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How to pick the proper pole for you and what you need it for, basically you have two options. I’m going to point out my two best options, that I personally like. You have the X-Stage Lite, which is a 40 mm pole, but they do make them in 45, as well. It’s quite stable and the pole is I believe, about nine feet tall, so it’s fairly high.

Then you have your one-piece poles, which are made by Platinum Stages and those are as high as your ceilings are. You have them custom cut to whatever your ceiling height is. Now which pole is best for you? If you own a studio or you’re running pole dancing classes, I would highly recommend to invest in the one-piece poles.

Very, very important, they’re going to be your safest bet and the easiest and most stable, and people are probably going to feel the most secure on them, especially new pole dancers. The X-Stage Lite is really great for a lot of things. If your ceiling height is too high and it goes beyond twelve feet, X-Stage is a really really great choice for you.

If you want to pole dance outside, which every pole dancer seems to want to do it’s really great for that as well. The Platinum Stages poles is a tension rod and braces itself between the floor and the ceiling, so it needs to have a ceiling. So that one you’re not going to be using outside. There are also… We, I don’t. There are also options to choose, as far as how big the pole is and what’s best for you.

They make them in 50, 45 and 38 and sometimes 40. My X-Stage Lite is 40, which is really great, it’s in between that 45 and 38. The 38’s are really good for spinning. It’s really easy to get a great grip with your hand with that pole, so the smaller the pole the more secure you’re going to feel when you have to wrap your hands around it.

When you do inversions it gets a little tricky, because it is kind of like “Where’s the pole,” because it’s so thin. So the 45’s are really great because it’s that middle of the road, you definitely can still get your hand around it. Your thighs can easily get around it when you’re doing inversions. The 50 is good. It’s a little old school. Not many companies are really making a lot of those anymore.

I think mainly they are going with 45’s and lower. But the 50’s are good too, definitely when you do inversions there’s no question about where the pole is. Which is really nice, but if you’re a small woman, maybe 5′ 4″ and under, it’s going to be tough to get your hand around there and feel really secure. If you’re looking for a pole for your home, I would either suggest the X-Stage Lite or a tension rod that is multi-piece.

That will give you the option to move it from room to room if the ceiling heights are different, take it to a friends house, to break it down and put it away so nobody sees it. Those poles are good for that. But if you have the option to have a one-piece pole in your home, maybe you own your home and you know it’s going to stay in your basement and the ceiling height isn’t going to change, you would maybe want to consider a one-piece pole.

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I’m here to talk to you about how to select the right pole shoe. Now as fabulous as all of these shoes may be, some are better for pole dancing then others. Typically, a mule style shoe does not work very well.Very easily, it can get thrown off of your foot as your spinning around the pole, inverting anything. It doesn’t offer you a lot of safety, although it might look really pretty and make your legs look long. That’s a nice shoe, but not good for pole dancing.

This is a pretty awesome shoe to look at, but not so much to dance in. It doesn’t offer a strap. The pump style doesn’t offer a strap across the top of the foot, helping the shoe to stay on, and also, all of the studs will probably fall off, if not scratch up your pole and you wouldn’t really be able to use your shoe to help you climb or work the pole at all.

This shoe right here, in my opinion, is the ideal shoe to dance in. You can do gun shots and you save your pedicure. It helps you climb the pole, whether you’re sticking with your ankle, the inside of your foot, whatever. It gives you that extra added grip that you might need. This is a great shoe. However, your feet will sweat like a beast in these. That’s the one downfall and they take a minute to put on.

This shoe here is a really, really great shoe. It offers some ankle support or it at least helps to keep the shoe on the ankle, and it also offers just a little bit of the patent leather that also gives you a little bit of a stick to the pole when you’re climbing and doing certain tricks, where you’re kind of weaving you legs around the pole.

So this is a nice shoe. This is 6 inches. They do come in 7 or 8 inches and those are great too. However, the taller that they are the more balancing act that it becomes a little bit. So it makes it a little more tricky, but still all along making your legs look really fabulous. This is a 7 inch and this is another really great shoe to dance in. If you’re ready to go up that extra inch, this is a great shoe.

The plastic also helps you stick somewhat to the pole. I find the plastic takes a little bit of time to kind of stretch out and be comfortable on your foot, but once it does it fits you like a glove, which is really nice. The shoe I’m wearing here is pretty hot, in my opinion. It’s very comfortable.
However, it’s made of leather and more than likely the first time I catch the pole on it’s going to rip the leather and then it’s going to look like crap.

So I would suggest these shoes for possibly just some simple floor work or just dancing around the pole or a night out on the town or maybe a photo shoot. But probably not the overall pole dancing where you’re doing acrobatics and all that other fabulous stuff with the pole. So ideally these three shoes are going to be your number one choice when selecting a pole shoe.

This depends on your preference, whether you want 7 inches, plastic, and the 6 inches also, comes in plastic and the 7 inches also comes in patent leather. You have a plethora. It’s wonderful. So good luck finding the right shoe that’s for you. That works for you for pole dancing and just make sure you have a nice pedicure if your toes are exposed.

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Hi, my name is Wendy Traskos and I’m the co-founder of the US PDF. I’m also the co-creator of Climb & Spin, Pole Dance Education and I’m also the owner of New York Pole Dancing. I’ve been pole dancing for over 10 years and one thing that I absolutely love about pole dancing is its functional resistance training. It also incorporates flexibility, coordination, endurance training and these are all things that women need in their lives, especially resistance training.

You can find out more about competing with US PDF by going to uspoledance.com or you can find out more about taking classes at New York Pole Dancing at nypole.com. I’m very proud and excited to have with me today three certified Climb & Spin Instructors and US PDF pros, Gabrielle Dallaire, Brynlyn Loomis and Lara Michaels. Today we’re going to teach you a variety of pole dancing moves and tricks and stretches, so I hope you’re ready.

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Okay, we’re going to go over today, an extreme pole move and it’s going to require a death drop. Now it sounds a little scary, but it’s not as scary as it sounds. You’re basically going to climb to the top of the pole, as high as you can. The higher your pole is, the better. If you’re on like an eight foot pole, it’s going to be kind of tough to do any significant drops. Especially for this one in particular, because your body will be completely stretched out, as you go into the drop.

So if you’re a 5′ 5″ woman, you’ve got two and a half feet to drop to the ground, so if you’re on an eight foot pole. So you’ll go to the top of the pole and you’re going to put yourself into an inverted climbing position, where you’re utilizing squeezing your knees, which we call a double knee brace, and you will release your hands out to the side, away from the pole. If that feels comfortable, you’re going to release the grip with your knees and allow yourself to slide down the pole, catching yourself just before you get to the ground.

When you catch yourself, you are going to catch yourself, instead of with your knees you’re going to catch yourself in a trap grip, which I’m going to show you what that looks like in an upright position. It’s when the pole is right there in the meaty part of your trap, where your neck meets your shoulder. You’re going to have your right hand fairly low, where you can poke yourself in the eye and your left hand stacked right on top of that. Your hands are like cups. Your thumb is with your forefingers and you’re going to pull your elbows into the pole.

You feel like you’re pulling the trap right into that muscle right there, that connects between your neck and your shoulder. So as you slide down the pole, you’re facing the pole in an inverted climbing position. You’re going to catch the pole in the trap grip that I just described and you’ll tuck your shoulders forward, so that you roll onto your trap and then you will tumble out, like a somersault off of the pole. When you do this, you can re-catch with your legs the first couple times you do it, and then quickly release your legs and you will straddle your legs over your head as you walk out of that.

When you get comfortable with that and getting a significant space between where you started and where you catch yourself, then you can stop using your legs to catch yourself and just release your legs and do a death drop, falling right into the trap grip and then straddling out and then walking out of that. It’s very important when you’re doing this trap grip that you’re making sure that you’re really activating the grip by pulling the pole into your chest. Excuse me, your elbows into your chest and pulling the pole into your trap.

It’s not a comfortable grip. It’s quite painful, but I would suggest you try that grip several times in the upright position, before you attempt to do it in a death drop. So before trying any of these pole moves, please make sure you’re properly warmed up. I would suggest a 15 to 20 minute warm up. Warming up your back, your hamstrings, your neck, your shoulders, your quadriceps, your calves, everything. Every muscle in your body should be warmed up before you try any pole moves.

Any of the advanced pole tricks that we do today, make sure that you’re progressively moving yourself into these moves. That’ll help to avoid injury and it will also allow your body to build muscle memory, so that it’s easy for your body to coordinate these things. Especially, when you’re upside down and your brain seems to sometimes fall out of your head when you’re upside down, and it’s hard to think which hand is the right and which is the left. So proper warm up and progressive training.

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Hi, my name is Wendy and I’m here to talk to you about what BrynLyn is going to do on the spinning pole today. BrynLyn is going to show you an example of the U.S. PDF, U.S. Pole Dance Federation Pro compulsory spinning pole requirement. The requirement lasts 30 seconds and you need to not have your feet on the ground within that 30 second, so it needs to be a continuous 30 seconds. If you’ve ever been on a spinning pole that shouldn’t be too hard. Once you get up there, you kind of cling to the pole and time goes by pretty fast.

However, when you do the U.S. PDF criteria, if you are competing as a pro, you want to make sure that you can incorporate any of your other criteria, as long as it’s not specified to be on the static pole, you can put any of your other criteria into your 30 seconds spinning on the spinning pole. So BrynLyn’s going to demonstrate 30 seconds of the spinning criteria. It does not have to be exactly like what BrynLyn’s doing, but she does a fabulous job of kind of demonstrating an example of what you could do.

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This is an outside knee hang with an added back arch and head to toe grab, also known as the Marley. It’s a very beautiful move, if you have back flexibility to showcase. It looks wonderful on the spinning pole and even better with two people. So one person will want to be near the top of the pole. They’ll invert and hook their dominant outside leg hang leg. In my case that’s my right leg,so I’ll hook strongly at the knee.

I’ll bring my lower leg into my thigh brace and from there, I’ll take my top hand to grab my top foot, squeezing the pole with that top leg. This will help lock in that knee hang when I’m spinning. I’ll start to open up my chest, pressing my lower leg into the pole and reach overhead for my foot to pull my head to my toe. Your lower spin partner will be the one to start the pole spinning and will compliment your move.

She’ll take her leg into a high knee hang, grab the foot from behind the pole. Again, she probably would want to be on her dominant leg hang leg, since this a little bit scary to do. Hopefully, you both match up with the same leg hang legs. From there she’s going to reach her torso away from the pole and here’s the scary part. She’s going to dive forward and hopefully her leg is going to hit the pole in a thigh brace.

One helpful tip for this. If it’s the first time you’re doing this particular kamikaze spin. You can have someone hold your hand and walk you into the spin. It’s amazing how simple this is and makes it a lot less scary. Once she’s spinning, she’ll follow the same steps as her partner up above. To come out of it, again you’ll release the foot, swing the leg back into the thigh brace, and you can climb up and over that outside leg hang leg.

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I’m going to go over some drops from climbing position. For proper climbing technique, refer to Laura Michael’s video on how to safely get to the top of the pole and utilize your bigger muscles and your leg strength versus hoisting up with your arms. Once you’re at the top of the pole, one of the more beginner ways to do a drop is to stay in your climbing position. If you’re on the right, the right leg is in the back in a nice flexed climbing foot brace. Left leg in the front, pinching the pole in between your knees. Right above the knees, not directly at the level of the kneecap and not any higher up on the thighs.

You should be able to support yourself in that double knee brace. Pressing the chest into the pole. Pulling the pole in toward your sternum, literally like you’re trying to slice yourself in half. Pushing/pulling, driving the pole down into the floor, shoulder blades down into the bra-line. From the top of the pole I recommend also taking advantage of a mirror if you have it, so you know how much space you have to work with before you hit the floor. For the most basic drop, in that double knee brace, utilize the climbing foot brace. Pressing the pole in towards the chest, shoulder blades down into the middle back.

My hands are about at my chin versus blocking the ability of my chest to push into the pole, okay? So if you’re in your own way, maybe slide those hands up just an inch. Loosening up the climbing foot brace and double knee brace, you’re going to take it down slowly at first towards the floor, feet first. Don’t take the legs off the pole, just slightly loosening the double knee brace and then smash the double knee braces back into the pole to catch yourself before the feet hit the floor.

So again, we’re not doing “Look ma, no hands.” We’re using our legs to take it down to the floor. Pressing the chest into the pole, double knee brace, loosening up that double knee brace, then tighten it up before you hit the floor. Using the mirror, so you know how much distance you have from where you’ve climbed down to the floor. Once you graduate, you can then remove your climbing foot brace from the pole and still utilize that nice, tight double knee brace to catch yourself before you hit the floor.

You’ll be in a position like so. Hands under the chin, pinching the knees into the pole, heels to your gluts. So you’ve graduated from using that climbing foot brace. You just have your knees pinching the pole. Same technique, nice, safe effective climb up to the top of the pole. Using the mirror on the way down. Pushing the chest into the pole. Pulling the pole towards you right at the sternum, elbows down, shoulder blades to the middle of the back. Pinching the pole with your knees, shins to the floor, drop and catching at the knees and standing up.

Before you do that double knee brace drop, particularly with the knees bent, you may also want to place a crash mat on the floor, just so you’re not afraid for your knees to hit the floor. Thirdly, you can go into an inner thigh drop. Climbing up to the top of the pole I would go into an inner thigh position. Overlapping my right leg on top of the left if I’m going to go to the right. Pushing my right thigh into the pole at the front of the thigh and pushing my left thigh into the pole.

Literally, like I’m trying to snap the pole with the strength of my legs. My left arm will come around like I’m bowing over that arm. My right hand releases. I get to kind of lean over this arm, kind of like I’m using no hands. So it’s a bit of an illusion, as you drop down, the hand is helping, but your primary support is those thighs. Loosening up the grip without the thighs leaving the pole and before you hit the floor, those thighs come in nice and tight gripping the pole and you’re leaning over to the side, like you have water in your ear.

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I’m going to show you a chest swing. This is a great move to add to any routine. It’s a beautiful dance transition and not too athletic, so you won’t exhaust yourself doing this. Start with your right hand about shoulder height holding on to the pole. Your going to step your right foot close to the base of the pole, and shift your weight into your right hip, bringing your right hip close to the pole.
Swing your left leg around and start to put some weight on it.

From there your going to arch your back and swing your chest in a semi-circle. You can bring it back in the other direction. Notice that I also held on to the pole with my other hand for added stability. If you don’t have a lot of back flexibility you can also do this move in just your upper back and neck, by dropping your head back. You want to make sure you still think about extending your spine, so you don’t crunch your neck. You can add steps at the beginning or at the end of this movement to add a seamless transition to any other moves your doing.

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So this is the free-handed bicep grip straddle, also known as the Teddy Bear. This is good to do probably from at least one level of climb. You’re going to bring yourself into your right bicep grip. Think about bringing you’re hips to the front of the pole or you can think about twisting your torso to bring your hips out towards the center of the room and away from the pole.

That can help create that really strong brace between your bicep grip and your right hip. From there you’re going to straddle out your legs and remove your top hand first, so in this case, the left hand. From there still squeezing strongly in your bicep grip, you can extend your right arm, as well. You want to think about really squeezing, even when you’ve taken that hand off and think about pointing that hand down towards the ground. To come out, we grab and slide down.

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Today I’m going to talk about safely getting into and out of the superman or some of us like calling it the superwoman. I suggest practicing it on the floor first. Particularly, so that you can review the position of your shoulder on the floor. I’m just going to walk through what I would be doing, if I was from the top of the pole, reviewing our nice effective climbing position, utilizing our leg strength to get up to the top of the pole.

The superman is hard. You don’t want to waste your energy trying to hoist up with your arms, ever. I’ll start in a lefty bicep grip pressing the pole down into the basement of the building. I would invert and hook my right leg above my hands, so I’ll go to that moment here on the floor. I would need to then change my right hand to be on top of my knee. My bottom hand goes into my pushing position. Going over that push/pull technique that was referred to in many other videos.

My bottom leg is pressing into the pole, nice and high near my hip, bracing my thigh against the pole in a nice aggressive thigh brace and my top leg I have the pole behind my knee, and I’m pulling. Again, that pushing and pulling technique that we can also do with our legs. With my top arm, I’m not going to try to resist and hold myself into the pole. Instead that arm is going to be nice and straight. Still pressing my thigh brace into the pole, my knee comes towards me keeping contact with my thighs, snapping my thighs closed, squeezing my gluts. Now looking at my right shoulder.

Make sure you’re not resisting the movement and trying to turn the shoulder towards the floor. That’s a shoulder injury waiting to happen. Make sure your chest and shoulders are nice and warm, so you can let your chest and shoulders have that openness that you need for a nice, safe superman. Squeezing the gluts you want the toes to be level with the hips or higher than the hips in a nice bowed position. Opposite arm would reach, this is one of the U.S. PDF amateur compulsory movements, so you want to make sure that you’re not cheating it and letting your feet go towards the floor.

Instead everything should be in a nice straight line or even bowing the toes up towards the ceiling, squeezing the gluts, inner thigh are squeezing the pole, and then coming down, of course on the floor. It’s a lot easier to come down, but you’ll see in my other videos there are multiple ways of coming down safely from your superman. One of my pet peeves however, is don’t just slam the feet down to the floor and Praise the Lord that you made it, because you may not make it.

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In a basic pole routine, it’s important to have a nice, balanced mix of spins, tricks, climbs and transitions. If you’re creating your own routine, one thing you can do is freestyle to music that you like, relying on the skills that you already know. Perhaps even some of the skills you’ve seen in these videos and see what your body naturally does when you come out of these movements.

So for example, starting with something nice and easy like a basic illusion, I would get three steps into it. Let’s see what my body naturally does coming out of my illusion. I step, right-left, right-bowing away my nice half-moon shape that I create my X. Pivot-face the pole, left hand goes under the right. My left leg loops around.

I don’t even have to leave the floor for this to be impressive. I keep my right foot on the floor, pivoting on that right foot. I step down on my left foot. My right leg naturally wants to come up and then I know from here, I can add some artistry, and then perhaps going to Wendy Traskos’ full turn, knuckle-roll, stepping out of it and go into what feels natural to you.

For someone else if they go into an illusion, their body, their inclination may be to do something else. So freestyle and see what works for you. Step right, left, right, pole away X. Pivot, baseball grip, nice and high, shoulders down. Pivot on the ball of that right foot. Left foot loops around, I step down. I might want to step behind myself, pop my left foot, step out left and stroke my right leg.

So do what your body naturally flows into doing next versus necessarily, forcing yourself to go into something that feels unnatural. Something else important when you’re doing a basic pole routine, is to not just race up to the top of the pole and race to come down. Think about a pretty static pose you can do at the top of the pole, before you come down, such as a bow, an arch, body waves versus looking like you ran up there to hit a buzzer, like you’re going to win a prize and coming straight down.

Give me something at the top of the pole that makes it looks like you went up there for a reason.
Same thing with floor work. Some of our spins take us to the floor. You don’t want to just want to get down to the floor and race to come back up again. Even some of the things you do standing, you can do on the floor if you end up on the floor.

So let’s say I take something down to my knees. Even something as simple as a head roll, doing a little peekaboo open/close of my legs before I come up to standing, makes it look like there was an intent and purpose in going down to the floor, andd it ends up in a nice, cohesive routine that ends like more of a story versus some segmented moves just kind of clumped together.

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I’m going to talk today about a tandem pole trick for all you lonely polers out there that want somebody to pole dance with you and want somebody to experience the pole with you. This is going to be a fun way to start doing some tandem pole stuff. BrynLynn and I are going to demonstrate an inside skater spin.

When you start this with two people, you both want to be on opposite sides of the pole with your hand high. The shorter person should have their hand slightly lower than the taller person, but your hands should pretty much be stacked on top of one another. When you go into your set, you want to make sure that you pull your body away from the pole, so that you don’t end up kind of looking like you’re making out around the pole, which there’s nothing wrong with that.

But it’s not that kind of tutorial and then you want to have a strategic way to come out of the spin. So make sure that you, once you have gone into your set, reach your body away from the pole. You’re going to hook your inside leg and taking your outside leg, swinging it around from the back to the front.

Just be careful not to kick each other and then you will step out on your outside leg. We’ll both be doing this spin on our right side, so we’ll be hooking with our right leg, which will be our standing leg in our set and we’ll be impulsing with our outside leg, which will be our left leg, which will be the leg that we land on. So enjoy.

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I’m going to be demonstrating just a basic climb and spin routine, with the climb and spin fundamentals of just a basic spin, some dance transitions and a basic climb. These are some basic things to focus on once you first begin pole dancing. A pole dancing routine doesn’t have to have a lot of tricks in order to still give you a great workout, A. B, still be fun and C, you can share it with your friends, your boyfriend or whoever you would like. It still be fun, sexy and saucy without having to be too crazy, when you first start learning how to pole dance.

Some things to start thinking about is make sure that your hand is always high on the pole. That will elongate your lines, it’ll make your body look longer, leaner. Also, it allows you to pull your hips away from the pole, which encourages the shapes in your body by emphasizing your hips. When you walk around the pole, you want to make sure that your chest is lifted, your shoulders are back and down. You’re walking with a sense of pride and confidence.

Even if you don’t feel so confident when you first start pole dancing, eventually you’re going to start becoming more confident, even just by walking around the pole, and feeling what that feels like to walk with posture. You also want to make sure that when you’re walking around the base of the pole that you’re pivoting on the balls of your feet. Stepping on the balls of your feet as you pivot and turn.

If you walk heel/toe, heel/toe, it makes you look kind of clunky and heavy and it doesn’t allow you to pivot as naturally as you walk. The other thing you want to think about too is music choices. Picking something that’s nice and slow, so you can move slowly to it, so you can focus on the technique and move with fluidity, without the beats changing or having to emphasize faster beats. That can be a little bit overwhelming when you first start to pole dance.

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I’m here today to talk about how to maximize your straddle through a few different stretches. So we’re going to start with a deep squat. Here you want to make sure that your knees are over your toes and that you’re opening your hips. Pressing your knees towards the back and your hips forward. You can grab your ankles and press your elbows into your knees to help open up your hips. Not the most attractive pose, but it definitely helps your straddle. So you can start to feel that stretch on your inner thighs.

Next you can it into a more isolated inner thigh stretch for each leg. You can place one hand down and extend one leg to the side. Again, keep pressing your elbow into your knee pit, still trying to open up that hip. You’ll start to feel it on your inner thigh on this side, also here. Again, make sure that your knee doesn’t extend beyond your toes or that you’re too far shifted this way. You want it to be comfortable, so you can kind of sink into it.

After that, you can take it into your full straddle. From here, some things to think about are keeping your legs engaged to really activate your muscles while you’re stretching. You can also start to bend forward, feeling more of a stretch on your inner thighs. You want to think about bending forward from your stomach, not from your head. So again, almost like arching you’re back to bring your stomach to the floor instead of just your forehead, which would be rounding.
You can also interior-ally rotate on your legs, so you can feel more a stretch on the inner thighs as well.

You want to think about bringing the arches of your feet to the ground. If you have very tight hips, something that can help with that, you can grab a towel and have a smooth surface, and bend your knees. Bring one knee to the towel and the other to the side. Again, not the cutest pose. From here you want to think about keeping your core engaged, so that you’re not arching you back and sticking out your butt, but trying to tuck your pelvis. Make sure that your heels are in line with your knees and that you’re trying to sink your hips lower to the ground. So those are some things you can do to maximize your straddle.

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Today we’re going to learn an advanced pole split. We’re going to do this on the stationary pole. You’re going to go climb up the pole and you’re going to sit back into your double knee brace, so squeezing the pole between your knees and sit back into your double-knee brace.

You’re going to weave your body around the pole, so the pole is at the right of your waist and reach your left arm up to reach around and hook your left elbow on the pole. Now you’re holding the pole with your elbow and pressing your waist into the pole. You’re going to release your left leg from the pole and reach it out in front of you and grab that leg with your right hand. As you release your left leg off the pole, you’re going to extend it behind you.

Now of course, you want to try to achieve the best that you can 180 degrees in this split. So you really want to think about that back leg and squeezing that back leg and reaching that leg nice and straight up to the ceiling and really using your right arm strength to pull that right leg into your chest, but nice and straight as well, because again we’re trying to achieve a full split.

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Today we’re going to go over some ways to maximize your hamstring flexibility. We’re just going to start with just warming up the hamstrings. You actually want your muscles to be fairly warm before you start stretching them, so we’re just going to start with a few squats. So you’re going to stand with your feet shoulder width apart. The weight is going to be in your heels when your legs are bent and the weight’ll be in your toes when your legs are straight.

So you’re going to go ahead and squat back. Trying to almost put, like you’re sitting on the wall. Your knees are directly above your heels. You’re squeezing your booty tight. Driving your heels into the ground evenly, but you’re not collapsing in your chest, so you want to keep a curve in your back. Trying to fire up those hamstrings. Get them to work. Get some oxygen and blood into them. You’re going to put your hands on the floor and slowly press your tailbone to the ceiling.

Now when you’re legs are straight, you want to make sure that the weight in is in the balls of your feet. So now your quadriceps are tight, which will allow you to open up and lengthen through your hamstrings, contracting the opposing muscle. So we’re just going to do that a couple of times. Let’s do that again. Squat down. Push the hips back. Curve the back, keep the belly nice and engaged. Drive those feet into the floor. Hands on the floor. Tailbone presses up and now we’re going to do another little thing to try to help you out with the range of motion of your hamstrings.

Go up on your toes nice and high, like a ballerina. Make sure your ankles aren’t sickled. Go up on to your fingertips, pulling your belly into your spine, hollow out your stomach. Now straighten your back, so your chest passes your fingertips and you’re going to reverse body wave down your thighs. You’re going to put your naval on your upper thighs, your lower rib cage on your knees, your upper rib cage on your shins and the crown of the head points to the floor.

As you lower your heels, but keep the weight in the balls of your feet. Start trying to take that roundness out of your back, so you’re completely hinged at your waist, and you want your hipbones directly above your heels, not behind your heels. Now you can add to this stretch by reaching around and grabbing your heels and hugging your elbows close to your shins or to your calves. Drive your shoulders and your elbows up to the ceiling, as you continue to fall into the balls of your feet. Trying to get your nose to touch the floor, so pull those shoulders up into your back. Shoulders and elbows go up to the ceiling.

So now there’s one stretch. I’m going to show you one more. We’re not done yet. So the other one would be starting in a kneeling position. You’re going to take your left leg out in front. When you do this you want to try to have your hips squared off. You should only, if you have your profile in the mirror you should only be able to see one glut, one butt cheek. So you’re going to pull your hip back so that standing leg is parallel to the poles, perpendicular to the floor.

Lift up through your midsection, creating space in your vertebrae. Press your left hipbone behind you. This leg is nice and straight and hinge forward. Don’t let that hip drop. You don’t want it to drop down to the ground. You want to keep your hips parallel to one another. You need to keep your hips squared off to properly stretch your hamstrings. So you can work another area of your hamstrings by pulling your toes back to your face.

When you do that, the left hip pivots back and the right hip pivots forward. Your back still remains flat. Now when you feel like you’re flexible enough, you can start trying to achieve a split from here. So you want to point both of your toes. Push your palms into the floor. Lift yourself up onto your back toe and reach your toes away from one another and try to sit down into your split the best you can.

Once you’re in your split, you want to make sure that you’re squared off, so you want to try to pivot your left hip forward and your right hip back. I’m probably a little curved in my spine more so than is necessary, but that’s just me. So you want to try to maybe avoid not arching your back too much. So keep squeezing your right butt cheek and reaching that right leg out behind you, and pressing your right hip into the floor.

So to maximize this stretch, you can challenge your hamstrings a little more by hinging at the waist and laying your torso right on to your leg. Make sure you’re still pressing that right hip down to the floor and squeezing your right glut to shoot that back leg out behind you. You can also take your torso and put it on one side of your leg. You can also take your torso and put it on the other side of the leg. Trying to press that right hip down to the ground.

Transcript

I’m going to demonstrate a style of pose that you can do from any point on the pole. It’s a great pose to hold or it’s also a great descent. It’s very beautiful. Shows off the lines of your body, just overall aesthetically pleasing. So we’re going to assume that you’re perhaps at the top of the pole or maybe that you’ve at least climbed to level one. But right now I’ll demonstrate it from the floor, so you can get a clear view of what I’m doing. My torso would be facing to the pole. My hands would be in my baseball grip. In this case, I’m in narrow grip.

My hands are at my chest, and again my left hand is on top, because I’ve assumed that I’ve climbed on my right. I’m going to squeeze my elbows into my sides, blocking my shoulders, pressing my chest into the pole. It’s very important to think about engaging those shoulders, so that you don’t end up in a perpetual pull-up position, which is very difficult for your body to hold. Pressing your chest into the pole, you’re going to pick up one leg and bend it at the knee, arching back. Once you reach the ground, you can come out of it and then transition in any way you like.

Transcript

I’m going to show you an advanced pole move that you can perform either on a spinning pole or a static pole. It’s very impressive on a spinning pole. You want to make sure you’re really well warmed up. You can consult my video on how to get a better straddle, because we’re going to be in a straddle split on the pole. So again, think about being really warmed up and it may be helpful to have someone spot you the first time that you do this.

So I have a particularly strong right leg hang, so I want to go with my dominant leg hang side. If you’re more comfortable on the left, you’ll want to do this with your left leg hang. So when thinking about that I’m going to actually use my left bicep grip to invert, so I can hook my outside leg, in this case, my right leg. So I bring myself into my left bicep grip, straddle invert, and hook my right leg. Squeezing behind the knee, I’m going to place my right hand above that right knee. I’m going to place my left hand lower in a push/pull, to help place the pole in a thigh brace on my left leg.

Using that push/pull I’ll swing my left leg around, so that my ankle is now on the pole and that leg is straight in line with the pole. I can start to slide my legs down a bit to extend my top leg and hook it more at the heel, so that both of my legs are flat on the pole. I’ll walk my hands down, keeping my torso reaching away, so that my weight is pulling away from the pole. Placing my hands around my hip bones, arching your back is often helpful. To come out of it, we walk your hands, then the top knee, hooking that leg and swing that left leg behind the pole again.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Gabrielle, one of the U.S. PDF Pro Title holders, and I’m going to go over one of the compulsory requirements for the U.S. PDF Pros, the elbow handstand. The elbow handstand involves a push/pull technique. You’re pushing with one arm and you’re pulling with the other. If I were to do the elbow handstand on my right, know that I would be in adverted position. However, practice it on the floor first, so you can callus at the skin right at that elbow pit, and feel secure about lifting one foot up from the floor at a time.

My right arm, I’m hooking right at my elbow pit with my shoulder down, don’t let the shoulder creep up towards your ear. Still blocking the shoulder, press it down. My bottom arm scoops under like I’m trying to create cleavage, like a kick stand on a bicycle pushing the pull away with that bottom arm. Top arm is pulling the pole towards my face, bottom arm is pushing the pole away, i’m trying to snap the pole right in between my arms.

Before you’re ready to do this upside down, know that you can support yourself one leg at a time in a right side up position. With that push/pull I lean back even inverted, my hips will be away from the pole, and just practice one leg coming up at a time, leaning back away from the pole. Pulling with the top arm, pushing with the bottom arm. Then when you feel as though you’re ready to even think about doing this upside down, you’ll want to refer back to Bryn-Lynn’s video, and just do a basic invert into an upside down climbing position, upside down double knee brace.

Your chest will be facing the pole, one arm will be under, one arm will be pulling. Now it’s going to change. The direction will change, we’ll be upside down. My right arm that was closest to the ceiling will then end up closer to the floor. Basic invert, chest facing the pole. I’m going to scoop my arms underneath me, right arm towards my chest, bottom arm scoops under. Sit the booty back towards the heels. Like I’m almost going to sit on my bum towards my heels and then spreading the legs at a nice straddle position.

Creating equilibrium with my toes slightly forward. Slightly piking at my hips. Really getting the hips away from the pole. I advise that you be nice and warmed up before you do this move, as well as have a crash mat down below and supervision. This is not a trick I would advise you to do on your own. Coming out of the trick, you go right back into that double knee brace, climbing foot brace position. Chest is facing the pole and you can descend from there however you wish, once you’re your nice and safe with two legs on the pole.

Transcript

I’m Gabrielle, and I’m going to talk about the butterfly. It’s a push/pull handstand, so it’s not luck that you’re hanging out there. You’re actually utilizing a push/pull technique that can be practiced in a right side up position with your feet on the floor. Top arm is pulling with our shoulder down. Bottom arm would scoop under to create cleavage pushing. Like you’re trying to snap the pole in half, bottom arm pushing the pole away.

Top arm pulling the pole towards you. You can practice lifting one foot up from the floor at a time to make sure that you have a nice, solid push/pull grip. Making sure in that grip you don’t start letting the shoulders creep up towards your ears. You still want your shoulder blades down at your bra line. Now this push/pull sensation will be the same when we’re upside down doing our butterfly.

Go back to BrynLyn’s video, when she does your basic bicep grip straddle invert. Review that and you’ll go from that bicep grip straddle invert, into an outside leg hang. For practice, I would suggest doing your strongest leg on that outside leg hang. So my right leg is my best leg, so I’m going to invert in a lefty bicep grip. Locking the pole between my left bicep and the left side of my chest, right at that nice 90-degree angle with the right arm on top.

Tension in both arms. We never want to be hanging from our arms. Pressing our shoulders down, we go into our basic invert. My right leg is going to hook on to the pole in a nice, aggressive outside leg-hang. I turn my chest towards the pole. My bottom arm goes into my pushing position, hence that push-pull grip. My top leg does a hamstring curl.

Take advantage of that top leg being there, curling yourself down to face the floor, always of course, with a nice crash mat down below us for safety, and my other leg will extend behind me when my right leg is hooked on the pole. Coming out of it. Go back the exact same way you came and you’ll end up in a push/pull straddle position. It’s a pretty transition to come out of it and it’s also an opportunity for you to practice that push/pull sensation with your tush and your feet closer to the floor.

Transcript

I’m going to demonstrate the inside hook skater spin to a reversed bicep grip body spiral. This is a required element for the U.S. PDF Amateur Competition. So you’ll start with your right hand high, in your half-moon pose. Prepping for your outside hook spin. You’ll take three steps. Stepping right, left, right. Reaching your left hand and left leg away from the pole in a big X, you’ll pivot to the pole. Your hips are still pulling away.

You’re going to create spin impulse with that outside leg and pick up the inside hook, inside leg hooking at the knee. You’ll close off this spin by sweeping the outside leg, so the pole is in-between your two knees. You’ll step out and replace your hands with your left arm in an elbow brace. Your right hand is above and you’re peering under that top arm. Your hips are still reaching away. You want to think about your hips making an orbit around the pole the whole time in this thing.

Your right leg is going to stay cemented in front of your body, so once that leg is in place it’s locked in. You’re going to start to fall backwards and allow the pole to slide into your left bicep grip and your torso is going to pivot, so that now your hips are pointing in the direction of your spin. So where before your back was in the direction of the spin, now you’re shifting in the torso, so that your right leg is in front and your hips are pointing forward. You can take this spin to the ground. You can do it with one arm and you can take it into a split, if you like, for added flair.

Transcript

Today I am going to be demonstrating the USPDF, United State Pole Dance Federation, amateur spin. This is the spin that’s required of you if you’re going to be competing in the USPDF amateur division. It’s called free hang to a reverse inside hook. You want to start with your hand nice and high, your feet close to the pole, your hips pulled away in your half moon and you’re going to go for your basic outside hook step which is you’re three steps wide around the base of the pole starting on your inside foot. You reach away from the pole in the x formation, you pivot on the ball of the foot to face the pole, outside hand goes underneath the inside in the baseball grip. You square off your hips and your shoulders. You block your shoulders. You create impulse with your outside leg by reaching your back leg back to the side. Once you see that leg in your peripheral vision you’ll pick up your standing leg and you’ll ride out the spin – your baseball grip with your shoulders blocked. Once again, at least one revolution around the pole, you’re going to make an aggressive twist to your midsection bracing into an elbow brace. That elbow brace is going to help open up your chest and pull you away from the pole. Then you’re going to hook your inside leg behind the knee, knees apart, toes together. You can either land on your outside leg or you can take it all the way down to the ground.

Transcript

I’m going to show you a basic climb. You’re going to start by standing behind your pole, so when we climb on the right we have our left hand high, this is to help assist us in layered grips for seamless transitions with our hands to avoid lots of grabbing and monkeying up the pole.

I’m going to grab high with my left hand and place by right hand underneath in baseball grip. I’m going to block my shoulders, and when in doubt, titties up, this helps remind you to block you shoulders because it’s pretty hard to engage your shoulders when your chest is sunken.

So I am going to drive my right leg up the side of the pole until it creates a tabletop at the knee. I’m going to weave my foot behind the pole to the other side, then flex that foot and press the foot into the pole squeezing between the knee and the foot so I have strong pressure in both directions. From there I’m going to pick up my other leg and squeeze between the knees. I’m grapevineing the pole between the front leg and the back leg. To stand up I’m going to use the strength of my legs. To come down I’ll loosen my grasp with my legs, and I’m on the floor.

Some things to think about, a natural inclination is that we want to pull up the pole, so you want to fight that urge and use the strength of your legs which are much stronger than your arms at this point. Also, think about really feeling comfortable in that climbing foot brace; you can test your weight by picking up your back foot since this is your main point that you’re going to stand on.

Transcript

How to do a basic invert. Today I’m going to talk to you about how to do just a basic bicep grip inverted straddle. In another video I am talking how to take this inversion and make it spin which makes it a lot more fun, but you’re going to want to try to master the basic inversion first.

Prior to learning any inversion, as I mentioned in my other video, you want to make sure you’re properly warmed up and that you’re working on your flexibility, and again, you can refer to Laura Michael’s video when she talks about how to grease your straddle. It will be more safe, and your legs will look longer and leaner, and your lines look really pretty when you’re inverting. You also want to make sure that you have a spot, probably, when you’re first learning how to invert, and you have a crash mat to catch your fall in case your hands slip. Above all you want to make sure that you have the strength and the coordination and the flexibility mastered from just basic, regular pole dancing technique before you take it and you flip it upside down.

So the proper grip for doing a bicep grip inverted straddle is called a bicep grip. You’re going to reach your inside hand out to the side, parallel to the ground, so about 90 degrees. You’re going to bring that arm around in front of your shoulder, and bend the elbow, so the upper arm bone is now parallel to the ground. A good way to make sure your hand is in the proper position is, if you release your pinky you could poke yourself in the eye, and so then you know you’re in the proper position. Outside hand will come directly on top of that pushing your top of your bicep into the pole, and your oblique on the other side, so it’s sort of sandwiched between your arm and the side of your body.

Your going to drive the pole into the ground using the strength of your back. From there you’ll drive your knees into your chest. Your bicep grip will slide now into a little bit of an elbow brace. You’ll extend your legs into your straddle reaching you toes towards the opposite ends of the room, and from there you can either go into an upside down double knee brace and release that to the ground tucking your chin in to your chest, or you can also just come out of it, step out of it on your inside leg and then your outside leg.