Pole dancing is generally associated with health and well-being.  But every once in a while, pole dancing can shake emotional baggage loose for a student, resulting in tears, shakiness, feelings of overwhelm and anger, and sometimes confusion and fear.  As teachers and fellow students, it’s important to not only recognize when this is happening in the classroom, but to be able to effectively address it.  Just to be clear: I’m referring specifically to an emotional event that comes up in an individual, and not between two people.  Those types of crises need to be handled a bit differently.

If we agree that the state of the mind influences the body and the state of the body influences the mind, then it becomes easy to see how movement and emotion are connected.  But how exactly does that work? And why would pole dancing “bring up” emotions? Well for a couple of reasons. First, working through the body (i.e. through movement) can provide direct access to early developmental, nonverbal and implicit behavioral issues.  And second, working through the body allows access to the physiological aspects of the nervous system, which are often compromised when someone suffers from depression, PTSD, anxiety or dissociation.  That doesn’t mean that everyone who has an emotional experience in class is suffering from one of these things.  It simply means that working with the body can often access the neurological implications of each of these issues.  An extremely simple example is the connection between exercise and symptoms of depression.  Certain research studies have shown that half an hour of exercise daily can be very effective in reducing symptoms of depression.  Why? Because it raises serotonin, reduces feelings of sluggishness and quite literally “activates” the body.  It works the other way too.  If we activate the body we have the potential to access untapped emotional issues, particularly if the movement we are doing is charged with, say, sexuality.

So how do you identify a person who might potentially be in the throes of an emotional breakdown?  It sounds easy right? Not always.  What may look like a deeply emotional dance can often be a “release” of traumatic energy.  This only becomes problematic if the person expressing the emotion becomes overwhelmed by it.  Some signs of emotional or psychological overwhelm in the body that we might see in a pole dance class are:

• Shaking and Trembling (often a sign of deep release within the nervous system. Not to be confused with muscle fatigue.)
• Freezing or immobility (a sign that someone is feeling deeply overwhelmed and trapped)
• Rage and Aggression, particularly if directed at other class members or the teacher
• Extreme sensitivity to light and sound
• Increased breathing (shallow, more rapid, etc), cold sweats
• Constriction in breath and/or musculature
• Dilated pupils
• Tears, when accompanied by any of the above

The presence of such symptoms does not necessarily indicate trauma and trauma may be present without any of these symptoms.  Nevertheless, they offer us a good guideline for recognizing when things might be getting out of hand.

Ok, so you have figured out that your student or classmate is having a meltdown.  What do you do?  Push them to dance through it? Stop them and ask them if they are ok?  Ignore it and hope for the best?

One of the biggest mistakes teachers make is encouraging their students to “dance through” the emotion.  This approach works fine if the person is not overwhelmed. However, if a person is flooded by their emotional experience, pushing them to move through it is a risky endeavor if you are not a licensed mental health worker and/or experienced in somatic work.  Oftentimes, a person will become so overwhelmed that they will begin to dissociate from the present moment and the intensity of the experience will re-traumatize them.  Trauma can only be resolved through movement and therapy if a person is continually experiencing a conscious awareness of their emotional state, and if they are able to complete the traumatic cycle in a way that is markedly different both physically and emotionally from the initial trauma.

Instead, encourage the student to come back to the present moment.  Have them slow down and connect to their breath, and feel their feet on the ground.  Separate them from the group, and if at all possible, do not draw attention to their situation.  Be very careful about touch.  Always ask for permission to touch them and be sure to announce what you are going to do before you touch them.  Many people have trauma that is connected to inappropriate or traumatic touch.  Above all, be gentle. They are in an extremely vulnerable and fragile state.  This is not the time for tough love.  Give them water to sip slowly, and encourage them to stay until the end of class if they can. Once class is over, be sure to address their experience privately, acknowledge it and offer the proper resources if they seem open to it. Do not diagnose your student or tell them what you think happened.  Instead, offer support and ask them what their experience was.  Reflect their experience back to them along with any (non-judgmental) observations you may have.

Lastly, it is easy to address a student’s concerns if he or she comes straight to you and tells you their experience.  But do not underestimate the seriousness of your student’s situation and never overestimate the limitations of your training.  Unless you are clinically trained to work in the mental health field, you should not be trying to resolve your students’ issues in class.  And even then, referral to a more appropriate setting is always recommended.

For More Information on Trauma and Referrals to Mental Health Resources Please Go To:

www.traumahealing.com

www.ptsdforum.org

www.sidran.org

I was recently standing in the checkout line at Whole Foods and, like most people who wait in line, I picked up what was in front of me.  No, it was not a hot young man (you little minxes) it was the latest copy of Yoga Journal.  I have not done yoga regularly since 2005.  But I was curious to see how the yoga world was marketing itself, who was advertising in the magazines, and what was being written.

Yoga shares some similarities with pole.  Aside from the obvious overlap in movement, flexibility training, strength and balance, yoga also has a lifestyle associated with it. Pole does as well. For yoga, however, the lifestyle is much more defined.  Flip through a yoga magazine and you will see articles on how to relieve muscle aches and pains as well as how to open up your spine or your hips.  There are features on food that suggest things like “Bear Naked Fit” granola and “Kind Healthy Grains” for your breakfast.   The majority of foods advertised are organic, and there are several ads for cleansing your GI track, should you be so inclined.  There are articles on how yoga compliments other forms of fitness as well as breakdowns of different yoga poses.  Because yoga is widely touted as a mind-body practice, there are a number of articles on how yoga can help you work with your emotions, open your heart and change your life.  The advertisements in the magazine all cater to a lifestyle choice that reflects health, harmony, and spiritual contemplation.

Yoga is a spiritual practice.  Both the Hindu and Buddhist faith use yoga as a means of spiritual discipline.  Its roots date back even further to the Mohenjodaro seals, which were discovered in the Indus valley, and are thought to be from around 3000 B.C.  Yoga has followed many paths since its inception, but it has always been affiliated in one way or another with spirituality, knowledge and enlightenment.  Ultimately, yoga is meant to help with dissolving the ego.

However, if you look at some of the advertisements and articles in Yoga Journal, you might never guess this was the case.  Nike has Global Yoga Ambassadors.  There are articles that show you how to “do yoga better”.  The majority of ads seem to sensationalize the extreme versions of yoga:  workshops and clothing lines feature teachers in impossible poses while other products claim to help with wrist and knee injuries.  I’m sorry, but if you are injuring yourself in yoga, then I’m afraid you are missing the point.  This reminds me of an advertisement I once saw for a 60-minute yoga class.  The rationale was that nobody has time in this day and age for 90 minutes of yoga, so now you can squeeze all of the benefits into 60. Really?

Flipping through Yoga Journal agitated me. It seemed like an incredibly westernized version of what was once a deeply contemplative practice.  And to echo my sentiments there was even a letter to the editor from someone who “found it painful when yoga was not fully represented as a spiritual path” and urged the magazine to “continue to reflect high spiritual values and a hope for a better, more beautiful world.”

Sometimes I worry that pole will suffer a similar fate.  The pole lifestyle is athletic, but, as far as I can tell, not nearly as healthy as yoga.  As Alethea Austin once said about yoga “Fuck that.  I want to drink Jack Daniels and listen to metal.” The again, there is no one style that defines pole, which makes it harder to define the pole lifestyle.  To me, pole is about the feminine. It’s about dance, costumes and shoes. It’s about emotional expression and freedom. One of the great things about pole is that it is all-inclusive.  Your body may hate doing the Gemini but love the Extended Butterfly.  And that is just fine.  Pole encourages you to seek out what works for your body, and gives you the choice to move in a way that feels right to you.  Like yoga, pole appears to have a great deal of mind-body benefits.  Although there is very little research in this area, many women will attest to the countless ways in which pole has changed their lives for the better - and not just because they fit into their skinny jeans again.   Pole dancing as we know it today has a number of influences, including Chinese pole, aerial silks and contortion. However the roots of pole dancing lay in the erotic, much in the way that the roots of yoga lay in the spiritual.  The history of erotic dance is rich, and as filled with spirituality and celebration as it is with oppression and exploitation.  The stories of oppression are often directly linked to cultural perceptions of female sexuality as well as the rise of Judeo-Christian values, which often link female sexuality to original sin.  As pole dancers today, we still fight this oppression and the stigma that comes with it.  But that is a separate blog.

As pole, like yoga, becomes more commercialized, we see the emphasis shift towards competitions, towards “doing it better”, and towards winning.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this.  Competitions give recognition and reward.  They inspire us to work harder. However, this approach does not necessarily reflect the roots of pole. It does not reflect the tradition of women dancing together to celebrate themselves, or birth, or sex as they did in ancient erotic dance practices.  Nor does it reflect the tease and titillation of early pole dancing.  And it does not reflect much of what women say they love so much about pole: the community and the permission to be exactly where you need to be in your dance.

And so, when I get invitations to the hundreds of pole workshops aimed at teaching me how to do it better, how to win more competitions, how to be PERFECT at POLE, I get agitated. Much in the same way that I get agitated flipping through Yoga Journal.  I never started pole dancing because I wanted to be perfect, or win.  I started pole dancing because it was fucking cool and sexy as hell.  I started pole dancing so I could become an expert at titillating with my dance. Yes, I like tricks, and I like the power that comes with doing a trick.  But I could care less about being perfect in my dance. Perfectly slutty, maybe. But perfect? Yawn. I get enough pressure in my daily life to be perfect.  Pole dancing is my escape from all that.

I suppose everyone has their version of escape, just like everyone has their version of pole.  So getting back to the analogy in the title:  yoga is to spirituality as pole is to ____?

For me the words that fit in that blank space are “the erotic”.

I'm curious, what are they for you?

The governor of Illinois recently signed into a law a “skin tax” for strip clubs, which will raise millions in funds for rape crisis prevention centers in the state.  The bill passed with a unanimous vote in the senate, and a similar bill was recently passed  in Texas.

Basically, the law works like this: the state will tax strip club operators on gross receipts on a tiered basis, or a 3.00 surcharge per person.  The Coalition Against Sexual Assault approached Senator Hutchinson to sponsor the bill when funding for rape crisis centers dropped 1.2 million in the past 3 years.  Polly Poskin, executive director of the Coalition, calls the law “a victory for rape victims and the dedicated rape crisis centers who work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year…to provide services to rape victims.”

Club owners were strongly opposed to the tax, but applauded Senator Hutchinson for trying to do something good.  Hutchinson has said she was not trying to shut down strip clubs, and hoped to dialogue with the industry.

It’s interesting that the Coalition Against Sexual Assault would target strip clubs as good source of revenue for their cause.  I am all for supporting rape crisis centers, particularly when their budgets are being severely slashed. But is it really wise in the process to suggest that there is a correlation between strip clubs and rape?  This kind of mentality is straight from the old “if-you-were-asking-for-it-you-deserved-it” book. In other words, if a woman puts her sexuality on display, she is encouraging men to disrespect her and even commit a violent crime against her, or against other women.  I am shocked that a group that works to promote awareness about sexual assault would align itself with this type of thinking.  It’s akin to placing the responsibility of the rape on the victims themselves: “Well Sue, if your rapist hadn’t been to a strip club earlier, he probably wouldn’t have raped you.”  Bullshit.

Rape doesn’t happen because men are so turned on they can’t control themselves. Rape is an act of power and coercion over another person.  And the idea that women should contain and control their sexuality so that they don’t “tempt” men into “behaving badly” is as old and outdated as a chastity belt.

It reminds me of a Q&A I found on one of my pole dancing friend’s Facebook pages. The question was, “If you had a daughter, and she was going to go out to a party with guys drinking, would you let her go out looking like a slut?”

The answer to this question was as follows: “If the next generation of sons are as repulsed by rape as they should be, then we won’t need to worry about our daughter’s clothing.  Hell if we make our generation shift the blame from the victim to the perpetrator and recognize rape as an act of violence rather than a natural hazard then we won’t even notice clothing.   So the question becomes: If you had a son, and he was going out to a party with girls drinking, would you let him go knowing that one of them could be my daughter and that if he ever touched her without consent, I’d kill you?”

It’s no doubt the response of a protective father, nevertheless it brings up an excellent point: Focus on raising your sons to understand that women need to consent to their sexual advances.  Focus on shifting the blame to the people who commit the rape and not the victims, who, no matter what they are wearing, or what their job is, are never responsible.

I applaud the Coalition Against Sexual Assault for looking to alternative ways of funding their services.  But the connection they are drawing between sexual entertainment and sexual assault is disturbing and backwards.

A lobbyist friend of mine in DC had this to say about it, “What's interesting about this thing is that when they did it in Texas it got held up in court with an injunction by the strip club owners. There were 10's of millions of dollars held up in a trust. The basic premise is that there is no nexus between men visiting a strip club and its correlation with violence against women. What it comes down to is that politicians want to spend more money and they need someone to be the bad guy so the public will feel good about taxing them to pay for it. It's just another money grab veiled as good public policy. “

Sadly, I agree.

For More information on How to Get Involved with your local Rape Crisis Prevention Center

Go to: www.rainn.org