she already has the cookie.  No baking required)

So, if you’d like to play along, and chuck a few of society’s rules too, then please join Poleskivvies and me on the Therapy Couch by dancing around on video (or maybe just in your living room) and testing your boundaries…

Because, as Jennifer puts it “Feeling ugly is just too damn exhausting.”

To which I’d like to add “Fuck Yeah!”

How do you deal with your own body image? What Rules are you ready to chuck? Share your ideas in the comment section!

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Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!

[Sometimes a story mixes with life and becomes something else entirely.  This excerpt from a story writing session might be something like that.  But in the end, all stories are about the human spirit.  Here's a piece of mine.]

I can’t hear myself think.  I feel a deep dull thudding in my brain as if the machinery was jammed and trying to roll past something blocked, something broken. A metallic boom down in the bowels of my mind. Whose words are these? The questions of a questioner go unanswered.  Where is the spark of my soul?

Nothing is missing.  There is no menacing evil within and yet fear fills my recesses, darkening corners with a light sucking efficiency.

Again.  Whose words are these?

How could I fall so far when my only steps were careful, calculated, even recommended.  My own darkness eats those dying embers that could still be called life.

But no white knight breaks in to rescue me. No gallant captain with shining boots to threaten my enemy into submission.  I am my enemy.  I am the darkness chasing the sun across the night sky.  What was hope is only whispering voids ripe with doubt, denial, and sadness.

I ignore the pain and imagine a perfect world, but everything is gray and muted. It’s drained of color as all false realities must be, as all nightmares should be.  But I ride this mare anyway.  Sweat steaming from her sides in the chill of my consciousness.  A mane of tears and anger leaving the only trail of color in my dying emotionless world.

We are searching, this mare and me, for a spark of belief.  Belief in something I can’t comprehend or even imagine yet.  But with each labored exhale, I can feel it.  The pain in my chest, the thud in my mind, the tears of my mare, prove that somewhere the fire of faith in myself still burns.  I have to find it before it’s too late.

I have seen the walking dead.  The ones who gave up searching for their spark.  And I would rather ride forever through the darkness knowing that the fire of my soul could be just a few steps further, than give in to a zombies sorrow.  Perhaps, one day, I’ll see a new sun that can chase away this cold wet night or find a city built to bring light into the darkness and warmth into my heart.

But I will not fight.  Instead, I will slide through this night and rescue Faith myself.  What else can I do?  What else can I do?  Only I can build the fire of self belief from an ember into a flame.  All I have to do is find it.

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Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!

Have you ever noticed how much we all tend to focus on the mistakes we have made, or the problems we might face. 

Our lives are filled with perpetual, consuming worries for everything except for what is happening RIGHT NOW.

Take a moment and ask yourself if you really have any problems in this EXACT second.  Not earlier this morning, or two minutes from now, or tomorrow.

But RIGHT NOW.

What are you thinking about RIGHT NOW…

Do you feel the need to worry about something that’s happening later?

But is it really a problem RIGHT NOW?

Do you feel the need to worry about something that happened yesterday?

But is it really a problem RIGHT NOW?

If you are breathing with sufficiently warm clothes on and a roof over your head, then you’re probably doing pretty okay at the moment.  I’m not saying your concerns are baseless or unimportant.  I’m saying that spending your time worrying about them is wasting valuable energy that you could use for loving your family, working on your dreams & goals, or just having some serious playtime (on the pole of course).

What if you practiced living and dancing in this moment, EXACTLY AS YOU ARE?  Without any worries of the past or of the future.  What if you gave yourself the chance to let go of your problems for 5 minutes and just be.

Be your breath.  Be your movement.  Be alive.

You don’t have to prepare for who you are, you can simply be who you are.

Sometimes you need to live as a human being instead of a human doing.

Let go of the past.

Let go of the future.

The more you ask yourself… “What is important to me in this moment?”

…the more calm you will find…
..the more gratitude you will feel…
..the more abundance and joy will permeate your life…

So tonight, don’t get dressed up to dance.  Don’t plan your play list beforehand.  Don’t even decide exactly when you’ll begin your practice.  Walk to your pole when the moment is right (and you’ll know it’s right when you feel that odd pressure in your head that says Gosh, I wish I was pole dancing now), put on the song the seems to pop into your consciousness or under your fingers in your ipod, and dance.

Dance as you were, Dance as you are, Dance as you wish to be.

Knowing that this moment is the most precious one in your life RIGHT NOW.

Because this moment is all you ever have.

How do you find acceptance in the present moment? What other techniques do you use to create flow? Share your ideas in the comment section!

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Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!