How do I stick to thee, dearly beloved?

Here are some of my personal tips and tricks for sticking to my dearly beloved chrome pole (may not apply to everyone as I will point out further down):

 

Wherefore art thou so cold and hostile, dearly beloved?

Why won’t you hold me as tightly as I hold you?

Why do you push me away when all I do is try to get closer?

 

“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…”

Yup, in the winter months my pole is so cold it makes me gasp to touch it. And I live in Marseille, where the temperature hardly ever goes below 5°C. What on earth must it feel like in the UK or Canada or Norway?! What I’ve learnt (with quite a bit of research) is that the heater in my pole garage is not just to keep the air warm… it goes right next to my dearly beloved to warm it up nicely, then I warm myself up nicely to the sound of Grace Potter & the Nocturnals ‘The Lion The Beast The Beat’, covered in leggings and sweaters and leg warmers and gloves (I’m always cold) until eventually… warmth is created and my skin doesn’t retract in fear from the touch of the icy chrome. And I can strip off some layers 😉

 

Dry Hands not Dry Legs.

This is one thing that no one in the pole community perfectly or clearly spelt out to me (or maybe I just never really understood, I do live in France): the difference between the hand grip and the ‘rest of your body’ grip. And the difference between dry skin people and moist skin people. Dry Hands is a great, really great product for my hands. It works by repelling any moisture from the hands so you don’t slip. Very safe.  Makes a horrible sound if trying to spin on static (and doesn’t feel v pleasant)! Anyway, I don’t have very sweaty hands but I use it anyway, partly because I actually bought it for the first time thinking I would put it on my legs too so that I could have better grip on the pole for moves like ‘skater’, which was driving me nuts.

It didn’t really work for my body… Dry Hands for my hands, fine. But what about my knees and thighs and ankles and sides?

After nearly a year of poling and reading pole blogs, facebook updates, etc, etc, I understood that I have dry skin  on my body and so to stick to the pole I need to have moist body skin. So I invested in some ‘Dew Point Pole’. (I think it was Aerial Amy’s bloody brilliant blog that helped me discover it… she wrote about how different environments and conditions needed different grip aids, v interesting, see her blog entry here).

This stuff has made me oh so happy. I sprayed it on my legs and jumped into the prettiest ‘skater’ I have ever done. Just like that. Easy peasy. It’s a moisturiser, too. So now I don’t have to jump straight into the shower immediately after pole dancing just to soap off all the dry Dry Hands chalky stuff from my poor dry thighs.

 

What else? Vodka!

This was tip number one from my pole dance teacher France Grieco (anyone coming to the south of France fancying a pole class she is the best!!! See the studio here: Marseille Pole Dance Academy). She told me about it just before I bought my own pole, so I raided the drinks cabinet and found a half bottle which now lives in the pole garage. Not to be drunk!! Nope, I use it to clean the pole after it gets gunked up on Dry Hands and hair conditioner and leftover body moisturiser or whatever else ends up on the pole to make it all dirty and sweaty and gross. A good wipe down with vodka and yes, nice clean easy-to-hold pole. And I will always enjoy the sexy climb with the vodka soaked rag stuck in my shorties to clean it from top to bottom at the beginning and end of my pole dancing sessions 😉

 

 

Disclaimer: None of the products I mention are asking me or paying me to say these things about them. This is my personal review and advice blog. Nothing more. I don’t get any freebies from anyone 😦