Saturday, July 12, 2008
All Nude All the Time
My S Factor class meets Fridays at 4:30. Yesterday, like most Fridays, I writhed around on the floor with nine other scantily-clad women for two hours. Loud music engulfed us, and warm, dim light surrounded us. After a three week summer hiatus, I had forgotten how much I value this weekly ritual of paying homage to my body and soul. This sexual, sensual revelry is a source of profound joy and satisfaction in my life.
I started taking class a little over a year and a half ago because I thought pole dancing would be a cool skill to have (it so is), and because I aspired to increase the ripped-ness of my biceps. I didn't realize that that was only one small part of a much bigger picture. In fact, I scoffed at the notion that pole dancing and stripteese could be anything more than a sexy workout. Over the course of the last eighteen months, I have learned far more than how to hang upside down and take off my shirt. I have gained far more than I could have ever imagined.
As I sat yesterday and watched my classmates bare their souls through their dances, I felt insanely lucky. How often is it that I get to bask in the presence of sexually confident and alert beings? How frequently do I get to experience completely honest and vulnerable communication, let alone communication of a physical, sensual variety? The answer is, once a week on Fridays at 4:30.
Surely, I have opportunities for open communication in other aspects of my life. In fact, I seek them out. But there is something uber-exciting about experiencing this communication in such a focused and charged setting (OK, I admit the lacy underwear help, too). In my day-to-day life I see women spending so much time tearing one another down -- tearing themselves down -- "Am I too fat?" "She's too fat." "I can't believe you're wearing that." "I could never wear that." "What a slut." "What a prude." My class provides a fantastically refreshing respite from this storm of negativity. It is full of supportive women -- women who cheer you up when you fall, and cheer you on when you soar, both in class and out.
Of course it takes a degree of confidence to strip out of one's clothes in front of others, and the results can be electrifying, but it is even more risky and exhilarating to expose one's soul, one's self. Each week in class we have the opportunity to do this. To be real.
I relish the high I feel having exposed myself, and I am honored that others trust me and the rest of our class with their bare souls. This nudity of the spirit is not limited to the classroom. We can't help but carry it away with us each week. Maybe it manifests in the courage to admit new love or the strength to give honest feedback to a friend. As layers of clothing come off in class and I fly around the pole, I am able to expose more of myself in life and test my wings. Damn! Nudity is hot!
(Image courtesy of Eric C. Carter at Dizzy Pixel.)Labels: body image, dance, fitness, rant
tidbit posted by Mosa @ 10:56 PM
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Wii's Got the Whole Pole in It's Hands!
Well, maybe I do need a Wii after all:
abcnews.com
Labels: dance, fitness
tidbit posted by Mosa @ 11:34 PM
Monday, April 7, 2008
You Can Take the Girl out of the Valley…
After the arrival of my little sister in mid-1980, likely in order to give my poor mom a much-needed break, I began going on regular trips to the mall with my Dad – the Sherman Oaks Galleria, no less. Like totally. We would stroll about, making sure to stop at the pet store and the ice cream shop, maybe the bookstore. Unbeknownst to my father, I would spend a good deal of the time soaking up the fashion sense of the cool teenagers who dwelled permanently in their mall habitat.
By the time I was five or six, I had absorbed enough that I would make these trips outfitted in a purple striped miniskirt and fringed, suede boots. My thin, brittle hair had gone through several stringy, stinky, perms by the time I was seven-and-a-half. I was born into the Valley, and, from a very young age, I felt an uncontrollable pull to epitomize this hotbed of cutting-edge fashion.
Before I hit double-digits, I was so obsessed with the movie Flashdance, that I would wait until my mom was distracted or on the phone so that my friends and I could sneak off and try to make it to the “forbidden” nude scenes before getting caught. My best friend and I would wrap our dancing feet in masking tape and reenact Jennifer Beals’s sweat-pumping dance montage right along with the grainy VHS tape. Sex and dance and legwarmers were forever, and inextricably, mixed in my young mind.
By the time I was ten and taking modern dance class, I made my mom alter my leotard to have high, French cut, wedgy-producing leg holes; I was sure this made it more stylish and sexy. I wasn’t even out of the sixth grade. (The sixth grade where Sarah and I pretended to be prostitutes to Todd and Ryan’s mock-pimps -- I am not sure I even really understood what a pimp was, but I knew it was fun to walk arm-in-arm with a boy.) The outfit I ultimately wore to my sixth grade graduation was based largely on an outfit I’d seen on a carefree model in a cigarette billboard. It involved a red crinoline and suspenders.
Once I was in junior high, I debated at least weekly with my mother about the appropriateness and length of my skirts. “No, Mom! It is a skirt, not a belt! Really!” I never went so far as to pack extra clothes for school in my white, Esprit bag, but I did roll up my skirt a waistband width or two before entering Mrs. Warnock’s homeroom most mornings.
As I began to get a whiff of ninth grade and a new decade around the corner, I buried my memories of fluorescent fishnet socks and white, rhinestone high-tops. My ponytails got lower, my bangs flatter, and my attitude decidedly more “artsy.” By the time I graduated high school, I think most people would have called me a hippy. I had ditched the neon and the miniskirts for Doc Marten’s and long, drab dresses. I chose black over hot pink and bragged about my recycling habits rather than my lip-gloss collection. The eighties were, most definitely, over
Last month, my friend Emily invited me to her birthday party. Her stylish Evite announced that the theme was, “Fairy Slut Bus.” Yes, Emily planned to make her party a moving experience by packing her scantily clad friends into a party bus and taking us to various clubs around town. Emily is pretty darn cool. I began to contemplate how to interpret the “Fairy Slut” mandate. By the night of the party I had it all figured out; the outfit seemed to put itself together.
Later, looking at pictures of the event, I realized that my inner Valley Girl had come out to dress me for the party. She had expertly paired my high heals with glitter legwarmers and used scissors to alter a watermelon pink top so it hung off one shoulder strategically revealing a teal, sequined bra strap. She made my hair huge with hot rollers, and, like totally, coated my eyes in bold purple and green shadow! In the absence of my mother to object to my inappropriate attire, I chose a fantastically short skort (I’ve developed a little modesty in my old age and thought a skirt might be too much). Thanks to Emily, I got to live the dream of my ten year-old-self. I realized that my inner slut, like totally, dwells in ‘8o’s, and she, is still, like fully, from The Valley. Sorry, Mom.
Labels: dance, rant
tidbit posted by Mosa @ 4:02 PM
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
I'm Not a Poet
Noon on Wednesdays: An Ode to Nneka’s Class
Smiling and shimmying stinking and wet
Shiny floor reflects our agile silhouettes
We glide by on tennis-shoed feet
Smooth glass surrounds the slippery beat
Music thumps through the air
Soaks up our sorrows
Erases our cares
Professional dancers strut and stride
And diva housewives display their pride
We move in unison
But each on her own
Though we all fantasize we’re Nneka’s rhythmic clone
Latin beats caress us
Samba fills our hearts
We are a unit of disparate parts
One-two-triple-step
Three-four-cha-cha-cha
Our souls are bared and in the raw
Merengue embraces us
Salsa takes flight
We’re living our dance
Marinating in delight
Labels: dance, poem
tidbit posted by Mosa @ 10:25 AM
Friday, March 7, 2008
Faux Pole
About a year and a half ago, I took my first dance class with Annamarie at my local 24 Hour Fitness. The name of the class is what drew me in: 24 Tease. It is described on the 24 Hour Fitness website as, “an electrifying 30-minute striptease aerobics workout… [that] provides a safe environment for members to get in touch with their inner stripper, while taking off pounds, extra clothing and even some inhibitions to reveal a healthier body and stronger self-esteem.”
The “safe environment” at my gym is a sweaty fishbowl of a room that provides a clear line of sight for anyone hanging about on an elliptical or climbing the never-ending stairs to skinniness and personal acceptance. The large windows also provide quite a draw for those who lift weights briefly in between their rest periods rather than the reverse.
If I am lucky, I start my Monday nights at 5:30 with Annamarie’s 24 Set class. She tosses us back and forth from weights to aerobics for a good hour. We heave our sweaty bodies over aerobic steps of various heights, and do bicep curls and lunges in rhythm with a poppy remix of Rose Royce’s “Car Wash.” The 1982 version of “Maneater” has also been known to drift through the damp, gym-scented air. This is followed by a half an hour of salsa. We shake and shimmy and listen to Shakira cooing to us that hips tell the truth.
The real show starts at 7:00. Most of the women from the first hour of circuit training are gone now and, while salsa is popular, the room doesn’t really get crowded until Annamarie dons her pink feather boa and begins 24 Tease. She reminds us that she is not ashamed of her body, that she loves to touch it, and “put on her lotion” (by this she means rubbing her hands over her, now sweaty, spandex getup). She declares us all Divas, and the hooting begins. I admit that I am an instigator of the hooting.
I can’t help but grin as I stare into the mirror and see reflected there women of all shapes, sizes and varieties. I am a judgmental bitch, but it warms my cold, cold heart to see all of these women convening to explore their sexuality. Yes, the room is lacking ambiance. Yes, some of us are wearing sweaty t-shirts and runny mascara. But something magical is afoot. Women who had been stone silent during the earlier classes begin to giggle. Women whom I had pegged as grandmas, begin to wiggle their hips outrageously. Catcalls are uttered; smiles are flashed. Women from all walks of life are drawn here. For some reason, they feel compelled to experience this class. It is a good workout; I have been known to burn over three hundred calories in the scant half hour class. But I don’t think that is why they come. I don’t think that is why I come.
These women are here to take ownership of themselves. They are here to declare their femininity, their beauty, their power. They are here to fantasize that the weighted bar that they are sashaying about and sliding down is a stripper pole. They are here to “hit the floor” if Flo Rida tells them to.
I am here because I can’t resist the temporary community made up of women who lead such disparate lives. I am here because I relish being a part of something that doesn’t require words. I am here because I love to shake my booty. That’s what we are really – a consortium of booty shakers. In this dank, crowded room in Hayward, California, lawyers, and secretaries, teachers, and housewives, grandmas and students come together as women. Yes, I realize it is just an aerobics class that has incorporated a few extra hip circles, but I love it just the same. While jaunting about my faux pole, I can’t help but imagine that we are all witches gyrating under a canopy of moonlit trees rather than fitness junkies under bad fluorescent lighting. I like to fantasize that we are like the witches, ushering in a new era where women are comfortable with their bodies and take pride in their glorious sexuality. Maybe my imagination is overly active, but I am still going to class, and I'm gonna rub my lotion everywhere!Labels: dance
tidbit posted by Mosa @ 4:50 PM
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