Down the rabbit hole and up the pole

I am on our local neighbourhood committee (lots of fun! Everyone join your local neighbourhod committee! We are apparently the most deprived ward in East Anglia!), and when it was mentioned by the man who runs the local community centre that they were running pole dancing classes, then my ears pricked up. Because, readers, I have been wanting to try pole dancing for the longest time, and I had googled previously but was put off by the amount of money you had to pay for a course. This one is much more affordable (in line with yoga), I could pay per class, and also the community centre is literally five minutes from my house. So I could be on the sofa in my trackies with a cup of tea and Judge Judy at 6:50pm and with my thighs wrapped round a pole at 7pm if I wanted to. I could not resist. So I am now learning pole dancing and it is huge amounts of fun, I am very glad I started, and so I would like to tell you about it in case you would like to try it too.

Also it is socially less awkward than yoga (not in general, only for me), because with yoga I only like one particular kind and (unbelievably!) partner’s ex is one of the major teachers of this particular kind in Cambridge and is apparently besties with the Guru in India who invented it (I swear I did not know this). So I am restricted, as I am nervous of bumping into her as she does not like me (she once said to me, ‘and did they have whippets and flat caps in that little northern house you grew up in, Susie?’) and I am not dealing with that kind of thing while I am doing a down dog. So, pole dancing it is for the moment, or at least until my nice yoga teacher returns from maternity leave. Here are some questions people have asked me:

1/ What do you do in classes?
Well, I have only had two lessons so I am no expert ;-). I thought we would spend the first month perhaps leaning against the pole a bit or walking round it in a strutting fashion, but no, we were straight up it and spinning round. Basically you do different types of spins, you climb the pole in various ways, grip it between your legs, and dangle off it, and you do a bit of dance around it and on the floor to make up a routine to music. Excitingly, you can have your pole set either to static or spin, so when it is static it is like swinging round a lamppost (for example), and when it is on spin it spins with you and you really get some speed up. This was a shock to me at first but my eyes have uncrossed now and I am better.

2/ Is it difficult?
Yes, it is. If you have a background in gym or dance then I suspect it’s easier (I don’t! – So don’t let that put you off!) but the first lesson is a real killer. You end up covered with bruises all the way down the insides of your thighs. After my first time as well, my arms were so painful I could hardly change gear on the car and I could not – too much information alert – pull my pants up (it’s ok, Partner did all the jokes). My muscles didn’t work. I had to wriggle into my pants in a hula-hooping motion. So, for your first time, don’t schedule any pant action that might be witnessed for the day after, and don’t try to wear skinny jeans. And don’t plan any journeys where you’re going to have to change gear a lot. I mean, the A10 might be alright (straight 50mph behind a tractor until you hit Hunstanton) but no city centres. Second gear made me whimper.

3/ What do you wear?
Well, I wondered whether I should email the teacher before I started about what to wear but I thought, no, then she will think I think I need nipple pasties or something and have got the wrong end of the stick, so I didn’t. Then she sent me an information sheet which said, you will have to wear shorts as you need to be able to grip the pole with the flesh on your thighs and I thought, Christ no, so I wore trackie bottoms, but she was absolutely right (I slid down). Also, you need bare feet and just any kind of tshirt on top – the room I learn in is hot so I wear a vest. So, if you are starting pole dancing, here is what you can do: if you go into Sweaty Betty, they have some tightish shorts which are an adjustable length. They are hugely expensive but how many more pairs of shorts are you ever going to buy? And (says she delicately), you may need to explore bikini line options (for the first time in many years I find myself eyeing up Immac), because, you are not static, you open your legs wide and fling them about and your shorts ride up high, and there are some feminist statements I am not quite up to making. Which brings me to:

4/ How can you, as a feminist, do this. (This was partner’s question).
This is a difficult one. Me and third wave feminism – we have our problems. We are not perfect together. Intellectually I am not necessarily on the reclaiming-stuff-associated-with-sex-work-is-liberating page, I am not. And I want you to make no mistake here: pole fitness is a misnomer. Pole fitness is pole dancing. You are dancing. You wiggle your bottom. You slide down the pole. You thrust your groin forward. Its origins are, shall we say, evident to me. However (and I accept I might be alone on this one), I have sometimes done things in accord with the finest second wave feminist theory and expected to feel liberated. And I have not felt liberated, I have felt a bit crap. So, now I do not engage too much with theory and I just try to be feminist on an individual level: I try to support women. And I can guarantee you that if you try pole dancing, these are the first two thoughts that will come into your head:

1/ God! This is really hard, oh, ok, is this it perhaps, whheeeeeeeee, oh, my arms ache. God!
2/ God! And I thought strippers were just dangling off a pole with no clothes on and it was really easy and I felt a bit sorry for them. Actually what they are is incredibly skilled professionals and now I feel a bit daft.

So basically I think you are doing something which will make you feel a huge amount of professional respect for a group of women who you might not have thought of primarily in that context before. I get why pole dancing is problematic, I do: but as the saying goes, I think, if this is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

So there we are, that is pole dancing in a nutshell, and I encourage anyone to try it. Just make sure you get some really short shorts (you really do need to grip with flesh) and don’t worry about the fat on your thighs because no-one else can see it. Perhaps wear those shorts to the Co-op first, get used to them a bit? I’ll be the one in the nipple pasty aisle, rethinking all my earlier stereotypes. I’ll see you there. You bring the biscuits x

Season of mists, mellow fruitfulness, and me on a Herbalism Walk

I am contemplating a Giant Autumn Chutney Production Session. My last Giant Autumn Chutney Production Session was the year before last and took a week. It only ended when the smell of vinegar finally broke Partner and he begged me to stop (big wussy). I ended up with a mountain of chutney and gave it to people for Christmas, I thought we would be eating chutney until 2015, but actually it was quite delicious, so the jars we kept got eaten very quickly. Also it is quite cheap to do if your mother has been saving jam jars for you (as has mine) and if you get all your plums/ apples either from the market or from people with trees. Hmm. I feel a preserving session coming on, off to dig out my recipes. (In case you feel one coming on too, FYI you don’t need a brain to make chutney, it isn’t like marmalade where you have to test for a setting point, so you can put it on and wander off). In the meantime, and on the subject of Using Autumn Plants, this morning I dragged myself out of bed and went on a hedgerow herbalism walk with Of People And Plants in Milton Country Park.

Making good use of the things that we find (elderberries), things that the everyday folks leave behind, la la wombling free

And do you know, I had a really good time. Latterly I have become better at dealing with the whole plant issue, i.e. I can recognise some of them (well, you know, I can tell a daffodil from a cactus) and I am starting to have some kind of a vague awareness of seasonality, but my knowledge is tiny and I am always happy to expand it. So this was a walk where we had a bit of a nose round Milton Country Park to see what was around and what its properties might be.

We found burdock (I didn’t even think burdock was a real plant!), comfrey, hawthorn, birch, elderberries, rosehips, and something else I have forgotten the name of which I was not to eat despite it looking rather attractive. Vanessa and Jude who were running the walk had brought tinctures and syrups and teas, made up from plants they had picked, for us to try. I stood sniffing my hawthorn tincture thoughtfully until she told us it would re-balance our emotions and protect our hearts, and readers, last week was a bit of a week, so I snarfed it straight down. I cannot tell you if it has helped, because there was a lot of brandy in it, and that certainly did. So much so that I had to refuse further tinctures as I cannot drink in the morning due to being a big girl’s blouse and a lightweight. I did, however, have some elderberry syrup,

It even looks good for you, doesn't it?

And it was really delicious. Unfortunately I think elderberries are on their way out now, but I took home with me a recipe for how to make it and next year I will be ready to pounce. What an amazing tree the elderflower is, isn’t it? Elderflower cordial, elderflower champagne, elderflower fritters, and now elderberry cordial. Apparently it is excellent for colds and as a general winter tonic, as is rosehip syrup.

Making tinctures seems to be very easy: you cover your plant with brandy, leave it for ages, and shake it occasionally, just like sloe gin. Another walk-goer and I were talking about sloe gin, and she told me about a place in Cambridge called Wandlebury which has lots of whatever tree it is that sloes grow on, so I am going to go and have a look. I am encouraged that I could remember the name Wandlebury because this was post-tincture.

This is a willow, which is apparently the best kind of tree to hug if you are feeling a bit depressed. Or - have a tincture!

Anyway, if you are around in Cambridge there is another walk sometime in the winter and they are really interesting so it’s worth going. I am going to have a look now into making tinctures and syrups and things because I like the idea of having a cupboard filled with scary-looking bottles and whipping them out whenever a pick-me-up is needed, while my loved ones cry, no! Please let me just have an aspirin!

On a different subject altogether, dangerously buoyed by my ability to a/ attend regular yoga classes and be able to execute down dog without falling on my nose b/ fit into my thin jeans again HA!, I thought I might have a go at an exercise class (bonus knitting reference around 3.35). In fact I thought I might give Zumba a try tomorrow. I’m really unco-ordinated and I don’t do lycra. This is either a brave new move or me setting myself up for the worst evening of my life so if you think it isn’t a good idea, please could you stop me in time!

(Since I linked a Victoria Wood scene, obligatory Let's Do It! link. Do you know what I thought while I was listening? I thought, I wish I had a vinyl flooring catalogue. Seriously, I did. I need a few more tinctures, I do).