Shaping the Choreography (The Jersey)

I hate that I can never relate this story to anyone, not even Estee without tearing up a lot. This is from a NY Times article about the night Wayne Gretzky retired:

After most hockey games, Wayne Gretzky is a quick-change artist, out of uniform and out of the locker room before anyone else on the team. But yesterday was different, for so many reasons, and Gretzky still wore his Ranger jersey and pants more than an hour after the conclusion of the final game of his brilliant career.

His blue jersey was dark and wet with sweat and spilled water and maybe a tear or two. When asked why he had not changed it, Gretzky first said a few proper things about getting to the news conference on time without making reporters wait in a back hall at Madison Square Garden. Then he leveled.

''Probably, subconsciously, I don't want to take it off,'' Gretzky, the player known as the Great One, said. ''I'm not going to pull it on ever again. It's hard. It's hard to take it off right now. I have to be honest with you. I don't want to take it off."

My day came three years ago. I had to take my jersey off for the last time. I'm no Gretzky but I loved every minute of every game and I just couldn't play hockey with the thirty-year old guys at the level I wanted to anymore. The dance Estee and I are choreographing for my Midwest Pole Dancing Competition entry is about that day. I'm even dreaming about dancing lately.

My Dance Bag (March Bloghop)

My dance bag is a small disorganized disaster area. It used to be worse. I used to carry my ballet stuff in the same bag with my pole stuff. After "losing" my phone and keys for the 200th time I split the bags. One for pole and one for ballet. In an hour or so I'm heading off to a private lesson with Estee Zakar and my bag is ready to go. Welcome to Pandora's Box:

1. Duct tape. Doctors orders. I am not to dance barefoot on the ball of my left foot. It took three years of freezing, a chemotherapy drug and permanent scarring to get rid of a plantar wart. Besides. Duct tape fixes everything.
2. Towels. One for the pole and one for me. 
3. iPod. 180 Gig. I don't go to any dance lesson without it. If you hear that burning bags of cat poop were found at Apple headquarters it is because they finally discontinued the 180. My entire music library is on mine including some pole music playlists that go back to 2007.
4. Water bottle. I prefer Rockstar Zero carb but my doc tells me water is better for my kidneys.
5. Extra booty shorts and dance belts. I always wear a dance belt under my pole shorts. It keeps people focused on my pole work. Most of the stuff men wear for pole dance doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. When you are in your mid 50's this is NOT a good thing.
6. White Flower. Estee swears by the stuff. I'm hurting. I'm trying it.
7. Arnica. Arnica is in the same category as duct tape. Indispensable.
8. Dew Point, Dry-Hands, iTac2. I like Dry-Hands the best. But on some poles on some days the other stuff works. I like Dew Point a lot. Especially on 45 mm poles. Dew Point is also a great way to get glued to the bed sheets without all night monkey sex.
9. Contact lens solution, extra case, extra lenses, and re-wetting drops. 
10. Hand Sanitizer. We all know that EVERTHING rubs on those poles. Ballet barres are also metal Petri dishes.
11. Deodorant. Self explanatory
12. Spare hearing aid batteries. Embarrassing. I have a lot of hearing loss. Too many Deep Purple concerts and exposure to the 2.0 kilohertz sound pulses that are used extensively in meteorological research. I have an especially hard time hearing female voices. Their already soft voices make the consonants hard to hear. So if the music is loud, you are female, and I look bewildered, it is because I can't hear a word you are saying. 
13. Double sided tape. Things slip. After one inversion the drawstrings on my booty shorts are always hanging out. I also assume that some people really do not want to see my below the belly button ink.
14. One pair of Pleaser Taboo 7 1/2" Sexy Black Stripper shoes. (Don't ask. Future blog post) ;)

Pole preference. I learned on 50 mm brass Platinum Stages poles. I really liked working on brass. I visited another studio in Denver and they had 50 mm PS stainless. I spent half of my time trying to stay up on the damned thing. I learned to hate the 50 mm PS stainless. Back in December I had a chance to work on 45 mm PS stainless. No problem. I think it has more to do with the diameter than the material. I don't mind working on 45 mm PS stainless at all. I have two PS brass poles at home (45 mm and 50 mm). I like them but when I started working with Estee it was 45 mm X-Pole. I have one at home too and I'm not looking back.

I love the X-Pole. Period.

I do have to say one thing about X-Pole and Platinum Stages. Everyone seems to have a horror story about their quality control or customer service. Estee got my X-Pole for me and it was perfect out of the box. I bought two poles from PS. The first one was cut wrong and it was my fault because I forgot to click the correct ceiling length on the web page. They made it good overnight. The second was perfect from the get go.

So there is my story about commercial products and inside my dance bag. I hope I made you laugh a couple of times. I really try to avoid commercial dissing or endorsements. As they say YMMV

Love

The Blog Hop topic for February in honor of Valentine's Day is Love. The most touching expression of love in my pole experience is looking into the crowd during a performance and seeing my wife in the audience. My fifth and latest public pole dance performance took place on February 9, 2013. My wife has attended every one of my performances. She is always the woman married to the only man in the show. It isn't easy being that woman.

Dress rehearsal was February 8. Just before I danced I was sitting in the chairs at the back of the studio all by myself. I was alone with my usual apprehension and demons. The husband of the studio owner was getting ready to video the rehearsal. He walked over and sat down. After we exchanged a few pleasantries he looked and me and asked, "How do you do this? I can't imagine being you." I really couldn't explain it except to say that this was my fifth and it never seems to get any easier. I did mention that I thought my performing in front of a mixed crowd with only women was sending an important message to men about pole dance and men dancing in general.

Saturday night while I was sitting with the other women before showtime I searched for my wife in the crowd. My thoughts turned to her. It takes something special to support your husband when he goes off four times a week to dance in classes where all the other members are women. Some people have said that I must be very confident about my masculinity. My confidence? What about my wife? Talk about a strong woman. We talk. We talk a lot about the issues she faces since I started dancing. My wife is my age. She knows I am surrounded by women wearing the best and sexiest polewear. She knows that a lot of those women are younger than our twenty-seven year old "baby" daughter. She knows what 7" platforms add to any woman's sexual allure. She knows that a bond forms with people who share common interests and challenges. She knows I love the dance.

It's has been almost four years since I left for my first pole dance lesson and she still lets me go without guilt or strings attached. She lets go with a kiss, and confidence that she is and always will be my soulmate.

That is Love.

Things to Remember: A Year Without Goals

I missed the January pole dancers bloghop. The subject matter was basically what we wanted to get out of the coming year. I never made it to the deadline. I kept thinking about how my year was going to revolve around the Great Midwest Pole Dance Competition and Convention. The word "competition" was causing brain lock. It's not like I hate competing or I run away from it. I remember vividly my last season playing regular winter season ice hockey.

My team had won back to back league championships. I was fifty-one years old. For three months after I skated off the ice with the trophy I would not commit to another season. Why? The answer: I am utterly competitive. I was still playing like it mattered. Beer league hockey doesn't matter. It's just a bunch of guys having fun. But I still wanted to be the best captain and defensemen on the ice. If I could not find the emotion and heart to be that person, I was just going to quit playing and enjoy my Sunday afternoons at home.

Two months before I needed to register our team for another season I knew I wasn't ready to quit but that I was going to have to do more to play the coming season than ever before. Age was taking away my balance, skating speed, and my shot. When I made up my mind that I was going to play I also told myself that this was the end. Win or lose, this was going to be my last season of ice hockey. After that it was endless. I was in the gym three days a week from the end of July to October 1. I beat the living crap out of myself in the gym. I worked with one goal in mind. Win. Win that one last meaningless trophy.

When the season started I was emotionally and physically ready. All season long my team was a machine and we could not have had a better season. The storybook ending came on Easter Sunday 2009. I skated up to the league director, shook his hand and held up the last championship trophy of my hockey life. Three years in a row.

Now the difference between going to Midwest and Beer League ice hockey is huge. On the ice I was a predator. I have had a hockey stick in my hand on and off since I was thirteen. I pretty much skate like I walk, maybe better. In pole I'm technically horrible. I'm a newbie. Three years of pole compared to thirty-nine on skates? I am so far out of my league it's nuts. To succeed in Chicago I have to have a new plan. This can't be brute force like my last hockey season.

This year I have to remember some very important things. The things that led my teacher to believe that I had something special to say with my dance.

1. I need to take advantage of the tools I have. Musicality, Lines, Emotion
2. I need to be humble and honest with myself.
3. I need to dance because I love dancing.
4. I need to express not impress.
5. I must always remember that the body never lies. My dance has to come from the heart because that is my strength. Real people can smell pretentious from a distance.
6. I need to remember that what I do is art. You can't measure it, time it, or count it.
7. I need to live in the moment. All of them. That is what dance is all about. 

So I have no goals. All I have is list of things to remember.

The First Christmas Present of 2012

Dance can be dramatic. The world around dancers can be filled with human drama that is in no way related to what we do in front of an audience. The relationships you develop with your fellow dancers can be fragile. From my own experience I can say that where I am at emotionally comes out in my dance. I express my joys and sorrows in movement.

The best partners can have disagreements, and intentionally or unintentionally hurt each other. Communication is not always easy. Sometimes it just isn't possible to figure out how to start the dialog until someone reaches out.

I hugged my old dance partner last night and we talked for the first time in four months. I'm glad I kept our showcase pictures up in my practice room. It didn't seem right to take them down. Dance lives and dies in the moment. But the steps never leave your heart.

I can't think of a better way to start the Christmas weekend.

The Year in Review 2012 (Bloghop)

This month the Facebook pole dancing bloggers are looking back on the highlights of their year. This post won't be confined to pole dance. It is impossible for me to untangle my experiences as a ballet dancer from pole dance. I am a dancer.

The top moment of my year was the spring showcase rehearsal at my former pole studio. I finally got a chance to live out a moment on stage that had been in my dreams since I made my first plie. I looked up at the end of the "This Bitter Earth" pole dance pas de deux with my partner and saw tears in peoples eyes.  We didn't know what people were going to think about our dance and when we saw their eyes we knew that something magic had happened. My inspiration for bringing the pas de deux from Wheeldon's “Five Movements, Three Repeats,” to pole dance came from watching a rehearsal video of Wendy Whelen and Tyler Angle posted on YouTube.

The next special moments of the year came from watching Ballet Nouveau Colorado dancers Sarah Tallman, Brandon Freeman, Julie King, and Damian Patterson perform pas from the Garrett Ammon ballet "Love in the Digital Age". They made me cry. Twice. My lines come from the dancers and teachers at BNC. I'm blessed.

My wife and I attended opening night of the Vail International Dance Festival 2012. Imagine walking in and seeing NYCB principle dancer Tiler Peck doing her warm up barre on stage! I came for Dove's Red Angels and walked away stunned by the way Tiler and Amar Ramasar performed the final pas from the Robbins ballet In the Night .

In August I pole danced with props for the first time. It was a very different experience. It was also my first experiment with the music of Italian composer Ludivico Einaudi. His music moves me deep inside. Sometimes I hear music and I can see myself in some kind of movement. I could see myself playing ice hockey and I told the story of what it means to be an aging hockey player and a dancer. It was my last dance at my former studio.

Sometimes heartbreaking things happen and from the pain and ashes you become stronger as your comfortable little world collapses around you. The change forged a tighter bond with my teacher, the amazing pole dancer Estee Zakar. I actually freestyle danced for Estee last month after working with her for over a year. Her enthusiasm for my dance style and encouragement has helped change my way of thinking about performing. I am looking forward to the Great Midwest Pole Dance Competition coming next summer in Chicago. I can think of no one better qualified to help me get ready for the trip.

In October I was invited by Sasha Viers to dance in a Halloween pole jam at her Boulder Spirals studio. The women in the studio are awesome and I love dancing with Sasha. Sasha knows ballet. We are talking pas de deux. I can't wait. My new home is at Spirals.

This has also been a great year blogging and being a part of the Studio Veena online pole dance community. You should check it out. It is an amazing place to learn about pole dance and share your experiences.

I'm also very happy to be reconnected and taking class with a good friend at Spirals. It seems that we have followed a similar path. She is a beautiful dancer/instructor and we inspire each other. She was one of the first women to welcome me into the nearly all female world of pole dance. Another lost friend from my dance past and I have reunited and are working on pole pas de deux. I hate that the stigmas associated with this beautiful dance form keep me from mentioning them by name but I want them to know how much their friendship means to me.

My final inspirational moments of 2012 came from watching the CBS News 60 Minutes coverage of the New York City Ballet. Two things Peter Martins said will stay with me. Peter is the guy who runs NYCB. He is Balanchine's successor. When Lesley Stahl quoted Balanchine's mantra, "Ballet is woman", one of the things Peter said was, "He (Balanchine) needed us (men)." When asked if he was hurt by the critical reviews of his collaboration with Sir Paul McCartney Peter didn't flinch. He reminded us that no one knows more about our dance than ourselves. Courage. To hell with the critics. We dance our dances. The critics don't stand in the fire and show anyone what makes THEM tick. Pole dance needs men too. The world of pole dance will get there.

The year 2012 was a year of endings, beginnings, reclamation, and rebirth. It was full of those brief moments of joy that keep dancers dancing.

Stolen from My Facebook Wall.

The next person who says something about bringing back the sexy in pole dance gets this pic stamped on their ass. Nikoai Tsiskaridze working with Galina Ulanova.

 My final thought for the day:

Karol Helms. A Goddess of Pole Dance. From the heart. You can't fake a dance like this.