Monday morning, and I was shaving my legs.
Not for aesthetics, nor for aerodynamics, but for grip.
Ex-lawyer, now pole dance instructor – and first runner-up at Miss Pole Dance Australia – Michelle Shimmy (not her lawyer-name) had suggested a pre-class leg-shave.
“And wear a singlet,” she said. “Just a wife-beater or something.”
So, in my new singlet, and with freshly shaved legs (and freshly shaved shoulders – my idea – for aesthetics), I arrived at the Pole Dance Academy for my private class.
“Your palms are sweaty,” said Michelle, proffering a powerful handshake.
She fetched a can of shaving cream.
“Stick out your palms.”
“I need to shave them as well?”
“Just rub it in, for grip,” she said. “It’s a pole dancer secret”.
She showed me to my pole.
“First, we clean it,” she said giving it a squirt and a wipe. “Not to get the girl germs off, but for grip. You never know, the person before you might have just had a spray tan.”
“Will this thing carry my weight?” I asked, giving it a swivel.
“It’s reinforced steel.”
We stretched.
“So tell me,” I said. “How do you feel about leaving the law?”
“Best thing I ever did.”
Michelle said she had started out working in energy and resources in a top tier firm.
“Were you pole dancing back then?”
“I was, but I wasn’t ‘out’ – at least not to my colleagues.”
That is, until she quit, and made the pilgrimage to work at the Redfern Legal Centre.
“Finally, I could talk about pole dancing,” she said. “Everyone from the office would even come to watch me compete … Right, let’s start with a body roll.”
The body roll: it was my first, and worst, pole dancing move.
Michelle’s body, rolling up and down the pole, was a thing to behold. Mine, however, had to look away from itself in the mirror. Even the pole looked uncomfortable, and seemed to be inching away, as I stilted out juts.
Up on the pole, things were a little better. I learned how to do a Front Hook, a Back Hook, a Combo Front to Back Hook, and then Climbing and Spinning Climbing. I felt like a kid, scaling a sexy clothesline.
“Lucky I’ve got these big thighs to help me hold on,” I said, giving one a slap.
“They’re great,” said Michelle. “Until you have to lift them over your head. Let’s try a Half Flag.”
She made me climb the pole, hold on with my thighs, then grip with my underarms, turn horizontal, and kick my legs out – while spinning.
I fell off my pole. On the floor, I looked like a dagwood dog off its stick.
But, with some gentle coaxing (“You’re quite flexible for a guy”), I climbed back up on the pole and put it all together in a routine – videoed for posterity. We watched it back together.
“What do your lawyer-friends think of you pole dancing?” I asked.
“You’d be surprised how many lawyers pole dance,” she said. “They’re over-represented in my classes. Sure, some of my friends ask me how I can do this. But we don’t question the idea of men watching other men playing hyper-masculine football, so what’s wrong with women – and it is mostly women – watching other women pole dance?”
Better than watching me, I can tell you. See for yourself at anthonyjucha.com/2014/02/pole-dancing.