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Why Did I Start Pole Fitness?
I still don't really know why I went along to my first pole dancing lesson, it was maybe because a friend asked me, or more likely out of nosiness!
But within 6 months I had a club to run and the next 3 years pole became my life! Never mind the minor medical degree simmering in the background.
I'd found a passion I didn't know existed, I'd started my pole journey, I'd started taking pride in my body.
I really enjoyed sport as a child, I did everything from swimming to netball to judo, however as a teenager I just lost interest.
I went up to high school and I was made to do hockey and I wanted to be doing football, and running laps of the sports field in the cold north east rain - it just lost it's appeal.
It wasn't until I went up to university in my early twenties, that I sort of rediscovered fitness. Like most students I got to try all the different clubs at freshers week, and something about pole dancing just stuck with me.
I would be really awkward and really clumsy as I tried to gracefully spin around the pole, but I just laughed it off with the others in the class.
For months I would keep my leggings on, I was not getting my legs out, or any skin out at all, no way!
Which a lot of my students refuse to believe, when these days they have to really battle with me to put on anything bigger than a pair of pants when I'm teaching them.
I graduated from my medical degree and I started my training as a junior doctor my foundation years and I realised; I'm actually on two paths, one as a medic and one as a pole dancer.
Pole really taught me something about myself, I didn't know that I loved being strong. I didn't know that I could love fitness, I didn't know that I was confident and I certainly didn't know that I could be body confident.
I didn't know that I could hold an audience's attention by doing something that I enjoyed.
How Pole Fitness Is Developing In The Sport World
The same year that I graduated I was offered a place on the founding committee of Pole Sports UK, which is the national pole sports federation for Great Britain.
Our main goal as pole sports UK, is to be accredited as a sport by Sports England. We also have a longer term goal of Olympic Recognition.
Competitions run by Pole Sports UK feed into the World Pole Sports Championships, where men and women from 10 years to 50+ compete in their categories for the worlds title.
Pole Sports UK and getting to teach pole in the evenings, it just really cemented my passion for this sport.
I'd be working as a doctor during the day, grinding out the hours in the hospital and then I'd get to go and dance and that was my release, that was my therapy.
I could leave my stress at the door, I could go into the studio, I could teach for a few hours and I'd leave just bursting with pride about what my students could achieve.
It gave me the clarity I needed to do my day job. When I became a doctor, I thought I was going to be helping people, I thought that was going to be it.
However, I found I was just increasingly frustrated with the public's lack of care for their own health.
Why Don't We Take Better Care Of Ourselves?
We all know the problems that increased weight causes, medical conditions it can have problems with and almost every patient I clocked into hospital had depression in their past medical histories.
Again, we all know the problems about a sedentary lifestyle, about not eating the right foods, the media is constantly going on about the strain on the NHS from rising conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart failure.
This is all caused by things like not eating the right things, over eating, smoking and drinking. This is the same media that is the first to jump on any celebrity no matter their body shape.
It tells you and me to be critical of everyone, and to be critical of yourselves. It's the same media that gives a platform for fashion that tells young girls and boys to starve themselves.
We all know the benefits of exercise, we're told it all the time however, we're now living in a world where we can work without moving.
Our jobs are sedentry and our foods are now packed with extra and unnecessary calories, but our bodies are still just as efficient at burning them slowly and this is a problem.
When looking at sports uptake in the UK most surveys only ask about who's doing 30 minutes of exercise a week, 30 minutes!
That's a surprisingly low volume for a fitness questionnaire.
Sports England have reported trends that 10% less girls and boys are taking up sport and the main reasons for this are; body confidence issues, lack of idols and lack of their own personal confidence to go and do these sports.
It's being debated in the house of commons as to why young girls are dropping out of sport.
So, my journey as a doctor made me realise that my part time job as a pole instructor actually was more important than I gave it credit for.
I had patients during the day and students at night and they had the same problems however, they just seemed to be tackling them differently.
You Have The Power To Take Control Of Your Health & Well Being
My patients during the day wanted a quick fix, a magic pill, they wanted me to fix them there and then - me to fix them, as opposed to my students who were just desperate to make themselves stronger so they could learn a new trick.
Both had the same battles but it just looked like my students were doing something about it and this made me realise it's not about what pole has done for me, it's about what it has done for my students and I realise this every single time I teach.
My students come to classes because they want to do something different, they want to learn something taboo, they want me to make them sexy but instead what happens is, they learn self worth and confidence and with that comes empowerment and a purpose.
They talk about how they suddenly realise what their body is capable of and they amaze themselves with this, they amaze themselves with their own capabilities and they want a body that is functional not a body that society thinks is good enough.
They talk about the community spirit in the pole world and how it actually changes our thinking because a pole move might look easy but actually, as well as physical capabilities required to do it, there's also a lot of problem solving.
I have students who come to classes with their children and their grand-children and they tell me that they're the fittest they've ever been, age is not a barrier.
You don't have to be special to do pole but over the years some people just really stand out, like a friend of mine who has multiple sclerosis which is a progressive auto immune disorder affecting the central nervous system.
She's a teacher and she started saying how she's felt symptoms of fatigue, she had weakness down one side, she was really struggling with her mobility.
She was getting really painful cramps and tremors in her muscles.
Suddenly she wasn't able to stand for long periods of time, she started walking with a limp and just really simple tasks just became impossible for her, her diagnosis was a huge blow on her confidence and simple things like walking up and down stairs just became difficult.
She started some medication, went into a period of remission and was given the opportunity to come to a pole class and she thought "Well, why not!"
She knows how progressive, how spontaneous and how debilitating her illness could be and she thought "It's kind of now or never" and she says she's never looked back.
At first she came to class, she said she really struggled with mobility things, she really struggled with some stuff especially on her weaker side and you had to explain things more than once to her because her condition had also affected her cognitive function.
She said over time she started noticing her body change, she became strong, she got muscles on her weak side. She said her confidence just came back and she didn't care if she made mistakes in class.
She knew nobody was judging her. Nobody cared and that just gave her such a boost. She now would stand in a class in shorts with marks on her legs from injecting her medication and realise that nobody was looking.
She said if she has one of her MS wobbles in class there's always a pole to grab on to. She's just one of many stories over the years.
How Pole Fitness Improves Body Confidence
I have lots of students who have opened up to me about their eating disorders and about how pole has helped them manage it.
I had one student who wouldn't go to a normal class, she would only book a private lesson so that the only person who saw her was the instructor because she hated her body that much.
It took months before she though "You know what? I'm going to try and go to a class with other people!" and she was amazed at how welcoming and positive everyone was.
These people are ruled by their insecurities and their diet and pole is just giving them back a little bit more control.
I have a fairly recent new student who was telling me about how her problem started when she got up to high school and she started developing curves and she just wanted to be straight up and down skinny.
She was desperate to come to a class but she thought everyone would just say "You're fat" so she covered herself up in baggy long clothing.
As pole dancers we quite like taking pictures of ourselves on the pole and this is to mark our progress, to see what our moves look like.
She said that at first she was so, so embarrassed about these pictures that she couldn't even look at the camera when she was getting a photograph taken but something just changed her mind.
She said she just started to love herself.
She realised that, OK; if she put on a crop top and her stomach was out, there is also skin there and skin that we grip the pole with, and if she can grip the pole she can get better at pole.
Then she suddenly realised she actually wanted to be better at pole more than spending the rest of her life insecure.
The folk in the class gave her the confidence boost that she needed and she now proudly looks at the camera when she's getting her photograph taken.
She posts these pictures online on Facebook and she tells her story, and I know that she has inspired at least more than a few people to change the way they look at themselves.
I had a student who spoke for many when she spoke about how after years of depression which also included hospital admissions, that pole just changed the way she thought.
She suddenly realised that when she was faced with a new situation, something that previously she would have shied away from or that terrified her that once upon a time she told herself she would never be able to hang upside down.
But she tried and she failed, but she tried again and she proved herself wrong.
She's now not had a hospital admission for three years. So, I'm so proud to be telling these stories and I'm thinking well, if I've got all these great stories what's the problem?
Why do I still have patients that are terrified of taking care of themselves and taking care for their health and happiness.
The problem is us, the problem is society.
Take Control, Take Pride In Your Body!
We can take a pole and we can turn it on its side and bang in the middle we can put this body ideal that we create.
We create it, the media creates it and it's a false perfection. We don't realise that actually, this is a spectrum with extremities on either side and we're all somewhere on this line.
The thing is it's not about how close we are to perfection, that's not what's important and that's not what made these stories significant.
It's the fact that they are taking autonomy for themselves and they're making progress and they're realising their capabilities and then moving forward to taking pride in their bodies despite the barriers that are put in front of them.
And that's far more important than any false perfection that society can create.
I definitely live in a big pole dancer bubble where, with my dancer friends we build off each other's strengths. We build people up instead of pulling them down.
We focus on what we can do, we focus on being the best that we can and it's not for you, it's for us.
We don't accept any excuses from anyone and we certainly don't accept excuses from ourselves and the best bit about this is that this bubble is not exclusive and you don't even need to be a dancer to get access.
Everyone in this room has the tools to care about their well being and their happiness.
I'm now a doctor part time and a pole dancer every minute that I can be.
We all know the positive effects that exercise has on physical and mental well being so why not do something fun at the same time.
Why don't we go grab a pole or find your passion and take pride in your health.
- DR Maggie Rostron, University of Glasgow, Instructor and Owner of West End Pole Dance Academy.
