Express The Sensual

Let’s talk about sex [socks], baby

Striped or Polka Dotted, Thigh High or Anklets, Cotton or Silk; socks are one of my favorite tools of sensual exploration. And if that sounds dirty, then you’re definitely in the right state of mind.

Cold toes suck!

Back when I first started pole dancing, I learned my beginner moves barefoot, and I absolutely hated it.  I missed my comfy tennis shoes, I missed my ankle support, and I really missed my oh-so-warm socks.  Later, after I’d learned how to climb and float around the pole, I understood the importance of training shoeless.  So, I started using foot undeez, a special pad jazz & ballet dancers use, to help protect the balls of the feet.

But I missed having warm, comfy toes. In fact, I regularly found that just the idea of dancing in a cold studio made me want to skip out on a practice session altogether.  Sometimes, I’d just have to force myself to deal with freezing toes until the heat of movement finally warmed things up.  I still shiver with goosebumps at the thought of that cold, icy floor.

It doesn’t have to be that way though, especially if you’re willing to explore the more slippery option of socks.

First, I LOVE the sensuality of socks

They come in all shapes, sizes, heights, colors, patterns, and materials.  Whether you love cute little hearts and red bows, scary vampire kisses, crew cut stripes, or sexy black thigh highs, there is a sock for you.  You can use them to dress-up as a sweet school girl, naughty librarian, or sexy referee.  You can express a mood like anger with skulls and crossbones, or playfulness with tie died colors.  Socks can have silk ribbons at the top or fluffy pompoms down the back or even pink cuban heels. And most importantly, socks keep your toes warm and build body heat in your leg muscles even before you start moving.

I have an entire drawer of socks just for dancing.  I usually take two or three different pairs with me to class, because I never know what I’ll be in the mood for.  In the summer, I love to wear a pair of striped thigh highs with my booty shorts peeping out from under a long red sweatshirt.   In the winter, I usually pull out a pair of wild knee high zebra socks to wear under my yoga pants (and give my yoga instructor a little tease).  During football season, I’ve even got a special pair of red and white striped anklets just to celebrate my favorite 49ers.

Second, socks are slippery

When I rediscovered socks, I found a new way of dancing.  Socks give you the ability to slide and slink across the floor.  They remove that sticky, annoying friction between the floor and your legs or feet.  So when you crawl, you can support more of your body weight on your legs and still slide sensuously across the floor.  When you spin, you can easily pivot on the balls of your feet.  And when you slide down the pole, you can create a continuous transition from standing to sitting.

Yes, climbing is almost impossible with socks and I definitely don’t recommend beginners attempt any inverted moves while wearing socks. But there’s so much more to life than inverts ladies!

Socks make your floorwork seamless and sensual. They give you the ability to showcase your flexibility as you slip from one pose  to the next.  With socks, you can transition from laying on your belly into a sexy V plank pose just by sliding on the tops of your feet.  Or slink from a kneeling pose in to the splitz by letting you legs slip along the floor.  And they are absolutely essential if you’re a booty popper like me who loves to “Back dat ass up.” (a truly naughty dance move where you rest on your knees, slide and pop your booty all at once)

Third, socks work your abs

Although you may not believe me now, slip on a pair of socks, and you’ll soon realize that your core muscles are key to staying in control. Socks remove the friction between you and the floor or pole.  Which means it’s absolutely critical that you use your abdominals to balance and slow down your movements.  Socks require you to ground the body while you stand or walk. They help  you to focus on your center of gravity while you twirl on your toes.  And they give you that deliberately lazy quality inherent in sensual dancing, stripping, and powerful feminine movement.

You can explore this by simply donning a pair of your favorite socks and trying to hold a plank pose.  Once you have your balance, experiment with maintaining the position of your torso while you slide your feet around. You’ll instantly notice how much harder your abs have to work while your feet are sliding and how much slower your movements become. Simply practicing with socks during your regular floorwork can help you develop power, technique, and more control in all other aspects of your movement.

Finally, socks give you freedom

If you’re ignoring improvisational dance, intuitive movement, or your sensual instincts, you’re skipping one of the most  powerful training techniques ever created. And socks, by their very nature allow the body to move in unexpected ways.

While you practice with socks, you might find you accidentally slide to the left, or wobble while you spin, or have to figure out a way to quickly transition to the floor.  Falling is an ever present safety issue, and taking the time to practice how to slow down your movements if your foot slips out from under you is a necessary evil.  Socks give you a way to do this when you’re actually expecting it.

Exploration is the spice of life.  It’s so important to keep your mind, body, and spirit open to the possibilities of doing it differently; no matter what IT might be.  And sensual movement cultivates our ability to move differently, live differently, be different from what society or the rest of the world might dictate.

But if you only move your body as your teacher demonstrates and you never explore your own abilities with playfulness, openness, and the permission to make a mistake, you’ll never discover your true capabilities- the luscious, unique, and sometimes powerful emotions that only you can express through dance.  Sometimes you need to add a new element, a new prop, to encourage your body and mind to find those new capabilities, to walk the path of life with a sexy stride and rainbow dream striped socks.

It’s time you gave yourself a delicious new challenge. Pull on a pair of socks and I’ll see you on the dance floor (and hopefully in the comments section too).

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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.

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Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!