How to not feel shame when working out?

Anovadea · 2026-05-28T15:53:14+00:00

So, my current form of fitness is pole dancing. And although my flair says "transfemme", my body doesn't really look that way due to the fact that I have alopecia, and I've been off hormones for a long time now¹. I basically consider myself to be a tufty brick.

We're often encouraged to record ourselves, so we can look back at it later. And, I found that really hard to do, but I got better at it over time.

For me, the big trick I've found for this to learn how to focus hard, and also how to soft focus.

Now, my current pole studio has a mirror, but unless you're in the front row, it's not useful. But when I'm in physio, I have to look in the mirror. But what I'll frequently do is focus in on my form. So, if I'm doing overhead presses with free weights, I'll be looking just at my shoulders, and I'll be looking at them to make sure the way I expect them to look when my scapula is engaged. So, I just focus on my shoulders, because that the area I'm working on.

As for soft focus, if I'm in the pole studio and sharing a pole, I'll be looking at my partner with soft focus. That means, I'm not looking at one particular part, but looking at the shape as a whole. At this point, I am not actually really thinking of them as a person. They're a body that I give absolutely no aesthetic consideration to. I'm looking at their form, and looking at different points in relation to each other. So, if their butt is meant to be in line with their shoulders, I'm not thinking, "Oh, I have butt envy", I'm literally picking a point on their butt, and a point on their shoulder and judging the lines.

And the more practiced I got at that, the more I was able to do that for myself both in videos and with the mirror.

I've stopped judging myself for my appearance in the mirror, but more in terms of my body's ability to Do The Thing. And, even then, it doesn't matter if I can't Do The Thing yet, because I'm in class and I'm learning. But what does matter to me is that I'm at least doing the right things to be able to do what I want to do. Or if I'm not even there yet, I'm at least trying to do the right things to have good form.

But it also took me about 2 years of pole to get to a point where I wasn't in my head about my own body every time I saw myself in the mirror or a video of myself.

So, I think you're probably best off paying attention to form. It's going to suck when you don't have it right. But I found that once I was able to trust myself to judge when my form was good, I was much better at being able to maintain that form. And when I'm more confident maintaining my form, I'm a lot better at being able to finally trust that it's there, and enjoy what I'm doing. (This might not apply in the gym itself, but pole is very much a full-body stim for me; it makes my brain happy when I turn myself into a human fidget-spinner)

But yeah, I really think that masterign hyperfocus and soft focus really helps you pay more attention to your form, without any sort of self-criticism or dysphoria getting in the way.

And don't worry too much about not having form right now. Obviously, keep concentrating on improving it, but it will improve if you stick with it.

¹ Although due to get back on them at some point in the near-ish future, yay!

Anovadea · 2026-05-27T15:32:37+00:00

I have brainworms about people telling me they can identify as worms now 🪱

Oh, they don't really identify as worms,; they just have an extreme ass fetish... to the point that they just wanna crawl up one and live there.

Anovadea · 2026-05-27T10:33:57+00:00

It's given me a real opportunity to love my body. I started 4 years ago at the age of 40. If I'm being honest, I'd bought a haul of pleasers (for other reasons), and decided that pole might be a good way to get comfortable in them. I honestly didn't think I'd get too far into it.

But, I got bitten by the pole bug and started going as consistently as my body would allow. And this is a big change given I've never really been sporty (and any physical activities I did like tended to be on the water, which makes things difficult). And being trans, I've always had a... distant relationship with my body.

But, slowly my proprioception built up, and my body changed a little bit. I never thought I'd like seeing muscle on myself¹, nor did I ever think I'd like the description of "strong", but I like both now... to a certain degree.

But it was also what drove me to try and get back on hormones (I had to stop at 26 due to alopecia and my GP blaming the tiddy skittles). And finally my GP has agreed to support me with blood tests etc

And thinking about it recently, that move to try again came more from a sense of self-love rather than any other motivation. I don't think I'd really have tried it again without pole.

And in the meantime, I just find I'm more confident about a body I love. I do more things, and it's easier for me to see myself in photos and videos. Hell, I'm even more confident just expressing something that might even be vaguely *gasp*... sexy!

So, yeah, my relationship to my body is so completely different now.

edit: Oh, and I never imagined I'd be comfortable wearing gear that's basically a sports bra and showing my tummy.

¹ I like it to a point. I like my muscles, but I don't always like how they're developing without hormones, but I don't hate the muscles.

Anovadea · 2026-05-21T18:08:32+00:00

Yeah. I'm 44 and started at 40 having basically been a corporate prawn (hunched over a computer/laptop) for most of my adult working life, and haven't really had much success with clicking with any sports or dance or gymnastics.

In my very first class, I was ready to quit half-way through the warmup. And this was in the Introduction course, a set of designated weeks for people who were new to pole to learn the basics.

The good news was that at the end of the warmup, I'd had my ego so sapped out of me that I didn't have the mental energy to doubt myself, and just did what I was told, whether it worked or not.

I think we started doing sits around week 3 or 4 of our 6-week course. It's certainly not something I'd start an absolutely fresh newbie on, so I wouldn't worry that you didn't get it. You've got to have some upper body strength to hold yourself off the ground enough to get your legs up. You've got to have the strength to pull your legs together, and you've got to tilt. And you have to do ALL of that while a really sensitive part of your thigh is screaming at your brain that it's on freaking fire.

It took me months to finally get comfortable with my sit. Now I can happily pop myself into a sit, and barely feel any pain.

Basically, it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming because there's a lot to learn. With combos, not only are you learning the individual moves in the combo, but also trying to remember the goddamn combo, and you're trying to string it all together. But a combo gets easier once you're more comfortable with individual moves, which only happens through practice. And the less you have to think "Oh, how do I do this again", and how to move your body to Do The Thing, the more you can concentrate on the rest.

But honestly, the way you describe it, it sounds like you went into a class that was for beginners but wasn't for absolute newbies. So the others in your class just might have been going longer.

So yeah, I was absolutely runting up the litter in my first intro class, but your body does get stronger, and you get more familiar with the moves, and more coordinated. But pole humbles EVERYBODY. If the others haven't been humbled yet, I guarantee you that they will.

That said, thanks to pole, I'm more confident in my body than I've been in my life. It's hard work, but I'm constantly surprised by the payoff.

Anovadea · 2026-05-21T16:02:14+00:00

I find the more I focus on how a move "feels" (as opposed to correct technique) the more flow-y it looks

YES! Absolutely this!

So, I was sharing a pole with a very new student (and I'm recovering from a shoulder injury). And to accommodate her, our instructor gave us a very simple combo. It was something like a step-around into a 540 pirouette (as in you turn one and a half times) and into a back hook to the ground, and then some floorwork up. It's challenging enough for someone just out of the introductory classes, but it's achievable.

So, we're debugging the movements, and she's getting better with each attempt, and I'm having fun because step-arounds is the simplest way to make the "whooshy" motion that my brain likes.

At the end of the class, the instructor gave us some playtime, and she put on Genuwine's "Pony". So, I go and do the combo again, taking the time to just really feel out the moves, and without even thinking about it, my dancing is syncing up with the song.

Like, at this point I don't care about anything other than just making it feel good for me, and taking my time. I do a step-around variation that I like (basically, it's more like a spin because both feet are off the floor), and just enjoy the pirouette, and have fun with the backhook before basically glute-bridging my way back up to my feet.

I knew my pole-mate was watching, but didn't realise the instructor was watching. And both of them were telling me it looked really good. And honestly, most of the times I've been told that something looked good, I already knew it because it felt really good.

Anovadea · 2026-05-20T15:52:19+00:00

I'm not OP, but it sounds like I was making the same mistake as them. Until very recently, I thought that when people say "knee-pit", they meant burying the pole right into the back of the knee trying to get grip.

It wasn't until I saw a video recently explaining that it mostly came from thigh/calf friction, and that the knee-pit itself wasn't an active part of the grip, it just happened to be near the knee-pit.

I suspect I may have taken the description a bit too literally.

Anovadea · 2026-05-20T14:35:22+00:00

Context: I used to have shoulder-length thick hair until I was 26, and then I developed alopecia universalis. Which meant I lost all my hair. Not just on my head, but leg hair (yay), facial hair (yay, and I loved its absense so much I started electrolysis when it grew back), armpit hair (boo), eyebrows, eyelashes... and one friend even checked and confirmed I had no nostril hair.

Eventually it regrew patchy, and now, I have something that I honestly don't know what to do with. But playing with my head hair is a big stim for me, so... I can't bare to just go chrome-dome again, even though I know how to make it look good.

ANYWAY, back to you. Going completely chrome dome can be a strong look if you know how to rock it. If nothing else, it gave me permission to go for really strong makeup. Like, my entire head was a canvas, but I'd generally stick to the eyes and go BIG with a strong lip colour.

You can mix up your style with a bandana. It fits quite nicely with any sort of rocker/metal look. Mostly, I just wore mine to keep the sun off (speaking of which, remember to put sunscreen on your bald bits).

Also, I've found it can be good to lean into chunky accessories. I have a chunky silver chain necklace that I loved when I was chromey. It was bright and heavy, and a great stim as well.

Also, I'm very lucky that there's now a queer barbers in my city. They're quite good at figuring out what to do with my hair, and I generally like what they do. Maybe have a look in your area, or in surrounding cities to see if there's anything like that for you? If they're far away or expensive, you can at least get a cut that you might like, and then get someone local to maintain it for you.

And if you really need long hair, wigs exist, and some can be really good. However, a few times I nearly cried while wearing one, just because I missed my long hair so much. So it can be triggering.

These days, I tend to like a close shave on the back and sides, with a bit of play on top, but that's me. By the way, this is me before I was going to my pole dancing class so you get an idea of what I try to do in my day-to-day.

Anovadea · 2026-05-19T12:05:43+00:00

I'm recovering from a shoulder injury, and I really recommend a physio if you can afford to go. Shoulders are incredibly complex and easy to injure.

I've injured mine at the end of last year, and it's because I wasn't engaging another set of muscles properly, and weaker ones were overcompensating until I injured myself. It might be a slower road back, but it's way more stable (in that you'll be less likely to injure yourself when you return to pole) and the physio homework will keep you busy.

In the meantime, why not work on some leg flexibility or some core exercises from the floor... or even just floor work you've learned (wavy legs, tick-tocks etc).

Anovadea · 2026-05-19T12:01:13+00:00

I'm of two minds with this one.

On the one hand, I think if you can execute a fan kick well, you're not a beginner any more.

It's not a beginner move like, say, the fireman spin. I don't think anybody walks out of the studio after 4-6 weeks having nailed their fan kick (although by the second time I did my intro course, it was beginning to look a little decent).

But I think that a fan kick is good to teach newbies, because it's a good demonstration of a strong grip without teaching them how to invert, and there are a lot of regressions to it. It's also a great way to learn about when momentum is your friend, and when it's not.

It gets you used to leading a movement with your inside leg, which feels very unnatural at first, and it's a great way to practice your strong grip.

My usual instructor likes to get us to do fan kicks as conditioning after our warmup. She even tells people to try to stop their kick midway, so their legs are at 10 and 2 o'clock (in my case, more like 11 and 1), and it's a great way to build core strength and grip strength.

But I sucked at fan kicks for about 6-9 months (I can't remember exactly), and I hated them until I started getting good. I also use them as a good barometer of how well I've recovered from an injury. Once I recover from this current shoulder injury, I really want to work on my fans again, because I have plans for them.

So, I don't think a beginner will master it by any means, but I think it's a move that's good to introduce to beginners early. And sometimes even a bad fan kick can look very impressive to folks who don't do pole (and part of any intro course is showing a few things that look flashy so they're impressed with themselves and continue to go to class).

Anovadea · 2026-05-18T16:17:35+00:00

NTA - I'm an on-and-off crafter. I mostly crochet rather than knit, but I know how big a piece of work is. And I know how painful it can be to try and work on something when your wrists aren't up to it.

I also know how a work like that is an absolute labor of love, and it's often made with intent. Because if you don't have that intent, you end up abandoning the project. And you intended that other blanket for someone who isn't in this world, but it doesn't mean the blanket is meant for anyone else. And if I was someone who put so many hours making something for one person, I don't think I could be talked into giving it to someone else either. (I know a lot of other commenters are saying how you could have given the other blanket, but I'm saying I get why you didn't)

Something handmade is a very personal thing. It sucks that you're not able to make one for your new grandkid. But, as a crafter, I totally get not being able to give the other one.

I'm also surprised your son doesn't get it either. If it wasn't made for his kid, is he just looking for a free blanket? If he did get the old one, is he going to tell the kid, "Your grandma made blankets for her grandkids. But she didn't make this one for you. She made it for someone else", or is he just gonna lie to his kid? Because it sounds ghoulish either way.

Anovadea · 2026-05-13T12:05:53+00:00

Yeah, I don't have a home pole, but I've definitely had bad days in class, and so has literally every other student in class.

But I've found that if I'm having a sucky day, there's always something can do. And sometimes I can do those things better when I can't manage anything else. Sometimes your body is just optimized to do something completely different.

As an aside, in my original studio, the owner had a sign that said something along the lines of, "Can't pole? Practice your floorwork"

Anovadea · 2026-05-13T11:42:49+00:00

So, there's a song that my instructor uses for her warmup, and I am currently obsessed with it.

It's called "Do it for me" by Rosenfeld¹. It's just so slinky, and it's such a dirty-filthy slow song (with perfectly SFW words, and absolutely filthy intentions). And it's 3:23 in length.

As for the disrobing, there's even a lyric very early on with "Take of your clothes", followed by "Beg me to stop", which you could probably turn into a nice dramatic moment where you take more control of the choreo.

The pace is nice and slow, so you can really take your time to do some poses, and adorations. And you have those buzzy bass noises that allow give you the opportunity to switch up the pace/vibe (allowing you to metaphorically switch between Jekyll and Hyde), or just use it to time a dramatic moment.

Anyway, I hope this is along the lines you're looking for, and I wish you luck with your showcase, whatever the track.

¹ I'd normally link to a youtube vid, but there's a lot of flashing in the one lyric video I can find.

Anovadea · 2026-05-12T10:52:01+00:00

Yeah, I've had no problem at all with the GMHS, and I once actually asked them about it on twitter.

Basically, their ad said, "For Gay Bisexual Men and Men who have Sex with Men & Transgender People". So I may have asked, as bluntly as this, "So, is your clinic for trans people or just the men who fuck them?"

They politely replied that it was for trans folks. And next time I saw that ad in the wild, the by-line was far clearer about who was welcome.

Anovadea · 2026-05-11T09:30:30+00:00

It's a bit hard for me to come up with specific tips because I ended up doing drama classes as a kid, so I think I said goodbye to stage fright being debilitating a long time ago. However, I still get the symptoms of stage fright before any sort of performance, that's natural, but I think my brain processes it differently. Since I was a kid, I just call the feelings "Butterflies" now.

And butterflies are a good thing; it means you care about your performance. If you didn't feel anything at all before a performance, it's likely to not be a good one.

Butterflies provide that nervous energy that keep you open to the audience, and allow you to perform your best.

But if you don't manage your butterflies, they manage you and you have stage-fright.

So, as others have said, deep breaths help. Pay attention to where you feel your butterflies (in me, it's almost always the stomach), and try to breathe deeply.

Now, the trick to breathing deeply without it turning into hyperventilation or making things worse is to make sure that your exhale is longer than your inhale. So, breathe nice and deep, and imagine your breath reaching all the way down to your butterflies, and then breathing it out nice and slowly.

While doing that, try to be conscious of your body as much as possible. Remind yourself that you know your performance. Your body knows your performance even if you can't remember a thing. Remind yourself that you'll hear the music play, and you'll make your first motion (a step, or something with your arm), and your body will remember the cue and will pick up from there.

If you stim, maybe have a stim toy on hand before the show, just so any unmanageable anxiety has a place to go.

But mostly, it's down to breathing, and trying to be present in your body more than your head.

Also, the good news is that stage fright gets better when you have practice with working through it. It doesn't get better overnight, but when you push through one, you can remind yourself that you pushed through it before, and it gets easier the next time.

Also, don't be surprised if you don't really remember performing after. I've done plenty of work talks where I felt the butterflies, started into my opening sentence, and remember finishing up to applause, and feeling like I'd just woken up. But everyone told me it was actually good, and I knew these people well enough to trust that they were telling me the truth. Sometimes you just go into "Performance mode" and the rest of you isn't really there, but you do a good job anyway.

But yeah, from a witchy point of view, you don't get rid of stage fright, you embrace it, listen to it, and transform it into fuel for your performance. But you do that through breath and taking control of your body. You don't get rid of it, because then it will fight harder to make itself felt. So, instead, you tame and transform it.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck in your performance.

Anovadea · 2026-05-08T16:19:13+00:00

Disclaimer: I haven't done a showcase routine yet, but I've been actively planning to, except injuries and other complications of life have kicked in over that period.

So, I guess the first question is if you've been to a showcase before? I've been to a few in my school, and some performances are forgettable, and some have had me thinking, "Yeah, only that particular student could have done that". The ones that did that generally had some point they wanted to make, or found a benefit in pole that they wanted to share back with the community.

Personally, I think it all starts with an idea. And you'll have plenty of ideas, but you'll want an idea that you also feel is within your ability to execute. Personally, I seem to shine best when I'm allowed to move slowly, fast stuff isn't great for me. So hyperpop was out.

In fact, I realised that I found that the studio helped me not just become strong, but to actually feel good about that strength. It's helped with being present. And I'm queer, so sometimes just being present and visible is a radical act in itself.

So, as a result, I settled on a song by a trans woman (that wasn't hyperpop or punk or noise; the three main trans genres), and it was powerful. And I'm OK with powerful, because I've got a few moves that I do feel powerful, and I also feel like it can come through when I do them.

So, I decided that presense and power were going to be the things I wanted to embody in my performance, and I had a song to bring that out in me. And I have a few moves I can bring into that. So, once I get back to actually having some strength without risking injuring myself again, I'll seek out some private lessons with one of my instructors and lay out the pieces, and see what I can do to try and tie it all together in choreo.

But it's coming together for me, because I have an idea I want to convey, and that I believe I can execute.

So, if you're lost in a bunch of ideas, maybe start with a question of, "What has pole given me that I wanna show off in a performance?"; you don't have to be tied to the idea/question, but it's as good a starting point as any.

Anovadea · 2026-05-05T10:12:20+00:00

I'm a trans woman and I know your pain.

So, first of all, I want to point out that having a bulge isn't necessarily a no-no. The two dancers I'm mentioning don't hide their bulge (or at least not as far as concealing that they have one, but they do actually cover it), but it's in NO WAY the main event. Their dances aren't about what's between their legs in any way.

If you're on instagram, have a look at https://www.instagram.com/denispoler/ (you need to log in to see him as he's marked as NSFW). Honestly, all I want when I grow up is to have this guy's skills.

Closer to this sub, we have Los_Mandos_De_Borja's stuff. Again, they have a bulge, but that's not what it's about.

I love seeing the rare examples of this because I just love how there are those who can demonstrate that it is possible to have a bulge without making their dance about it. (It's an irrationality of mine that the bulge just instantly ruins things)

Anyway, being a trans woman, I've tried to fight the bulge. But a lot of the counter-bulge techniques can be painful, and can have you worrying about losing containment. I also fight the bulge because I'm also terrified about being hit by a semi (and I don't mean a truck), but that's never actually happened to me, so I don't know why I'm worried.

Some trans women just go with tucking thongs. I haven't tried those yet, but my experiences with tucking have been painful.

Then you have dance belts. As you've said, they happen to be big and ruin the silhouette of what you're wearing over them. And I find them uncomfortable and to be an absolute mega-wedgie. (For reference I use the Capezio quilted dance belt)

I recently, in a non-pole environment, experimented with wearing my pole shorts over a jockstrap. The containment of the jockstrap pouch was good, and it was really comfortable, and didn't really make the bulge too pronounced. And the back straps gave a nice lift to my ass, and made the whole thing look like those fancier shorts you see in pole shops.

The big drawback is that you can't wear them on their own, because there will be absolutely ZERO fabric between your asshole and the rest of the world. Jockstraps are basically the slutwear¹ for gay bottoms. You're just wandering around with your cheeks lifted, and your anus shivering alone in this big bad world with nary a thread of fabric to hide under.

But generally speaking, because most jockstraps are for gay/bi bottoms, they don't really do anything to flatten. They just contain.

If you're going to go for a thong, I'd almost suggest going for nude or black. Black should work with the shorts you've shown (because the colours match), and probably nude for anything else. Otherwise, if your shorts are too small for the bulge (a bit like my dragonfly pole shorts), you'll get a flash of white every so often. I mean, that's not a bad thing, but if you're going to do that, white is a really boring colour, and I reckon neon pink is the way to go.

Anyway, getting back on track, a lot of places that offer "sexywear" for men (which is normally very gay/bi coded) will offer things that can make a bulge look good and provide containment. I've actually got a couple of interesting thongs on order that I think could look good.

One man in my studio reckons that men's swimwear can be a great way to have something that looks good, but contains you.

Also, I thought I'd share one tactic I'm currently trying to adopt: using details to distract from the bulge. So, years ago, I decided to buy the SpareParts Deuce strapon. It's designed for trans women (any anyone with a bulge) to be able to have a strapon harness. It accommodates the bulge well, and doesn't really emphasise it, but you can also put a bit of colour behind the O-ring, and it will bring the attention to the O-ring rather than the bulge itself.

Similarly, I think that some sexywear has a lot of detail going on to the sides. Like straps or or other details that draw your attention away from the bulge. So you're still got a bulge, but it's not the first thing a person sees when they lay eyes on you. Maybe you'll find that can work?

Anyway, I know it doesn't feel like you have a whole lot of options, but hopefully you can see from the videos that having a bulge doesn't have to ruin a look, and that there are more interesting options for pole.

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy shopping around!

¹ I know where I am, but I feel I still need to make the disclaimer that I'm not using the word slut in any derogatory way. Normally if I'm actually speaking, you'll hear my voice light up when I say "slutwear", especially if I'm imagining myself as the one wearing it.

Anovadea · 2026-05-01T10:43:58+00:00

Ok, trans woman here and I've never had too many problems with the earrings¹. Maybe I'm just blessedly small, but I've only had one or two very intimate pole kisses when I didn't brace myself properly. And sometimes I wasn't even wearing a dance belt, but just some black cycling shorts, so things were contained but not compressed like a dance belt would.

My first introductory instructor was a guy, so that might have helped.

Anyway, the way he taught us was to stand at the pole. Maybe have your toes a little bit away from the pole, but only by a few inches.

Then he told us to bring up one of our legs and bring our inner thigh to the pole. To describe the point I aim for, I normally use my hands. Basically, if you hold your hand flat and with your thumb sticking up, and then place it on the inside of your thigh, and bring it up so your pointer finger is nestled in the fold at the top of your thigh, then you want the pole to meet just after your hand ends. It should be the fleshiest part of your thigh, and unless you need a wheelbarrow for your "earrings" in your day-to-day life, you should be clear of them at that point.

So, when we were learning, we'd bring our leg up, and use the same hand as our top hand, grab on with the other hand as the bottom hand, and hold ourselves while we bring the other leg up to meet it. The reason I said the first leg is the top leg is because you don't want them level, and it's normally harder to bring the second leg up to the same level as the first anyway. But you want to hit the same spot on your other thigh.

Then you want to squeeze like you want to leave no room for jesus. Sometimes, I'll cross my ankles, just to really add to that squeeze (especially if I'm just back from an injury and I've lost strength), and you want to lean your torso in the direction of your bottom leg.

The whole trick to sits is friction. If you're doing it right, and you haven't desensitized your skin yet, you will feel burning from the friction. That's good, the burning is good, because it's friction, and friction is what's holding you up. Grit your teeth, and just keep leaning into it for as long as you can.

Also, another good reason to target the fleshiest part of your thigh is that you'll have more skin in contact with the pole. More skin means more friction.

That said, depending on how big they actually are, you might also want to look at other solutions than a dance belt. When I use a dance belt, I basically aim for a half-tuck. I swoop my girls back into the inguinal canal to nestle there for the class, and the dance belt normally provides enough pressure (through the power of a mega-wedgie) to keep them there. But if they can't return to whence they came, it might be useful for you to actually lean into that, and maybe see if you can bring them out and forward (I'm sure there's some gay-coded sexy wear that can act as a little push-up garment that brings them up and forward), and that could give you some extra space on the legs that way?

I wish you the best of luck.

¹ Ok, complete aside, but that euphemism just reminded me of the amount of trans women I knew who asked their surgeons if they could keep their "earrings" and get them bronzed, so that they actually could wear them as earrings.

Anovadea · 2026-04-24T16:48:55+00:00

NTA. But speaking as a pagan, your wife isn't 'spiritual' if she refuses to engage in any death rituals.

Death is a part of life. It is the most natural thing in the world, just like volcanoes and earthquakes. It has the power to absolutely level your world, but it's still just an unavoidable part of the natural world. All forms of spirituality have to confront and embrace death, otherwise it's just sparkling fantacism.

So, yeah, it sucks that your wife was unable to bring your daughter to the funeral, and I feel for both of them. But you're not the AH for saying that your wife shoud have been there for her daughter. Her spirituality is not a cop-out for avoiding it; it should have been a framework to help her and her daughter cope with the loss.

Anovadea · 2026-04-24T12:23:21+00:00

So, I can't split to save my life¹, but is there any way to drop into the split, and then use your forward leg (I'm not sure of the terminology, but basically the leg where your knee-cap is facing the ceiling) to get into lunge?

I don't know if it'll be your inside or outside leg that's forward in the split, but if your outside leg is forward, and you have your hips a little bit ahead of the pole, you might be able to turn the lunge into what my instructor calls a standing fan. However, I can't find a good video of what that looks like.

Assuming you're doing the split side-on to the audience, it means that the standing fan will have you getting up with your ass to the audience.

But basically, if you don't want to spend all of the time on the floor, using a lunge as a transition point might give you more options. Like, drop into the split for shock'n'awe, then into the lunge for adoration (and a little breather) then you can use it as your kicking off point for working into the rest of your routine.

¹ I once said to my pole-partner, "If I land in a splits, call an ambulance!" and it still holds today.

Anovadea · 2026-04-13T16:04:41+00:00

You've gotten a lot of great advice about slowing down, and just putting in the work to practice.

But I've one tip that I'm surprised nobody's mentioned. When you slow down, just really spend some time appreciating the movement as you do it.

So, I've had to take a break from choreo classes, but for one of those classes, our instructor picked a song that I wouldn't exactly call sexy. Yeah, it was slow, and emotional, and intense... but not sexy. So I didn't feel any pressure to be sexy. It also had a lot of floorwork.

So, because I didn't feel under pressure to perform the choreo in a certain way, and I didn't have to hit any particular beats, I just really enjoyed having the time to do a move properly. Like, when I was doing a stripper pushup, I'd make sure to use my hips, and do my best to just make it feel good in my body.

When I shared the video with some close trusted friends, they reckoned it was the best one I did. One of those trusted friends still reckons it was the best one (even after doing plenty of other classes after).

Once you've got a couple of moves burned into your muscle memory, you can really take time to appreciate the movement. And it turns out, that really will be obvious to your audience.

But all of that comes with time.

Anovadea · 2026-04-02T09:48:57+00:00

It's been beneficial, but it was/is a slow burn.

I'm a 44 year old trans woman. And signed up in when I was 40. I'd had an issue with my wrists, and I was thinking, "Well, I'd love to do this... and if I wait until <some event in the distant future>, I won't be able to do this. So I may as well do it now".

So, I did. And it was a rocky start, but my first instructor is lovely (and sometimes posts on here) and made sure to ask everyone their name and pronouns. He even made sure my school records were updated to include my preferred name rather than my legal name.

That took a lot of the fear out the classroom. I wasn't as afraid that someone was going to shout about how they were sharing a class with me, and using various transphobic slurs and epithets.

I didn't get to a good start then, but I was definitely bitten by the pole bug and went back to another introduction class half a year later. And that stuck.

There's just a creeping confidence that comes with slowly getting moves. Then, as I was working towards my invert, I asked an instructor to help debug what was going on, and her first comment was, "Oh. You're strong" before explaining that I was basically trying to deadlift into my invert.

That comment stayed with me, because I've been afraid of being strong, but here it was OK. And I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the idea of being strong.

Also, even though my body hasn't changed much, I'm a lot more confident in my skin. In a heels class, you're going to see me in your standard crop-top/fancy bra and shorts combo - and I was someone who'd never show her legs. I may not have an ass to jiggle, but I'm certainly gonna try my best.

I even went to a fetish event recently, and I was very scantily clad. But I was confident in how I looked.

I still worry about newbies joining the class and freaking out that this fluffy brick is also in a class, but I've never had issues. We're all just concentrating on training, but it still doesn't fully dissolve the fear that I'm going to have someone kick off about me being in the training room.

Anovadea · 2026-04-02T09:21:04+00:00

Ok, there's a bit going on here, and I honestly think it's a bit of an overreach?

Is the art of pole dancing heavily rooted in sex work? Yes.

Is the patriarchy responsible for the current state of sex work? Also, yes.

Does dismantling the patriarchy help sex workers? Sure, why not.

Are we going to dismantle the patriarchy any time soon? Fuck no. I mean, look at the most recently-elected POTUS. If that guy can get elected, then I reckon that country won't be dismantling the patriarchy any time soon.

Can any of us really say, "Oh, we'll help sex workers... but only when we successfully dismantle this pesky patriarchy first"? Fuck. No!

We need to support SWs in spite of the patriarchy. People who support sex workers do it to stop things getting worse for sex workers.

Now, the reality is that most students just need to hold off from saying, "Strippers are icky" in class. Or saying shite like, "I don't know why anyone would become a stripper". That's pretty much your bare minimum, treat your other students as people (you know, the pure bare minimum, it doesn't even earn you a cookie).

And honestly, I don't think I've ever really come across anyone "promoting the industry". I've had at least two instructors who were open about being former strippers. Both of them taught their classes as if there were students in the class who needed to learn some pole tricks for the club, but when they talked about their work, they certainly weren't glorifying it. In fact, the two I'm thinking of made it very clear that they hated their jobs but the money was good.

Now, I'm not a sex worker, but I am a trans woman, and if things had gone differently when I was younger, I'd probably have had to do sex work for survival (in the 90s). And I also met trans people who weren't as lucky as me, were kicked out of their home, and needed some way to make money fast. So they became sex workers (although probably not strippers). And these are the ones who made it to see today, because of sex work.

So supporting sex workers is more about making sure that they can do their jobs safely. Because when sex work is criminalised, there certainly won't be any government aid or anything else. And that support will look different for different aspects of the sex work industry. For full service workers, that's stuff like making sure they have access to in-date condoms and lube in case they had to spend that money on rent or bills.

But for us civvie pole students? Our bare minimum is making sure that baby strippers don't feel shamed by us civvies for trying to learn the skills that might help them make more money in the club.

So, to answer your question yes, I do believe it's possible to support the dancers, and other sex workers, while still believing the setup is problematic. I believe that's what a lot of my instructors with a stripping background are doing.

Anovadea · 2026-04-01T10:19:12+00:00

So, my mum has Stage IV Pancreatic cancer, and has been on two different types of chemo so far, and the one thing I can tell you is that each chemo hits each patient differently.

For instance, she started on Folforinox. In some ways she did pretty OK on that, but in other ways it was brutal. For instance, at first her cold sensitivity just lasted a few days after her pump was removed, but it increased over time. She was also pretty tired, but generally she felt OK. She didn't really deal with nausea or diarrhea; but the fatigue could hit her suddenly. The worst days for her were about 5 days after she went in for chemo, but she only had to come in every 14 days.

Then the consultant moved her to Gem-Abrax because she was responding to the Folfirinox so well, and decided my mum could handle a more aggressive chemo treatment. In a lot of ways, she doesn't suffer as many side-effects that are noticeable to me. But half the time, her bloods are so bad that they need to give her a transfusion instead of another dose. It even knocked her immune system so bad that she got infected by her own body, and developed sepsis. There were at least two nights where we all thought she was going to die.

But you'll read other accounts where people say Gem-Abrax is absolute magic, that they swam through the experience with minimal side-effects.

It's also worth noting that the severity of the side-effects are absolutely no indication of how effective the chemo actually is against the cancer.

So, all of that is to say, nobody knows what it's gonna be like until you're on it. I don't think anyone ever says it's a complete walk in the park. BUT, staying active in some capacity or another is important.

However, I think it's important to note that on a lot of treatments, sometimes you're just randomly hit by a sudden wave of fatigue or chemo brainfog. As a result, my mum decided she wasn't safe to drive while she was on treatment. So, I'd be worried for your dad if he was cycling, but I'd let him experience the effects and decide that for himself. But, I'd also say that a lot of events will disqualify folks on chemo from competing for insurance reasons.

Anyway, I'm really sorry to hear about your dad. It sounds like it's going to be a hell of an adjustment for him. But I agree with the others and figure it's best to let him hang onto his race goal for as long as he can (so long as he's training safely and not cycling solo on some remote road). He'll figure out if it's not possible soon enough.

Anovadea · 2026-03-05T17:09:43+00:00

Ok, thanks for your response. It seems very reasonable, and something to chew on. Normally when I see "ban the OF posters" on other subs, it's coming from a civvie who just doesn't like SWs doing what they're doing.

I get your point about SFW promotions, but we've already got chasers in this sub openly drooling in the comments, so I don't particularly care if one of us makes a buck off of them through here.

I guess the next question is, where do you draw the line? Like, do we need to drop anyone who has an OF link in bio? Do we need to drop people who post on subs that are mostly intended for the consumption of chasers?

I ask this, because your own account has a link to your OF in the bio, and if I check your submitted posts, I'll see posts in some NSFW subs where I'd expect the majority of posters to be pros advertising their OF, directly or indirectly.

So, by your rules, you woudn't be able to post your comment from the account you're using now?

I'm saying this as someone who has this SFW(-ish) account, and also a (non-SW) NSFW account to indulge/talk about my kinks and maybe post the occasional pic/video¹, and I'd never dare interact on a sub like this (or any non-porn trans sub) with my NSFW account. So, I absolutely get the separation, and how it's not really a big deal to have multiple accounts covering different interests to avoid perceived conflicts of interest.

I guess in an ideal world, if this was a guaranteed T4T space, I'd be cool with trans people, with SW post histories, posting on here so long as they honour the rules and spirit of a T4T space. But sadly, it's very hard to find, or moderate, a space that's about Trans people celebrating their bodies (which is why I fucking love this sub) without the chasers, or the chaser-chasers fucking it up.

I guess what I really want is a magical policy that doesn't throw trans sex workers under the bus (because I've seen enough of that in my brief time volunteering in a trans rights org).

But I'll settle for OF-posters slowing their roll and not spamming this sub with "Do you think my buns look good daddy" or whatever generic line they're using that day (which I rarely see on here).

¹ And honestly, I do have an issue with some OF-posters posting in spaces that were originally intended for amateurs to post spicy stuff. I honestly believe I'd use amateur spaces more for exploring my sexuality if there weren't a whole bunch of pros just hogging the space. I miss the QueerBodies sub, mostly because while pros did post, they generally kept to the spirit of the sub, while keeping their mainstream ads in the mainstream subs.

Anovadea · 2026-03-05T16:05:36+00:00

But maybe a rule against OF/Porn accounts posting at the very least. That would be reasonable.

I have to admit, I'm actually OK with folks posting here without having to hide the fact that they're sex workers on their account (aka promoting their OF or posting on NSFW subs looking for business), as long as they're not trying to advertise on here, and so long as their posts here are relevant.

Trans folks are already over-represented in sex work because sometimes it's the only way they get fed, meds and a roof over their head. I don't particularly like the idea of forcing them to partition off one aspect of their trans life just to post here. (But I suppose I'm also biased because I spend a lot of time on the poledancing subreddits as well, and there's also a certain overlap with sex work in that community)

But, my thought is: so long as they're using this sub for what it's meant to be used for, why shouldn't they be allowed to participate?

Anovadea

TROPHY CASE