Exotic Dancing is obviously the first thing you think about when you hear the words "Pole Dancing".
But did you know the pole dance was originally developed as a circus act long before 12 AD? It was originally called the "Chinese Pole", and involved precise acrobatics and masterful balance.
Often taking girls years to come close to even involving the pole in their routine, and usually involving men.
Reminiscent of martial arts, some of the positions involve grace one has to practice long to master.
Since most acts require more than one participant, you can see how the Chinese pole is a drastically different routine than what modern exotic dancers perform.
While a modern exotic dancer might have little to no training, they rely for the most part on looks.
The latter is not true of the original art form, where the success of your routine relies solely on your skill as an aerialist.
The old form usually contained a pole about 3-6 meters in length, to which a team of acrobats create flawless patterns in the air centered around the main pole.
Some routines made effective impressions by locking the team in what looked like an impossible pose held together only by the center of gravity present in the pole.
It really is one of the historical mysteries of how this perilous form of art became centered around exotic dancing.
But the rumor goes that traveling fairs in the southern United States that catered specifically to miners and laborers would set up camp for a week at a time outside of different towns.
The camp would consist of a few tents with different attractions to try and squeeze the last pennies from a poor worker, one such attraction was a small tent usually on the outside of the fair with dancing women inside.
A makeshift stage would be set up, and the women would dance and make up their own routines centered around the tent pole in the center of the structure while dirty poor men shouted cat calls in a historic fashion.
Seems about right, so it turns out the modern exotic form of pole dancing actually has little to nothing to do with the ancient circus act.
Shocking, but at least the past 15 years have been good to the original culture, as there seems to be a slow revival of the old form of the act and its actually turning into a mix of Solo Pole performance melded with today's most popular dances.
Pretty post modern right? The National Pole Dancing Federation has had no problem with this new revival either, as it seems more women than ever are being turned on by the idea of learning something sexy while quickly getting fit! But to this day, the old Chinese Pole Dance is still widely performed by master acrobats and aerialists, and competitions can be found the world over to see who can develop the more complicated and illusory routine.
So next time the idea of learning this timeless form of dance crosses your mind, imagine yourself hanging ten feet in the air holding onto a pole with your bare feet while an audience cheers you on, on second thought maybe you can just learn the normal way..
So make sure to check out Las Vegas' number 1 how-to on pole dancing, and get your tickets to Stripper 101 today!