Why Pole Dancing is a Martial Art
Mastery, Discipline, and the Long Game Shape Both Pole Dancing and Jiu-Jitsu
Pole Dancing as a competitive sport had been gaining more recognition over the past decade, but what does it actually entail? Studios are still few (I estimate between one and three in a major city), but this is certainly more than ever before. What happens in these spaces?
For four months five years ago, I would on three days each week walk forty minutes to either a two hour Brazilian jiu-jitsu class or a two hour pole dancing class, and then walk forty minutes back. I tried making the walk shorter with an electric bike, but the hills were merciless and it did not feel safe riding down the steep slopes.
I do not know what possessed me to do this. It was a dark winter in Seattle when the training consumed me. I do not remember much about what created this draw; I do remember not being particularly overweight and not particularly committed to getting in shape. I do remember wanting to fight and wanting to dance.
This was one of the more meaningful experiences of my life.
In the end, I really liked both.
To me, the similarities between pole dancing and jiu-jitsu are obvious, such that cross-training between them felt sensible and natural.
I realized over time that the similarities are often surprising to people, and people were surprised that I was doing both (in part because the gender compositions are so different for each. BJJ classes have overwhelmingly men, pole has overwhelmingly women, and it would not be very common for a person to want to be in both environments).
People generally have some ideas about what jiu-jitsu entails, and I found that talking about the similarities to pole dancing helps people understand what pole dancing entails and what draws people to it over other types of dancing.
Here are the similarities between pole-dancing and jiu-jitsu.
Both require having control over your momentum. In BJJ, you are using your momentum and your opponent’s to fight. In pole, you are using a vertical steel pole to spin and land in the shapes you want.
Both are practiced in a studio or dojo setting run either by one master, or by one master with apprentices who help.
Teachers generally assume the students will have a training mindset.
Many students train with the same teacher for a long time.
Both involve learning specific poses with specific names that are conventions at any studio you will go to, but there will still be small differences between how different teachers do things.
There is an art to entering a position, and then getting out of that position, and there being only finite methods of getting from one position or pose to another.
Both require respect of the external laws of physics. In pole, you are not going to outsmart the steel pole. It is just there, being itself. In BJJ, you are not going out outsmart the floor, your own forces, or the momentum of your opponent.
It takes a long time, sometimes years to get to the first major benchmark. For jiu-jitsu, it’s the blue belt. For pole dancing, it’s being able to do an invert. There is definitely a slow burn to both sports.
Both require learning to fall. In BJJ, in my first five classes, a brown or black belt student would push me to the ground, and I would have to fall properly, over and over again. We would also do drills every class around getting to the ground and getting back up. In pole dancing, you can get stuck on the pole in a position you aren’t skilled at getting out of, and would have to get yourself down safely.
Both involve a great deal of whole-body athleticism to do well.
Both benefit from having a larger hand size and more grip strength.
Insofar as dancing is a showcasing of a person’s physical prowess, beautiful body, and style, there are many options for both men and women that are less stigmatized than pole dancing. There is hula, aerial arts, belly dancing, ribbons, lyrical, ballroom — all of which have less stigmatized traditions in the U.S. than pole.
And so why choose this particular style, when there are more socially acceptable alternatives for something like “sexy dancing,” and more available studios? If you go somewhere after a class, and someone asks you where you’ve been, there are certainly socially easier explanations for your chosen method to sculpt your body and get a workout.
People like pole dancing because pole dancing has properties that are inherent to pole dancing, in the same way that every dance form has its own properties. A lot of these properties are similar to the properties of jiu-jitsu and similar to what draws people to jiu-jitsu — the commitment to mastering a system of moving your body in a way that is very self-controlled toward a purpose.
It is not surprising to me, knowing both sports, that the original well of inspiration I felt in Seattle that winter led me both.
Over the years when asked about my hobbies, I would hear a lot of comments from people, “Pole dancing actually involves a lot of strength!” as if this is surprising. Why wouldn’t it? You are literally watching a woman hang upside down from a pole by her ankles. I would be confused by what people are looking at.
I now realize that many people may not have actually seen actual pole dancing, and are going off of what they have seen in movies (an actress walking around the pole), or going off stereotypes.
In reality, the women I have seen who take these classes for a long time are not there to learn to be sexy for their boyfriends. They are there for themselves, and for the other women there, and for their girlfriends. They are there to train in a complex system, in which showing up means steady improvement.
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