Hi,
My name’s Jason, and I first began practising the pole in early 2006, for fitness.
It seemed like a great way to work on my upper body strength, in a varied style (ie rather than repetitive gym workouts), with various attainable targets to help motivate.
At first, incredibly it took a few months to find some classes I was actually allowed to join (there was lots of sexual discrimination around that time), thankfully though, once I’d ‘got in’ I was welcomed by the various pole teachers and performers, and got to know lots of people pretty quickly.
Being a guy, I was fortunate to naturally have greater upper body strength than the women on the courses (so was able to do inverts in just a couple of weeks, which typically they’d be practising for months).
Times have moved on though over the years. What used to be outstanding a few years ago, is now very much the standard in many pole performances and competitions. There are also an increasing number of people who are now in full time training as pole athletes!
Men are still not yet hugely represented in the world of pole, but are making significant inroads. As can be seen on this website, there are now international pole competitions where men are welcomed, and there are even dedicated events just for guys!
Pole Dancing on the polished chrome form of the pole (that you might have orignally seen in the strip clubs), has now taken a great deal of influence from the world of Chinese Pole (typically a rubber coated thicker pole with much better grip, but other quite different performance properties).
There are now tens of thousands of people around the UK, who practise pole dancing for fitness only. These classes typically have little association with the style associated with strip clubs (although of course there are still those classes where high heels are the normality) but most classes are more akin to regular dance and gymnastic classes.
PoleMen.com itself, was set up after a 2 week intensive circus skills training in Bristol in 2007, where I was pleased that the Chinese Pole featured highly. I therefore wanted to bring together details of guys who I considered positively represented the progression of men who pole, as men.
(And move away from the guys who just wanted to ogle the women in classes, or dress up and act like a women. Both of these have their place, but fortunately neither are very common in most pole classes).
This blog then later developed in 2009, to bring together videos from around the world.
Although I became a registered member of Equity for my contributions to pole (and also joined the Equity Variety Committe for the Thames Valley), unfortunately my health suddenly detoriated in 2008 and I had to leave all my physical activities for over a year.
My health is thankfully now recovering again, and although my lifestyle has changed significantly, I look forward to getting back on the pole again publically in due course.
In the meantime, I hope you find beneficial the various videos and information linked to in my blog. You might also like to see what else I’m involved with through my personal blog www.parlour.info
For some really excellent online pole dance lessons do check out digi-pole.com. This is available 24/7, around the world, in High Definition. It features some really excellently detailed pole dance instructional videos by Jolene, for most of the main moves you can think of (and it’s added to regularly too). Although I don’t feature in the videos personally on digi-pole, I’ve been actively involved in putting together digi-pole from the outset, through the filming, website development, etc.
If you have any recommendations of videos or articles to share with others, please do get in contact, either through the contact page, or by adding your recommendation through the comments forms at the base of each page.