My friend Celeste decided to celebrate her birthday by inviting several girlfriends to join her in learning how to pole dance. Celeste is the kind of friend who would do anything for you, so I felt I needed to do this for her. I admit I was scared. In grade school I always got hurt playing on the playground bars and poles. But unlike grade school, this event involved drinking champagne, which is guaranteed to improve my dancing. And also my "musicality". Maybe it would help with the pole.
The first thing you do when you enter the pole dancing studio is put on pole dancer shoes. Which are shoes you wear when walking around the studio. And when attempting to pole dance. I realized really quickly I would have to make a choice: either I could guzzle champagne OR I could wear the shoes. Even I - who's worn high heels since I was 14, who often said I broke through the glass ceiling with my stilettos - was no match for these shoes. They scared me almost as much as the pole did.
Our dancing instructor's name was Brandy and she was obviously a professional. At many things. I think she may have gotten her name from the standard method of pole dancer naming whereby your first name is the same as your childhood pet. In case you are wondering, mine would be Snowball.
Brandy provided us with impossible to follow step by step instructions on how to dance with the pole. She also told us we should concentrate on the person we were imagining we were dancing for, as opposed to watching the other women next to us who were grappling with their own pole. But honestly, watching the other women was so hilarious, it's pretty much all I could do. And anyway, my pole and I had like no chemistry. At all.
As you might imagine, Brandy takes her pole dancing very seriously. Her instructions included all kinds of graphic - and creative, by the way - ideas for how to "be sexy and uninhibited with your partner." After Brandy's third eyebrow-raising suggestion, the woman next to me said, "If I tried that, my husband would say 'What is wrong with you??''.
Brandy also taught us lap dancing, which at first I thought was going to be so much better because we could take the shoes off. Right? You don't lap dance in the shoes do you? Oh. You do? Really?
This is VERY well written. You really have style.
And it's VERY funny.
Are you sure her name isn't "Brandee"?
I had heard the "sripper name" thing had to do with your first pet, and the street you grew up on. So mine would be pretty good: "Frisky Sierra."
Thanks Snowball!
Posted by: Eric Maher | July 27, 2009 at 06:23 PM
Frisky Sierra is a GREAT stripper name! Miss, if you cheated, you could be "Frisky Mira Vista" and I could be your long lost stripper sister, "Snowball Mira Vista" (
I just refuse to be "Skeeter" anything, so I will go with the cat's name)
Posted by: sandie | July 28, 2009 at 04:22 PM