An Anonymous Account of Personal Triumph

There comes a time when every woman finds herself in a rut - socially, physically, mentally, and sexually. If we are lucky, these challenges don't present themselves concurrently; most often we deal with one or two of them by making little tweaks in our personal lives and move on. There are a few of us though, who through life's twists and turns, get the whole package thrown at us at once, as if attacked by a parasitic infestation on the body, mind and soul of our personal being.

Exhausted from the daily energy I was expending to fight the demons that taxed my will, my self-confidence and my dwindling sensuality, I almost laughed when I found myself considering going to check out this new exercise phenomenon I was hearing about on the radio, "pole fitness". Me, really - what was I thinking - had I gone mad? I was divorced, with children, a victim of a nasty sexual assault that I had never fully dealt with and whose haunting memories and foul smells snaked their way into more of my everyday life than I cared to admit.

It took every ounce of courage I could muster to come to the determination that this new exercise environment could be a life-changer for me. I found myself craving the companionship of female friends, something I never really had been successful at previously, nor felt the need to pursue. I thirsted for my own personal acceptance and a secret place to escape to find my artistic soul that I felt I'd pushed into hiding far too long. I knew I had the physical strength to start the program; it was the emotional strength I questioned.

The day I walked into the studio to sign up for classes, I was so nervous. I, like many women my age, knew (not suspected, not assumed, knew) that everyone would be a perfect size 2 co-ed (imagine my surprise when I was wrong and everybody was just like me!). But I needed this, I needed to re-claim me. I was tired of never measuring up to my own impossible standards of perfection; I needed to give myself a gift - at the time I didn't realize how exhilarating and wonderfully great that gift would become. So, I sucked it up, I showed up for class and found myself in the welcoming arms of the instructors and the surprisingly supportive and generous peers in my classes.

After that first taste, that first beautifully executed pole spin, my first invert, my first shoulder lift, it was all over - I was hooked. It was intoxicating, it was freedom packaged up in a pretty pink and black zebra package. This was just for me, it was mine to cherish. At first, I was selfish; I needed to keep this new found prize to myself. I needed to have the time to take in the beauty of the art; enjoy the transformation of muscles that were previously defined, but now becoming quickly sculpted into roadmaps of strength and vitality. I needed to enjoy the fact that, for the first time in my life, I wasn't weighing myself every 4 hours and cursing the fluctuations in my weight. I wasn't faking self-confidence when the need arose, it was real, it was true and it was deep.

Slowly the issues of the past just seemed to melt away and I became the biggest supporter of the pole program you'll find anywhere. Every person has their own experience, their own needs and their own fears to conquer. Pole fitness won't solve all your problems, but, even for just an hour in a day, if it puts a smile on your face, laughter in your heart, strength in your mind and body, and hope in your dreams it's worth it.