Hi guys, sorry I’ve been a little MIA again, usual busy at work and too tired to write when I get home situation unfortunately 😦 Although I have also been working on something exciting and can’t wait to share it with you all soon. I can barely keep the secret from all my friends but it will be announced soon so stay tuned!
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, All Stars was held in Melbourne. This is the first Pole and Aerial Art Competition of its kind and even had some international entrants competing. I am working on my write up for that so hopefully it will be published soon but if you follow me on Twitter then your feed would have been blown up by my updates that night.
As well as international entrants there were some famous international pole dancers or (polebrities as I like to call them 🙂 ) including the incredible Alethea Austin who did a doubles act with Cleo the Hurricane. I have always admired her and wish that I could move like her. When this woman moves it’s like oil. She is so smooth, her transitions are flawless and every single muscle in her body is used, it’s hard to explain but just search for her YouTube videos and you’ll understand what I mean. She was running some workshops whilst she was here and unfortunately all the ones being held at Pole Divas were full so my friends and I had to travel to Arena Pole which is about an hour away just to do her workshop! It was totally worth it. We did her Sexy Floor Workshop and I was just mesmerised by her the entire time, even during her warm up. I wish that I had filmed her because her warm up is so different to anything that I’ve ever done before and I want to keep doing it at home.
After the warm up she taught us a short routine which involved some of her basic “sexy” moves. Her advice? Do everything slow. It’s a lot harder but it looks so much better, and if you can control it it’s also a great work out! We were all dripping with sweat not even halfway through the workshop. (Sexy right?) She also stressed the importance of working on your sexy performance face, even if what you’re doing is really hard and you’re struggling to do it, never let people know that you’re struggling. Then she taught us some of the different ways to (properly) do a forwards and backwards roll. There are so many ways to do them! I had never been able to do a forwards roll before and when I tried it she picked up my one mistake straight away and yelled at me! I was so mortified with embarrassment but when she came over to help me and I tried again – I got it! For those interested, I wasn’t completely putting my head through the ‘hole’ between my arm and the floor, as soon as I did this, everything fell into place – thanks Alethea! She also taught us a few other moves called a “turtle” and the proper way to do duck dives (excruciatingly slowly) and elbow presses. At the end of class we all did a free dance which we could use the routine as a guide but she encouraged us to just do what we wanted to do, and to definitely not copy her. At the beginning I was peeking at her while I was pretending to dance but then I started to really feel the music and before long I was completely ignoring everyone else in the room and just focusing on my own movement. It felt amazing and when the song ended I just wanted to keep dancing.
After class she was selling her merchandise out of her suitcase but I had no cash! I was so devastated I should have been more organised, I’m going to jump onto her website to buy some things that I missed out on.
The workshop went for about an hour and half and in my opinion it wasn’t long enough! It felt like 15 minutes, I had so much fun and learnt so much. I now have so many new things that I want to practice and have rediscovered my love of free styling. If you ever have the opportunity to do a class or workshop with her I highly recommend you to take it! As well as being an amazing teacher she was also so down to Earth and lovely. I thought that I was going to be intimidated when I met her, since she’s such a well known figure and so highly regarded in the pole world, but I wasn’t, she was just so friendly and approachable. Her students at The Chrome Bar are very lucky to have her!
Below are some photos from the workshop:
The incredible Alethea Austin and I
My friends and I with Alethea Austin.
Have you ever had a workshop with Alethea? Or who is a polebrity that you have actually had a chance to meet and do a workshop with? I’d love to know, let me know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading,
J xx
Voguefit 