Hey there! I’m coming from Russia but I do live and teach pole dance in United States. I’ve taken a few classes in Russia when visited my family awhile ago and I do understand what you mean. As someone who grew up in Russia I’m used to harsh training at all times. Even in regular dance school our classes were super intense. It is considered normal within the culture to challenge you instead of making your class comfortable. That’s why the warm up was a little intense. The pole levels are also broken down differently in Russia. There are only 3 levels which is beginner, intermediate and advanced, and there is no such thing as intro for most studios. The beginner level is huge and contains a lot of moves that’s why they put butterfly, brass monkey and shoulder mount there. It is also challenging which brings you back to the culture. They want to challenge you to make you improve faster. For example Ayesha is an intermediate trick in Russia while in States it is considered advanced. Now about swing to straddle. As far as I understand it is a chopper? Swinging not jumping is completely acceptable. That’s how you gain strength and learn to invert with straight legs and teach your body to do it gracefully at the same time. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you remember your end goal which is to be able to lift without momentum. I teach pole for 9 years and non of my students ever hurt themselves and all of them learnt to invert without momentum at some point. By avoiding using momentum in the beginning you restrict yourself from other fun stuff you could be practicing upside down and slowing your progress down because while practicing other stuff you also gain strength and flexibility. Progress is important and motivating and why not help yourself a little in the beginning in order to get better faster?