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Everyone has their own unique list of reasons to feel bad about their body, especially during January, otherwise known as National Feeling Bad About Your Body Month. Here are some of mine:
- An utter lack of background in anything athletic, having grown up as the book nerd daughter of a marching band nerd (and eldest sister to an engineering nerd, a video game nerd, a choir nerd and a film nerd, in that order).
- A very religious upbringing, which combined with my lesbianism to produce a veritable smorgasbord of shame and repression when it comes to — not to get too crass in a community newspaper, but — various activities I like to do with my body.
- Scoliosis and the spinal fusion surgery I had in 2015 to correct the 54-degree curve in my spine, the consequences of which include back pain, low lung capacity, fatigue and a general sense of weakness, thanks to a yearslong recovery process.
All this is an overlong way of saying that I have always had trouble feeling good in my body. It's hard to feel sexy when I don't feel strong; it's hard to feel strong when I was never taught how to sustain a consistent exercise routine; it's hard to sustain an exercise routine when I'm so freaking tired all the time. Add in the pandemic and a genetic predisposition toward depression, and you've got an entire adulthood spent struggling to get motivated to move.
Until, that is, I walked into a pole dancing class at Burlington's RevolVT two months ago and promptly became obsessed with it.
When I agreed to go to this class with my fiancée, I was highly skeptical that I would enjoy it, mainly because I appreciate high heels on my fiancée but prefer to stick to Timberlands myself. Here's the thing about pole dancing, though: Yes, it has historically been associated with femininity and sex work — something that has earned it plenty of ridicule in mainstream society — but it also requires an unbelievable amount of raw strength.
I was shocked by how powerful I felt after just one intro class spent swinging myself around the pole, having the time of my life. I was hooked.
Finally, I had found a form of exercise that I enjoyed for its own sake. I realized that my lack of enjoyment had, perhaps, been the problem all along. When I was struggling to run anything less than a 14-minute mile, or zoning out waiting for my turn on the leg press at the Y, or huffing and puffing up Burlington's hills on the ancient three-gear bike I bought off a guy on Facebook in April 2020, I wasn't really doing it for the love of the game, so to speak. As we've established, I was a reading kid, not a swim meet kid or a soccer kid or even a particularly good Wii Sports kid; I never had a game to love.
But I immediately fell in love with pole dancing. And pole dancing proceeded to kick my ass.
Here are some ways in which pole dancing will try to make you feel bad about your body:
- The morning after a class, you will always, always find bruises in places you didn't even know you could get bruises.
- You will have moments when you feel desperately unpretty, ungraceful and unsexy. You will bang your hip loudly on the floor attempting a sultry backflip of some kind; you will wonder if there was some kind of seminar you missed where everyone else learned how to flip their hair like that; and you will feel, at times, very, very alone as you try to figure out a version of sexy, a version of feminine, that feels right to you.
- When you jump from intro level to intermediate, you will realize that your arms are, in fact, noodles; that holding yourself on the pole using only, like, one hand and the back of your knee requires muscle mass heretofore unknown to you; and that, even though you were starting to feel stronger, you're still not strong enough.
But I am getting there. A month ago, I could barely lift myself onto the pole; now, I can climb to the top with only minimal hyperventilation. A month ago, all I felt was pain when I tried that back-of-the-knee thing (a move called a jasmine); now, it comes easier.
There's an emotional strength building, too. I compare myself less with my classmates; I'm figuring out how to feel sexy and comfortable in my body on my own terms; and it's been a few weeks since I cried after a class because I tried to do a new move and all I got was a bruise under my belly button.
For the first time in my life, I'm excited to put in the work to get stronger. Because, in my good moments, pole dancing makes me feel sexy, powerful and like a kid on a jungle gym — a holy grail of a combination that I wish everyone on Earth could experience when they work out.
The very last thing I want is to be another writer telling you, during National Feeling Bad About Your Body Month, that you have to try this Hot New Workout Routine to Burn Calories and Get Tight. I couldn't care less about burning calories or getting tight. I don't even care if this piece makes you want to try pole dancing (it's hard enough to get into classes at RevolVT as it is!).
All I know is that life is too short for me to keep believing that the only good way to move my body is to sweat all over a leg press, blasting Cardi B straight into my eardrums to trick myself into thinking I'm having a good time.
So, if you need me, I'll be in the studio, attempting something called a Superman spin, somehow getting bruises under my armpits and feeling like Superwoman.