16/12/2010
End of Year
Classes have finished up now for 2010, and what a rewarding, fun year it was. I would like to say a huge Thank You to everyone who came in to the studio this year and experienced our fitness classes, I loved meeting and teaching you all.
Just last Sunday we had our end of year Christmas party which included some of the girls performing. It takes a lot of courage to get up and perform in front of strangers. I take my hat off to you all, well done ladies! I especially had fun handing out the awards for the year such as Most Improved, Most Dedicated, Most Creative, Most Natural Pole Dancer, Biggest Personal Achievement, The Pocket Rocket and the Most likely To Pursue As A Career (without my authority of course!)
Early next year I am launching a brand new class called ‘Body Beautiful’. I absolutely love this method of training and I know you will too! I am busy working away on the structures of the class, so as soon as it is perfected I will let you in on the 'Body Beautiful' secret.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Casey x
04/11/2010
In bed with Peter Alexander
Peter Alexander says he's never shared a bed with this many random New Zealanders at once.
But today, to promote the his prestige sleepwear brand, the Australian Pajama King hit the mattress on the Skydeck of Auckland's Skytower with four Kiwi celebrities; Casey Green, Jesse Gurunathan, Jo Cotton, and Philipp Spahn, the Cleo Bachelor of the Year.
The Skydeck was decorated as a bedroom with dressing table, rugs and even a chandelier above the bed which Peter playfully swung from for the photo shoot by Chris Sisarich. He was really charismatic in person, and kept the audience chuckling, with his one liners; "This would be useful in real life- a list of names of who's in your bed. So you can remember their names in the morning!" he said, looking at the names list on the bed.
21/05/2010
Men take on pole dancing for their own good
Miami Beach, Florida -- The moves to pole dance require a lot of strength. For years it has caught on as a kind of exercise for women, but now the men are doing it too. Guys are taking the leap of faith and turning to pole dancing for exercise at Crunch Fitness on South Beach.
"Just because you lift weights and do cardio doesn't mean you don't have other muscles you can use," said Steven Schmidt, before taking his first pole dancing class.
After a few classes, the guys are starting to catch on, even though they still have their pit falls.
"It turned out to be harder. I was sore, my arms and my legs," said Luis Vivas.
The women make it look easy and sexy, but it is quite the work out."The pole takes a ton of core strength and upper body strength. It also takes leg strength because you are gripping the poles with you legs and your arms," said Roya Siroospour, Fitness Director at Crunch, a workout facility that always tries to combine exercise with entertainment.
And in Bondi Junction, Sydney -- ASK any red-blooded male if they've ever considered pole dancing for fitness and they're likely to laugh it off as a joke.
We've all heard that pole dancing has become more mainstream in recent years, with some even calling for it to be included in the Olympics. But surely there's no such thing as men's pole dancing?
"It is a little unusual," said Michelle, 28, who co-owns the Pole Dance Academy in Bondi Junction with her sister Maddie.
"When I tell people that we run boys' pole dancing classes they say ‘no way' because they picture it as boys doing what girls do when they pole dance. But it's more of a circus and acrobatics-style class than dancing."
So no oversized stilettos or feathers required?
"No! With the boys it's about learning the moves that require the most strength, like the flag and climbing the pole," Michelle said.
"It's actually really difficult to do those moves, so it's mainly guys who are interested in improving their upper body and core strength that get involved."
The Pole Dance Academy's "stunt boys" class is popular among professional stuntmen, who say it gives them an extra skill that's handy in their line of work.
29/04/2010
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17/04/2010
Cambridge University Union Society offers pole dancing lessons for female students to relieve stress
Newest way to beat stress at high-pressure Cambridge University? Pole dancing lessons.
For the first time, Cambridge students in the throes of rigorous final exams will be offered the saucy, sensual sessions, according to the Cambridge Union Society as reported in the Daily Telegraph. No previous experience is necessary, and the "pole-fitness" sessions are advertised for women only.
The Union, a student society at Cambridge, already features weekly Pilates and yoga classes.
Juan de Francisco, who arranged the classes, said they could be controversial but were meant as "harmless fun."
"The classes are for fitness and well being and are not intended to be sexual," he told the Daily Telegraph. "High heels are actually discouraged – the instructor has told me that attendees should wear trainers or go barefoot."
Pole dancing may be an effective strategy for those hoping to reduce their stress levels, says Debbie Mandel, author of "Addicted to Stress."
"Pole dancing is a form of uninhibited self-expression which releases suppressed emotions the way belly dancing has done for over 5,000 years," she says.
"When you get good at pole dancing, you feel accomplished and more empowered. And when there is novelty with exercise, the positive effect is even more powerful for the mind and body."
The strip club mainstay, which combines sensual moves with rigorous athletics, may one day be headed to the Olympics. A group of pole dance advocates headed by KT Coates, a prominent pole dancer in England, is hoping for a "test" pole dancing event at the 2012 Olympics, according to the Associated Press.
"After a great deal of feedback from the pole-dance community, many of us have decided that it's about time pole fitness is recognized as a competitive sport, and what better way for recognition than to be part of the 2012 Olympics held in London," Coates said in a petition for the organizers of the London Olympics, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. Pole Dance Federation co-founder Wendy Traskos noted that the idea of pole dancers competing for medals at the Olympics isn't as farfetched as it once was.
"Now, when you talk about (pole dancing) you don't hear 'like a stripper' anymore," Traskos said. "You hear things like, 'Oh, my friend takes classes for fitness' or 'Yes, I've seen it on 'Oprah.' "
13/04/2010
GIMME A: Fumie Takino, a 78-year-old cheerleader, practices cheerleading with other members of a seniors' cheerleading group called "Japan Pom Pom" in Tokyo.
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Japan may have little to celebrate with its economic recovery still fragile, so some cheerleaders are hitting the streets and stages to pep up the mood - including one pom-pom squad whose average age is 66.
On a recent Saturday, some 20 members of elderly cheer-leading club Japan Pom Pom performed at a competition near Tokyo, waving gold pom-poms and dancing to the rhythm in shiny red costumes adored with sequins and wearing bobbed silver wigs.
"I started cheer-leading when I was 63 and I think I can dance much better and have made some improvements. Anybody can improve even if you are old," Fumie Takino, the 78-year-old leader and founder of the club, told Reuters.
The club, whose members' ages average 66 and add up to 1,520 years, practices two hours a week and often performs at children's hospitals as well as nursing homes.
Takino said that their main goal is to have fun.
"There is a lot of depressing news and the economy is bad. I must say, I can only do little to overcome this problem, but I hope we can provide energy and encourage people by showing how we senior cheerleaders are simply enjoying ourselves," she said.
The group's enthusiasm appears to be contagious.
In Tokyo's bustling business district of Shinjuku, Aya Saito, 33, has been dancing on a street every morning to the 1980s pop song Mickey for seven months as commuters rush by to work.
"Are you guys enjoying your job? Let's do our best today, too!" Saito called out on a recent week day, her long ponytail shaking as she hopped. Some took out their mobile phones to shoot photos while an old woman watched in amazement.
Saito said she started her daily dance routine last August after wondering how she could tell other employees to avoid making the same mistake that she did in her previous job, and which led her to quit - bottling up her frustration.
Her solution? She taught herself cheerleading by watching YouTube clips and hit the street in a $40 red, sleeveless cheerleading costume, purchased at a party goods store.
"One guy said he was going to quit his job but decided to stay after watching me dance here. That kind of thing makes me feel that my cheerleading is worthwhile," said Saito, now a freelance PR agent when she is not dancing.
Most commuters just walk by but some find it an inspiration.
"There's not that much benefit in cheering other people but it's amazing that she has still continued this every day," said Masaki Tsuchiya, 47, who stopped to watch before heading to work.
The government upgraded its view on the economy for the first time in eight months in March, but deflation is still a risk in ageing Japan, which expects over a quarter of its citizens to be aged over 65 by 2015.
29/03/2010
Pole Dancing at the Olympics?
TOKYO -- For Japan's Mai Sato, watching all those gold medals being handed out in Vancouver is a bittersweet experience.
Sato knows the demands of being the best. In her world, blisters are the rule, bruises a way of life. And the training -- five hours a day, five days a week.
The world champion in her sport, Sato is as athletic, dedicated and competitive as the Olympians representing their nations. And she thinks it's high time her discipline, too, got some real recognition.
Still, pole dancing? In the Olympics?
Absolutely, say thousands of pole dancers and the rapidly growing number of international and national federations transforming what was once the exclusive property of strip clubs and cheap bars into a respectable -- and highly athletic -- event.
"I could definitely see pole dancing in the Olympics," said Sato, who, a dancer since the age of three, out-twirled a bevy of athletes from 11 countries at the second International Pole Dancing Fitness Championships in Tokyo two months ago. "I would love to win a gold medal."
It's admittedly a high bar.
Established sports such as squash and cricket have failed to make the Olympic cut, baseball and softball were recently given the ax, and the International Olympic Committee's decision to end its support of nonofficial, demonstration sports after the Summer Games in 1992 has made gaining a foothold, the way judo and taekwondo did, all that much harder.
Plus, pole dancing needs to first gain IOC recognition as a sport -- an uphill battle if ever there was one.
No matter, pole dance enthusiasts say.
Hong Kong-based Ania Przeplasko, the founder of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association, the sport's fledgling supervisory body, believes Olympic recognition is only a matter of time and would be a victory for underappreciated sports worldwide.
"There will be a day when the Olympics see pole dancing as a sport," she said. "The Olympic community needs to acknowledge the number of people doing pole fitness now. We're shooting for 2012."
That's pretty ambitious.
It's already too late for any new sports to be added to the London Games. But the IOC decision to end its support of exhibition sports after Barcelona has not completely closed the door on Olympic hopefuls looking for a way to showcase their skills -- Beijing did it with the martial art wushu.
Pole dance advocates note that more unlikely sports have gotten the IOC's nod.
Tug of war, for example, was one of the early Olympic medal contests. Equestrian events are in the Olympics, but who owns a horse? Curling, which virtually no one pays any attention to in non-Olympic years, has become one of the Winter Games' biggest darlings. Though they are not in the games, the IOC recognizes such obscure sporting endeavors as boules, powerboating, bandy and floorball.
KT Coates, a leading pole dancer in Britain and director of Vertical Dance, is leading the effort to make pole dancing a "test" event in 2012 and foresees a more formal pitch in 2016, when the Olympics go to Rio de Jeneiro.
"After a great deal of feedback from the pole dance community, many of us have decided that it's about time pole fitness is recognized as a competitive sport, and what better way for recognition than to be part of the 2012 Olympics held in London," Coates wrote in a petition she is readying for the London organizers.
"It has the wow factor," she told The Associated Press in an e-mail.
So far, the petition has about 4,000 signatures. Coates is shooting for 5,000.
Iina Laatikainen, one of Finland's top pole teachers, likens pole dancing to skateboarding and snowboarding, two sports that have gotten serious mainstream attention without completely abandoning their rebellious roots.
"I think getting in the Olympics would be great for the sport," she said. "I actually see a lot of similarities in what pole dancing is now for women with what skateboarding used to be for men back in the day. Pole dancing is definitely on its way to becoming a mainstream sport."
But some pole dancers worry the sensual side of pole dancing, and its counterculture undertones, would be destroyed in an effort to clean it up for the Olympics. After all, would it really be the same without stilettos, a boozy audience and a red-tinted spotlight? And how do you score for sexiness?
Others fear old-school pole dancers would be eaten alive by gymnasts, who could easily make the conversion from other apparatuses, circus performers or Chinese acrobats, who have a long tradition of performing aerial tricks.
"I don't need to see pole dancing in the Olympics," said Wendy Traskos, co-founder of the U.S. Pole Dance Federation, which will be hosting its annual U.S. championships next month. "I don't think this is necessarily the path that we need to take, as a sport."
Traskos, a former competitive gymnast who lives in New York, believes pole dancing needs to do more groundwork before it shoots for the Olympics. In particular, scoring for competitions needs to be standardized, she said, adding that the names of the techniques vary among different clubs in different regions.
"I feel there are many small, tiny, steps that need to be taken before this sport, or any sport, can get into the Olympics," she said. "We are on, like, tiny step 10 of 1,000."
Nevertheless, she said pole dancers on the medal podium is not as wild a dream as it might have seemed just five years ago.
"Now, when you talk about it you don't hear 'like a stripper' anymore," she said. "You hear things like, 'Oh, my friend takes classes for fitness' or 'Yes, I've seen it on Oprah."
