That was the reaction I got from a colleague when I said to them what my plans were for a Tuesday evening last year. She was more than a little surprised, but was a lot more accepting of it than I expected.
One older male colleague was a lot less outwardly surprised. He sagely commented on how much upper body strength someone would have to have to do what I was doing.
There were people at work who I wouldn’t be letting know about what I was doing after work on a Tuesday night (and now Thursday and Friday) because they really wouldn’t be able to process it. These were much more the “football and beer” type (although not the beer in some cases).
I’m a cis het male in my early 50’s. My choice of music is decidedly more to the Heavy end. I have long hair and a goatee beard. If my sexual orientation were different, I’d probably be classed as a “bear”. I’m definitely in the “dad-bod” classification, and I have been suffering from heavy to moderate depression for over a decade. My relative inactivity wasn’t exactly helping.
I tried going back to the gym again and again. The most I’d manage was once a week, a couple of weeks on the trot. But the passion I used to have for it was long gone. It just felt like a chore, so I started looking for something else.
Just around Christmas 2024, I stumbled across a poledance competition video on Instagram. I can’t remember who the dancer was, or what the competition was, but she was amazing. I remembered, back in the days when I had a properly disposable income, Friday nights at DV8 and later, The Purple Door and Blue (?) Leopard in Leeds and the women who introduced me to pole dance and, if I’m absolutely honest, stopped me feeling like I was quite as lonely as I actually was. Biggest credit goes to Paige, Emma, Ganya and Charlie (as I knew them – and they WERE their real names when they were dancing… I do have occasional contact with a couple of them, by their Government names now and again, nearly 20 years later).
It was the memories of Paige and Charlie who made the connection with the video.
I followed a few pole dancer accounts, then purely because I was up for doing something completely out of left-field, I took my courage in both hands and messaged a few of the dancers who also worked as instructors about where they recommended as a place to start learning pole as a middle-aged cis het male with no dance experience at all. In fact, as your average Gen X guy will know, we don’t dance. Girls dance, we don’t.
I was genuinely surprised (and somewhat shocked) when Enya Torres, a true goddess, if ever there was one (despite labelling herself as “an angry little stripper”), replied and recommended Leeds Pole Dance Studio. So I signed up for one of their Fundamentals courses. That started early January 2025.
My original plan was to do the first six weeks that made up the Fundamentals, the give the next stage up a try before I decided whether or not to carry on. I did have a feeling that my admiration of the art form, good memories of the women I’d met at the clubs and the urge to do something different and spit in the eye of gender norms and the patriarchy probably wouldn’t sustain me much longer than that. But at least I’d’ve given it a try.
What stopped me giving up was the people I met there. Amy, the instructor – one of the best teachers I’ve met in a long time (anyone who knows my background knows what level of praise that is), Steph, Sam, Beth, Tia, Rich, Anne-Marie and Molly… and so many others I’ve shared a pole with or chatted to in the reception area before or after classes. They’re what keeps me going back.
I’ve met so many amazing people, and I’m now actually learning how to dance from June, Caroline and Amethyst… So much so that I’m planning something for this year’s Student Showcase in October.
Am I any good? No. I don’t think I am, and I’m certainly nowhere near even thinking of competing, despite being complemented on my musicality and being told (literally a couple of days ago during a session) that watching me dance was relaxing. That could be more about my self-esteem issues than anything else, but the most important thing is that it’s a lot more fun than going to a gym. I feel more of a high after leaving the pole studio after a session than I ever did after coming out of the gym. Also, I’ve joined a community. That’s not something I’ve ever got from anything I’ve done before.
Leave a Reply