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Let’s start with: Why Move? Movement opens you up, forces you to face yourself, allows you to analyze your life, puts you in touch with your soul. Movement through dance is the expression of your soul’s energy. You exorcise your demons, celebrate your victories, and embody your full feminine essence (even if you’re a man) through dance. We live through dance.

We all know how healing, wonderful, and powerful dance is. So why add pole?

Because society says not to. Pole dancing combines the vulnerability of showing a lot of skin with the release and healing power of dance and places it all under an umbrella of intense societal stigma. This stigma is THE reason that pole is so powerful. It allows you to determine just who you are and what you believe about yourself and others.

A landslide of questions, self-reflection, and revaluation of life itself are likely to wash over you as you begin your pole dance journey. You don’t deal with it all at once, or even after just one class. It takes years and, as with life, it’s a never-ending process of learning and growing. It’s a magnified version of that self-esteem exercise where you stand naked in front of a mirror at home and say to yourself, “I am beautiful.”

It sounds scary, but it’s worth it. Because facing these real-life, and very difficult, self-evaluation questions with others that are doing the same exact thing in the same intensely vulnerable manner is THE reason why pole dancing and the pole community has the power to reveal and heal. And this is why EVERY PERSON SHOULD POLE DANCE.

Before pole dancing, a version of this script is running through your head:

I’m too fat. I’m not good enough. I am not worthy of happiness. My dreams can’t come true because I’m not smart enough. I’m not coordinated. I’m not pretty. I’m not strong. I have too much anxiety. I’m too manly to pole dance. I’m too proper to pole dance. My parents raised me better than this. My boyfriend will think I’m a slut. My girlfriend will think I’m a wimp. My parents will disown me. My family will be ashamed of me.

After pole dancing, your internal dialogue is revamped.

You are beautiful at any size, and you will eventually believe it if you stick with pole.

You are perfect just the way you are. Pole will prove this to you.

You CAN make your dreams come true because: You are worthy. You are strong. You are enough. You have the right to be happy, safe, and content.

Pole doesn’t demand anything from you that you aren’t ready and willing to give and at the same time, pole encourages you to push yourself. When you are ready to face yourself, your pole is there to support you.

Pole is there for you, always. To support you, grow you, heal you, push you, reveal your truth to you.

Why pole? To live fully and passionately. To let yourself be deeply and vulnerably seen. Because you are enough.

About the Author:

Tami Joy Schlichter is the founder of the U.S. Aerial Championships, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising the profile of pole & aerial dance in America and helping aerialists make lasting careers out of their passion. Submission deadline for the next competition is Jan 1 2016! The championships are open to everyone over 18 (male and female, from any country), submission is FREE at www.usaerial.org

Connect with U.S. Aerial:
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Email: info@usaerial.org

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Photos are courtesy of Cristian Buitron Photography, http://cristianbuitron.com/