Dancing to a New Beat

I have just been to my first pole dancing class. Although I had been very nervous prior to the class, as always I found that I was in my head a complete natural. It seemed only fair, considering my many, many years of ballet training. Alas, reality, as always, proved quite different to that world in my head. For one thing, I have little to no upper body strength despite the push ups I do every morning; all my power is in my legs. And for another, I seemed to be quite unable to do anything correctly. I found myself close to tears as the instructor told me, for the fourth/fifth/twelve millionth time, not to jump. Every time I walked around the pole, it got to the point I had to flick my legs around and I panicked and jumped. Which is apparently a big no-no.

Of course, I am trying to remember that it was only my first session and so my confidence shouldn't be knocked quite so severely. Unfortunately, I am all too easily convinced of my inadequacies. If I can't do something straight away then I find it very difficult to believe that I ever could. This said, one thing that I have always seemed to lack and affinity for is giving up. I just never have seemed to be able to give up on anything. In addition to this, I have seen the girls at work on the pole; they look wonderful. I need to be able to do what they can do and part of me will always believe that one day I will be able to.

I also found, to my embarrassment, that my shorts were, as I had though, really too small. During stretching, they showed, quite clearly, my completely un-sexy old and faded pink knickers. Which was wonderful. If someone had been playing spot the stripper, they certainly wouldn't have picked me.

In fact, I'm not quite sure who they would have picked. The class, as was my expectation, was made up primarily of people who were just powerful young ladies who have probably never even thought of stripping as a viable option. Which is, of course, fair enough. I would have liked to have spotted one girl slightly more sexual, though. I suppose that girl is me, although it wasn't completely clear tonight.

There were two lads in the class, which I must say I was a little surprised at, a fact that, being the niece of a male ballet dancer, I am a little loathed to admit.

So that was my first pole dancing experience. I didn't enjoy myself and I have come away distinctly dissatisfied, but only at myself and I will, therefore, stick at it and maybe one day I will be wonderful.

Maybe.