Inclusive pole dancing studio opens in Portsmouth

The News, Portsmouth

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00:00 My name is Chloe and we are at my pole studio, The Pole Coven, which is an inclusive pole

00:05 studio that opened up about a month ago in Portsmouth.

00:09 Brilliant, and how long have you been pole dancing?

00:12 I've been pole dancing, it's coming up for 10 years in May and I've been teaching for

00:16 nearly four years.

00:17 Great, and how did you first become interested in getting involved in pole dancing?

00:22 I wanted a way to get fit.

00:23 I had gone to the gym a couple of times but I am on the ADHD spectrum so the idea of being

00:29 just doing continuous reps would bore me and I'd find myself hopping around all the machines.

00:35 So I wanted to try something new, something that had a little bit of difference going

00:38 for it so I thought I'd try pole.

00:40 I went with about four friends and I was pretty much the only one that stuck with it.

00:44 Brilliant, and what is it that has kept you interested in the love of pole dancing?

00:49 It is the diversity of it, of like you can just do different things.

00:52 If you're not feeling straight one week you can do some dance things, you can do conditioning

00:56 on the pole.

00:57 It also gave me so much self-confidence as well.

01:00 Before I started I was awful, like I literally had zero self-confidence at all, I was low

01:07 self-esteem, everything that you can imagine and it just sort of built up the more I did

01:11 pole.

01:12 Like oh my body can do these amazing things so yeah of course I'm awesome, of course I'm

01:16 going to carry on doing this.

01:17 Great, and relating to sort of body positivity there as well, can you tell us a little bit

01:22 about the inclusive element of the studio?

01:25 So we aim to be a fully inclusive studio.

01:28 I, as I said, I'm on the autism and ADHD spectrum so a lot of my students that come to me are

01:34 already neurodiverse as well.

01:36 We aim for body inclusivity when it comes to plus-sized people as well.

01:41 I teach a lot of plus-sized people that think they don't necessarily feel comfortable going

01:46 to the gym because they're worried people are going to look at them or that they're

01:49 not going to be able to achieve any of the upper body strength moves but we work with

01:53 them to create that sort of environment where they can thrive basically whether it's doing

01:58 a strength class and doing all their conditioning without having to touch the, without having

02:03 to bring their feet off the floor or it's doing the flow classes where they can get

02:06 some cardio in that also makes them feel amazing.

02:09 We also strive for inclusivity in the LGBT community as well.

02:14 We attended Pride last year and we had such an amazing reception.

02:18 I basically went there with the aim to do sign-ups for newsletters.

02:23 I thought I'd get maybe 10 sign-ups and I think I left the day with 50 sign-ups of people

02:28 that were interested in doing pole and a lot of those people are now coming through our

02:32 doors.

02:33 They mention, "I saw you at Pride!" and it's like, "Yay!

02:36 You waited for us to open!

02:37 Thank you!"

02:38 Brilliant.

02:39 And once people do give it a go, what are some of the main fitness benefits?

02:44 So it's all over, all over fitness so you use every bit of your body for pole.

02:49 Your shoulder strength and flexibility is the main sort of thing that I noticed especially

02:54 was how much my upper body strength improved.

02:57 At the time I was working at a DIY store and when I first started and I realised I could

03:02 actually lift bags of cement after going for maybe six months to a year.

03:06 It really does build up that sort of, it's like an extension of weight training but you

03:12 can also make pretty poses out of it as well.

03:15 Lovely.

03:16 And what misconceptions do people have if they've never tried pole dancing?

03:20 So one of the main misconceptions is people think that they need upper body strength to

03:24 already join.

03:25 You don't.

03:26 That's why you come to build it up.

03:28 It just takes a little bit more time maybe because we do welcome people from all sorts

03:32 of fitness backgrounds.

03:33 The other misconception as well is people feel like they're too big to do pole dance

03:37 or that they have to get fitter or they have to lose weight to do pole.

03:41 Come as you are and we'll accept you for who you are.

03:44 The other misconception a lot of people have is that it's just solely tied to stripping

03:50 and sex work and even though that is where the origins of pole comes from, we do celebrate

03:56 it here entirely, we do do flow classes and we do get instructors from other parts of

04:02 the country that are working in sex work to come and teach workshops here to build people's

04:07 confidence.

04:08 We don't necessarily have to be into that to do pole.

04:14 You can do it as a fitness element but we just want to make sure that we're not completely

04:17 cutting the ties of a hobby that amazing women and queer people gave to us basically.

04:24 Okay, great.

04:25 And I didn't prepare you for this question but could you tell us a little bit about the

04:30 flow side of things?

04:31 So flow classes, we have two different flow classes.

04:36 One of them is at eight o'clock on a Tuesday, that is where you come and learn a piece of

04:40 choreo either to the big shoes that we have in the studio, you can borrow some of our

04:46 stripper shoes, we have boots and shoes in a variety of sizes for people to borrow or

04:51 if that's not your vibe you can also do it in socks as well.

04:55 Every week we do something slightly different whether it's more lyrical or a bit more sexy,

04:59 we have a little bit of something for everyone.

05:02 The other flow class that we do is on a Friday at 7pm, it's more of a freestyle sort of class

05:09 but obviously people that have never done pole before are also welcome to join.

05:12 It's very much sort of a release of all of that energy from the week, making sure that

05:18 if you had a tough week at work you can come here, do some movement to sort of ground yourself

05:25 again ready for the weekend.

05:26 That's actually been one of our best received classes from our current students as they

05:31 just love coming in having a bit of a day of it, they come in and do some dance, do

05:36 some things that they maybe didn't think they'd be able to do and they leave feeling amazing

05:42 and ready to accomplish the week.

05:45 Lots of flow options because it is one of my main passions but we also have lots of

05:50 beginner classes as well, most of them are full at the moment which is amazing considering

05:54 we've only been open a month but lots to offer, lots of things going on.

05:59 [END]

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