I took my first pole dancing three months ago as an act of self-defiance. I wanted to prove that I could survive spending an hour doing something I was bad at and a little afraid of. I stood in front of the door to the studio for five minutes, staring at my own reflection. "The woman in the reflection doesn't look like she belongs on a pole!" I thought. "She looks like she should be turning around and running back to the car."
I was so wrong.
When I took my first class, I was (and still am) in the middle of a major body transition. From Easter to Thanksgiving, I'd lost 60 pounds -- a quarter of my bodyweight -- through major changes to my diet.
Sixty pounds, for reference, is the weight of a full-grown female golden retriever. Woof.
Here's the kicker: Even after losing sixty pounds, I was still medically obese. In fact, to get to the weight recommended for my height, I'd have to lose another 40 pounds. (aka: the weight of an adult bulldog. You know … so the golden retriever could have a friend to play with.)
And, listen, I have no hate for my body. My body is awesome because my favorite person lives inside of it. But I did realize that, at the rate things were going, I had a long road ahead of me and I needed a shift in motivation.
I was getting tired of working so hard to create less of myself. Less weight, less fat, taking up less space. I was tired of the negativity. In my experience, there's a lot of "can't" to existing as a fat woman in the world. Some of it is physical (I can't lift my own bodyweight), some is social (like the narrative that overweight women "can't" wear short-shorts or crop tops) and a lot of it is self-imposed (I "can't" dance in public -- i.e., I want to but usually don't, even though no one else really cares how I look).
So how do you defeat can't? Screw it. You take the pole class. You put on short-shorts and a crop top, dance your heart out, and throw your entire body weight around a pole that's the circumference of one of your wrists -- trusting yourself to either support your weight gracefully, or build enough muscle to do it next time.
Uplift Movement Awakening lives up to all three words in its name. It raises me up, inspires me to move, and awakens a world of can. I can execute tricks without a tiny body or super strength -- it just takes good form, technique and practice. I can dance expressively -- I just have to tune out my self-consciousness so I can hear the music. And I can use my body in surprising, beautiful, exciting ways!
Instead of creating less of myself, pole inspires me to create more: more muscle, more range of motion, more joy, more possibility.
Kat