There was a sudden hush as I entered the room. Twenty pairs of eyes, all of them female, bored into me. It’s alright, I tell myself. Just keep smiling, although not in the perverted, yes-darling-I-know-I’m-the-only-guy-in-here-and-I-like-it kind of way, but in a friendly, unassuming fashion. I’m a reporter, and I’m here to find out what pole exercise is about. Look: I have a notepad. I can’t be a pervert if I have a notepad.
I’m introduced to Catherine, one of the instructors for pole exercise, who after asking if I’m here to actually take part, to which I hesitantly nod in the affirmative, tells me that we’ll be starting warm-up exercises now. Somehow I find myself in the front row, in full view of everyone, despite a determined effort to remain as inconspicuous as possible. I was always doomed to failure in that respect.
The next few minutes are taken up by light stretching, as all the time I try to bat away the simmering pit of fear inside me about what’s to come. Glancing at the three gleaming poles in front of me, £700 apiece, visions of Tony Soprano, neon lights and girls named Candy Lane flash before my eyes. Orsolya, the Club Secretary I’d been in contact with prior to the session, had made a point in her email of telling me not to bring body moisturiser. Why would she bring up moisturiser? Just what exactly was going to happen? Swearing under my breath at the editors who’d convinced me to do this feature, I wondered what the next forty-five minutes had in store.
After warming up, the class was split into two groups, with one going straight to the poles and the other, yours truly in tow, heading for core strength exercises. Core strength exercises? In pole danc-I mean exercise? This was a twist that threw me, but as I rolled out my exercise mat and lay down, I thought to myself that at least I’d be able to postpone the inevitable humiliation with some gentle flexing. Forgetting who and where I was momentarily, I went into the perpendicular leg raise with reckless abandon. Not only am I surprisingly flexible, I realise, I’m even better than some of the girls at this. If this is what’s needed for the sport, I could well turn out to be the Michael Flatley of pole exercise! I hear a click though, and jolting my head round an overstretched leg like a compromised Ricky Martin, I see my grinning photographer, camera held up, snapping away at me. Immediately I tried to thrash my leg down, but after stretching so joyously only moments before it now seemed to be stuck in mid-air, defiantly cramped. How fitting.
Now it was time for the pole. This was my Everest. The leg cramp had ended any attempt to salvage some dignity, but if I could do what the instructor asked then maybe I could leave with some pride. As I stepped up on to the platform and grabbed the pole, I kept expecting some gurgling banker to slip a twenty into the tip of my boxers, pat me on the arse and invite me to sit on his lap.
Yet something strange happened. The first task was to sashay around the pole, arm raised and on tiptoes, in a manner I assume to be a fusion of grace and sexiness. I’d expected the room to burst out in laughter at my awkward attempts to romance a pole, but instead, surrounded by other beginners, I started to feel the warm glow of encouragement, this despite my attempt having all the sex appeal of a Ricky Gervais burlesque show. After that we learnt various beginner’s moves, at one time ‘The Fireman’ and another ‘The Genie’, all of which I performed with dubious polish, but completed all the same. Swinging round the pole I was growing in confidence, and by the end of the session I’d been won over. Pole exercise was for me after all.
Talking to the club’s members, I could see why pole exercise, the first university club of its kind in the UK, has been such a success. With over a hundred members and the sport’s most enthusiastic cheerleader in club President Beth Randall, the club is thriving. “It’s new, it’s taboo and it’s fun,” says Randall, who happily disclosed that whenever on a night out she swings around lampposts for practice. A mixture of gymnastics and acrobatics, it also provides a serious, if slightly unorthodox, workout.
Despite strong opposition from the Women’s Committee, who have insisted that pole exercise close the blinds in James Dining Hall when a session is on, the club attracts students from every corner of university. There is one type of member the club would like more of though, with only two regular male participants. As I leave, I look back to see two senior members twisting round their poles, upside down like two vertiginous ballerinas. Remembering the mention of a move with a particularly interesting name, I can’t help but think to myself: “I’d love to try a ‘Dangerous Brian’ next week.”