Marines pole dancing!

On Friday I travelled to Exeter University for the Exeter University pole dancing club's Help for Heroes dance showcase, I had agreed to loan the club my stage and to perform as part of their showcase. As it was the third weekend of charity performances in a row I was feeling a little tired and was not really looking forward to hauling the stage up to Exeter, however once there I was so glad that I had made the effort. The Exeter uni girls had arranged a fabulous evening of entertainment including pole dancing performances from members of the Exeter pole dancing club, the University of Plymouth Pole Dancing club, a guest performance from a local instructor and a wonderful pole dancing display from the Exeter Marines who had just returned from their recent deployment to Afghanistan. Check out their wonderful demo including a special pole trick called the 'down a can of Carling monkey climb'.

The programme also included two fabulous dance routines from the Exeter Dance Society and Exeter group TNS. Click here to watch my performance at the event, apologies that the video is on its side, haven't worked out how to rotate it yet! After the event it was time to return the stage to Plymouth which should have been fairly uneventful however Rob (boyfriend of UPPDC member Emma Thorpe) and his friend who volunteered to help load the stage into the back of the van were by this stage very drunk and the pair nearly managed to decapitate me with the aluminium frame! I did manage to get back to Plymouth in one piece and with only a few bruises and a small abrasion to my knee to show for my trouble.

Anyway a huge thanks to Lucy Douglas and Rachel Chew from the Exeter Uni pole dancing club for organising such a wonderful event for such a great charity. Thanks also to the wonderful ladies (pictured below) from the University of Plymouth Pole Dancing Club for doing the art of dance proud.

Yesterday I prepared to teach my 'Ultimate Bruise Workshop' which, rather surprisingly, was not very fully booked! The 5 ladies that did brave my workshop did work incredibly hard attempting the following pole tricks - The Superman, Corkscrews, the yogini, the dart, the knees, side climbs and the marley. The class was made even more eventful by the fact that when I arrived at work there was a gentleman asleep in the doorway of my premises, several locals at Raffles bar had attempted to wake the gentleman but to no avail. We knew that the guy was breathing but I thought it best to call the police just to double check that he was OK and to get him moved from my premises. A very lovely uniformed officer came to our aid much to the enjoyment of the ladies sat waiting for their class. I even managed to provide the officer with some art of dance flyers to take home for his wife.

Aside from life at the art of dance the Pole Dance Community site is really starting to grow which means it is taking up a lot more time but hopefully all the hard work will prove fruitful. To further add to my workload I have also decided to stand as an independent candidate for the pending local elections on May 6th. If you are interested in my election campaign and my experience of the election process then click here to read my first political blog.

Stay Healthy,

Sam x