Why Yes, I'm Certified to Teach Pole Dancing!

I know you were all wondering what happened!  Well I’m officially certified to teach levels 1 – 4 for pole dancing.  Our last day was short but sweet.  I perfected my caterpillar climb, got into Aisha (with Collette holding my butt up) and learned how to spot perfectly for inversions and climbs.  Which, by the way, is not as obvious as you might think. 

For some reason I also thought that my last day would be an excellent time to take a Chinese Splits class.  And actually, it was!  The class was a bit like Yoga, and we used mats and blocks to gently stretch and elongate our muscles.  There was seventy-two–year-old student named Lynn who put us all to shame by performing full Chinese Splits on an armchair.  Talk about inspirational!

Speaking of inspirational, Celeste Ayers (pronounced AIRS) modeled many of the advanced moves for us in teacher training the last day and WOW!  Her movement is amazing to watch.  She is gracious, fluid, sensual, flexible and has nearly flawless technique.  Celeste was a competitor in this year’s California Pole Dance Championships.  If you have not seen her dance yet, check her out here.

I was extremely pleased with the level of professionalism, the attention to detail and the amount of fun and connection I had with the other students in my Teacher Training Class.  Collette offers the perfect blend of technical skill and sensuality to her teacher trainees and she breaks down the art of pole dancing into easily digestible, clear instructions.  Collette also trains her teachers to have an incredibly good eye for correcting mistakes in their students’ movements.  “I created this program by applying how I was trained in my academic and consulting careers to study a craft and organize information.  It was tedious and meticulous, but so necessary given the huge responsibility we take on in training others.”  In the future, I would love to see this training expanded into a week-long or ten-day endeavor (as would Collette!), because there is an enormous amount of material to cover.  It would also be wonderful to see this program expand its floor work training and dive into the emotionality of pole dancing in greater depth.  Of course, those are my biases!

I want to thank Collette, Natalie, Felicia and OC Pole Fitness for putting together a very comprehensive and positive training program that offers its trainees the flexibility to create their own curriculum while maintaining rigorous safety standards.  I also want to thank my amazing co-trainees, who made the experience fun, exciting, supportive and very positive.   Can’t wait to train for the upper levels!