Adventure #14- "Your pole is dreamy!!!"

This, our 14th adventure, will be long remembered for many reasons.  For starters, it was planned by our newest member, Seabrin, who jumped right in and took the reigns on this one way back in January.  She impressed us all on the night of her induction to the club, when she announced that she already had an idea and was wanting to plan an adventure as soon as possible.  She wanted to keep it a secret, but after a few too many clues, we all had it figured out... we'll get to that in a few.

This adventure will also be remembered as "The Adventure That Almost Wasn't."  With Snowmageddon III approaching the KC metro on the day of our planned activity, the early afternoon hours were filled with frantic phone calls and doppler maps.  Despite our uncertainty about the severity of the storm, and varying levels of snow anxiety amongst the Femmes, we decided to proceed.  In the end, the snow caused us little concern, but made me realize how lucky we have been to never have encountered inclement weather during any of our outdoor adventures.  I think Mother Nature is a FF fan.

So, back to the adventure itself... Seabrin's clues were that our Fearless Femmes shirts would be appropriate attire, pregnancy was not a dis-qualifier, and it would be more fun after a few drinks.  We all quickly guessed that it was pole dancing, and it turns out we were right!  (I think it's the implied loss of inhibition that drinking provides, that gave it away)  :)  Oh, and why do we care that you can do this activity while pregnant?  Because Meghan's pregnant!!!  While we've all known for a few months, I realized I have not yet acknowledged this fact on the blog.  Meghan will be welcoming a baby boy, named Landon, into the world in mid-July!  We are all so happy for her and impressed that she is still joining us for the adventures she is allowed to participate in.

Who said pregnancy isn't sexy?

After following Seabrin's advice and having those recommended drinks, we found ourselves at Pole Worx in KC's West Bottoms district.  We walked into our reserved private studio... a room with graffiti on the walls,  nine strategically placed metal poles, pink floors and a plush couch.  There was a stereo with a sign that read "Do Not Touch," on top of which Jessi spotted a box of bandaids and a can of Lysol... #poledancingnecessities

Our instructor, a petite, yet solid, red-head came in and began our one hour class.  First, stretching....

Next, the fundamentals: 1) Keep your hand high on the pole.  2) Count your steps around the pole.  All moves start with either two or three steps around the pole before moving into the trick.  3) Hook your ankles around the pole, not your whole body.  4) Drop your hip and let your body follow.  Do not jump.  5) There's NO jumping in pole dancing.  6) It hurts.  You will be bruised.  It's just part of it.

I'd love to know what Alli's thinking right about now

While our instructor was quite good at spinning around the pole, something was just a little off.  She failed to enamor us as some of our past instructors have.  It might have been the snow boots she was wearing.  Or maybe the fact that she was recovering from "three hernia repairs" #tmi.  Looking back, it's possible she could have been popping pain pills... due to said surgery, of course.  Or it could have been her unconventional words of encouragement... "You don't suck... bad."  Anyway, she taught us about five or six different spins.  I can't remember all of the names, but they included "The Fireman" and "Martini."

Seabrin swingin'

Destiny dancin'

Meagan and Meghan workin' it

Lisa and Jessi spinnin'

Alli sittin' :)

Although Alli had the hardest time staying in the air, and off the ground, during the first part of our lesson, she excelled at the floor routine....

As did Seabrin....

Our final mission was to hang upside down on the pole.  This required us to kick our legs up over our heads and throw ourselves backwards, in hopes of our legs catching the pole and thereby saving us from slamming onto the ground.  We already learned at last month's trapeze adventure that kicking our legs over our heads is not our strong suit, and this time there was no cushion below us to break our fall.  For these reasons combined, the group as a whole was minimally successful at completing this task.  I tried three times, but couldn't shake the mental image of my fragile skull hitting the hard floor, so I conceded.  Seabrin tried approximately 47 times and got thissssssss close, but couldn't seal the deal.  Meghan knew Landon wasn't interested in hanging upside down, so she sat this one out.  Lisa and Alli were also unsuccessful, but two of our Femmes were both fearless and flexible enough to make it rain!!!

Jessi schoolin' us all

Meagan makin' it look easy

It's like a flipbook, I love it

At the completion of our one hour class, we had an additional hour of studio time on our own for shenanigans and photo ops to master our new talents.  Take a look....

 ....don't worry, none of us plan to quit our day jobs.

So, what did we learn from this adventure?
1) Strippin' ain't easy
2) A triple hernia repair excludes you from being able to climb the pole
3) Pregnancy however, does not
4) If any one of us ever had to "dance" for a living... we would probably starve
5) There is a profound difference between "popping," "clapping," and "twerking" your booty
6) Don't confuse the difference
7) The right music is vital to successful pole dancing
8) Beauty and ideal body weight are not
9) It's good to be able to laugh at yourself
10) Our club is AWESOME!!!! But technically, we already knew that

Meghan

Jessi

Meagan

Destiny

Alli

Seabrin

Lisa

Amy was there too, as our cheerleader and photographer

We'll give her two photos so she doesn't feel left out... 

Still wearing her splint, we are hoping she will be able  to rejoin us soon!

 

Adventure #13- "Who's surprised that none of us can do the splits? No one?"

"She floats through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young girl on the flying trapeze.  Her movements are graceful, all the boys she does please.  She has stolen my true love away."

Those are the lyrics to a song I sang along with my classmates during our Kindergarden Circus back in the spring of 1988.  I remember being jealous of my friend who got to wear a cute, pink leotard and swing back and forth, hanging from her knees.  I wore gray sweats and a paper grocery bag on my head that vaguely resembled a hippo's face.  My song was also less flattering... "The fat, fat, hippopotamus, opens up his jaws.  He has the largest, widest mouth I ev-ver saw."  No emotional scarring there at all....

Anyway, back to the present day, and thanks to Meagan's awesome adventure planning, I finally got my turn as the girl on the trapeze.... minus the pink leotard.

For this adventure we headed to Quixotic Performing Arts Center in Midtown, Kansas City.  From the street, you could never imagine what all goes on beyond the small, unassuming storefront.  We walked in to a small lobby area that overlooked a spacious, lofty studio with various ropes, silks and metal apparatuses hanging from the ceiling.  After signing our liability waivers and removing our shoes, we made our way onto the studio floor and began our "Beginner Trapeze" class with a rather rigorous stretching regimen.  Naively, the difficulty and discomfort I had with the warm-up, gave me little concern for the intensity of what we were about to partake in.  Our instructor, Jenny, explained that we would be sharing the studio space with an "Intermediate Silks" class (look for glimpses of them in the background of our photos), and that we would be working on static and dance trapezes (not quite the same as my Kindergarten dream, but equally impressive).


After stretching, the two classes seperated to different sides of the studio, and we received a basic introduction to proper body mechanics, hand grips and muscles involved in the art of trapeze.  In the photos below, Jenny asked us to imagine we are holding a beachball while squeezing oranges under our arms.  The point was for us to feel our back and shoulder muscles engage so that we recognized these as the proper muscles to use, rather than our biceps.

Jenny then went on to demonstrate for us the proper way to mount and dismount the trapeze bar; this would be our first task.  As we got to work we were all surprised by the difficulty we had, and slightly embarrassed by our lack of upper-body strength.  However, with the assistance of our "spotters," who ended up being more like "lifters," we all succeeded!

After we were all deemed aficionadas at getting on and off the trapeze bar, we were able to move on to learning different tricks.  After Jenny showed us the trick (first fast and fluid, and then with step-by-step instructions) we were released to try it ourselves.  

After working out the kinks.... pinched fingers, hand placements, weight distribution, and the fear of letting go.... we were all able to successfully complete each of the three tricks Jenny had us work on (even though we are missing photo proof of a few).

*In the following photo collages, please notice Jenny in the top left photo displaying what the trick is supposed to look like, followed by the Femmes' versions of the same trick. 

Then came the final trick that Jenny had in mind for us.  She said, "Now we're going to hang by our necks."  Excuse me???  We all attempted, but Seabrin was the only one who was  able to support her entire body weight with her arms, which is what the trick required.  Again, we didn't get a pic of Seabrin's success, but you can see her working on it, along with some of the Femmes' failed attempts below.

By this point, we were all pretty tired, sore and hungry, so we spent the last 20 minutes of class "playing" on the dance trapeze.

Then we enlisted Jenny in one of our infamous group photos.

Look!  There's Amy!  Curious why she didn't participate?  Well...

 ...she's recovering from a broken hand injury!  Still a good sport, who didn't want to miss out on Adventure Club, Amy came to laugh at us encourage and support us.  Wishing you a quick recovery Amy!

While there was plenty of awkwardness, discomfort and hesitation along the way, in the end our trapeze adventure was a HUGE success!  It was both physically and mentally challenging, probably more than any of us expected, but still so much fun.  I believe this ranks amongst our top adventures because we were all equally successful, no one had any obvious dislike for what we were doing, and it was just such a good time!  Just look at these smiles.

 

 *Not pictured are the multitude of bruises from our hips to our knees that we all developed over the days following our adventure.