This shook me to my core when I took my first pole class
I DIDN’T KNOW
WHAT
I had to google it.
That makes WAY MORE SENSE. I thought that people who pole danced magically didn’t have to deal with friction.
Disclaimer: I am a (western) pole instructor and dancer. I am friends with strippers/sex workers in my city who are both trained and not trained in (western) pole dance. One of those friends sold her pole to a club.
Also, when I refer to “(western) pole dance” or “pole dance” I’m am talking about the technique that was created overtime by numerous sex workers in strip clubs. There are other techniques but I am not trained in them.
None of these are reasons for why I am rambling. That is because I am a huge nerd.
NOW HOLD UP HOLD UP!
The OP is both right AND wrong. How? There are different types of poles. Now I’m not talking about what materials they are made of, how large of a diameter, and so forth. What I mean is that there are multiple styles of pole dance based on how the pole is set up. These are the three I know of right now. (And I can dance/teach on the first two!)
1. Static Pole: The most common pole I’ve seen in person and in clubs tends to be what we call a Static Pole. The Static Pole cannot turn or move from its base in any way. Here is a video of a dancer on a static pole:
The pole does not move, but the dancer moves around it. For a spin, the momentum of the dancer’s movement into the spin combined with gravity is enough force for the dancer to “spin around the pole.” You can also think of it as the dancer is gripping hard enough to not fall to the ground, but not so hard that the spin doesn’t move her around the pole. For a lot of first time pole dancers, finding the right balance between gripping too tight and too loose is a challenge.
You can also create faux-spin two ways. The first is shown on the video, as the dancer climbs up the pole, she moves her hands around the pole creating the illusion of a spin. You also can accidentally spin slowly in most static poses involving little or no hand contact when you first try those poses. The reason why being again, the dancer is learning what grip strength they need to hold the position.
This is the most common pole you will see because it is the most intuitive/cheapest set up, because the only forces you build muscle to fight are gravity and whatever momentum you yourself put upon it, and it is the least likely to cause a layman to injure themselves on. (I’m not a huge fan of dance clubs with random poles out).
2. Spin Pole: Now spin pole is probably the type of pole the OP was thinking of in their tweet. This is a pole that you can take out your hand and make it spin in place. Pretty much everything you can do on a static pole you can do on a spin pole but it does require an increase in grip strength.
Now, besides just fighting gravity and your own momentum (which decreases to zero when you hit the floor/stop), you have to also fight the force of the pole spinning on it’s own. This doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that the spin pole never stops spinning on its own (unless it is not a great pole) and that the speed of the spin depends on how close to the pole you are. Far away and expanded = slow spin. Squeezing tight to the pole = fast spin. You can see this demonstrated in the video.
3. Flying Pole: So this pole has very little to do with what the OP is saying, but it is a great demo of how much changes from one pole style to the next. Flying or Hanging Poles are poles that hang from the ceiling:
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 