It is even more important for people learning from home to study good posture and form than a person learning in a local pole dancing class because there is no live teacher in your living room telling you what to do or correcting you. When you go to a live pole dancing class, a good teacher will watch you carefully and help you make adjustments to do thing correctly. In the end, it helps you become a better pole dancer fast and look like a professional as well.

So, I am going to re-emphasize and build upon the good posture for all parts of your body while pole dancing.

When you first learn a pole move, you should strive to understand where to place your hands and legs and at the proper angle in relationship to the pole. You will also need to know points of contact on your skin for grip. If you execute a pole spin with bad form, not only will it look really ugly, but you could get injured. Here is a good example. Let’s say you want to do a Straddle Spin in Full Bracket as shown in the photo. If you lock out the elbow on the lower arm (especially if you are double jointed like me) you could injure yourself doing this spin. It puts too much pressure on the joint. You should feel the back of your triceps muscle against a part of your rib cage with a slight bend in the elbow when you are first to learn the straddle pole spin. Legs should be perpendicular to the pole and the hips tucked under, the lower core pulling upward. Proper posture can be brought into every aspect of pole dance and has long been a part of dancing’s history, especially in ballet. It has been proven time and time again that strategically, with consideration in proper form, executed dance moves not only tone the body a lot better but prevent injury by preventing the joint from extending past what is natural for your body. Holding proper posture is more difficult and will prevent you from pushing into exercises that your body is not ready to do and dance more safely while you learn at home. Each individual will have their own “posture” they can hold and should never exercise beyond what their current ability is to hold proper form while executing exercises, spins, etc. Improve form first, and then move on to a more challenging position. Also, you must learn what to do and not do when dancing on a spinning or static pole.  This will further increase your pole dancing success at home. Many people will sacrifice good form for the sake of continuing on with an exercise. A good example of this is when you keep doing crunches when your body is too tired to hold good posture. You start pulling on the neck and lifting your lower back off the floor during your crunches. When these mistakes happen, you are no longer working the muscles that matter and if you aren’t working the right muscles, then your six pack abs will never show up. So, in essence, you could be wasting your time trying to achieve and end goal without proper form. The whole point of doing exercises is to get better at whatever we are doing. Exercises are designed with proper posture so that very specific muscles get used to help you execute dance move. If you cheat and practice with bad form, you run the risk of not only injuring yourself but never truly developing the strength you need to dance with beauty and grace.

Good posture and correct form are what makes one dance look beautiful and another dancer look bad while they are dancing the exact same pole dance moves or poses.

It doesn’t matter if you are simply learning how to descend out of a pole spin with grace or performing the Superwoman Move, it’s all so critical, every step of the way. I know it’s a lot to take in and remember, that’s why taking pole dancing lessons that emphasize proper posture are so important. If haven’t learned anything about proper posture while learning to pole dance yet, a great place to start is the most important piece;

for pole dancers the #1 posture technique to remember is keeping the shoulders back and down while executing all your pole dance moves.

You would be surprised how many people don’t do this and that’s because bad posture is a plague in society. Sitting behind desks, driving cars, and other sedentary activities promote a rounding forward of the shoulders, also known as the hunchback posture or “primate shoulders”.   If you are struggling to find a teacher to help you correct this or don’t “know” how to feel the right upper back posture I am talking about here, there are two things you can do.   Take a ballet class in your local town OR you can buy a good quality primate back posture brace you can wear daily to re-train your upper body to carrying the right posture. Doing this will make a world of difference in your dancing appearance : )