Pole dancers want to shred the strip club connotations and go for the gold.
From a 2010 pole dancing competition in Tokyo.
Image by KAZUHIRO NOGI / Getty Images
Seven years ago, KT Coates could hardly get a local gym to take her seriously when she propositioned the idea of teaching pole dancing classes for exercise. Today, she and a small but dedicated team of pole sports enthusiasts are campaigning to get the sport into the Olympics.
"I went to so many gyms and they said I was disgusting. They shut the door on my face," she recalled.
Coates got involved in pole dancing on a whim — as a struggling actress and dancer in the U.K. in 2003, a friend brought her along to try pole dancing, and she caught on quickly, immediately recognizing that the activity was closer to a sport than it was to stripping. From there, she went from gym to gym, until one pioneering studio in her local Hertfordshire agreed to let her teach a class. From there, the classes expanded to other gyms and even some gym chains, and Coates eventually opened her own studio, called Vertical Dance.
Then came YouTube.
In 2006, Coates' husband posted a video in which Coates performs a five-minute pole dancing routine, starting with music from Swan Lake and ending with David Guetta's club hit "Love Don't Let Me Go." The video has 3.5 million views — not a paltry number for a clip from 2006. Coates, who now makes a living teaching pole dancing instructors looking to get certified, said the now-outdated video now makes her cringe, as the sport's top competitors are, today, more impressive.
Though she doesn't like to watch it anymore, she said the video was essential in garnering interest and appreciation for the sport.
Coates' pole dancing video from 2006, which went viral.
Source: youtube.com
The sport was gaining followers as it grew, but there was still tons of stigma, in that people weren't able to Around the same time the video started going viral, Coates launched an online petition for pole sports to receive Olympic recognition. "I was so fed up with people looking at me like I was a stripper," she said. "Prople weren't honoring our athletes, annd I thought the highest accolade was to be an Olympic sport. I thought no one would sign up, but suddenly thousands of people did."
The petition caught the attention of Timothy Trautman, a software anaylst for the Veteran's Association, who started a pole dancing studio in Salt Lake City. Trautman got to organizing, founding the International Pole Sports Federation, of which he is now President. Coates is the Executive Vice President.
"I did it because these women are incredible athletes. They have such grace and elegance and they absolutely belong in the Olympics. But we do fight the stereotype that it's for strippers." Trautman said. Though Trautman has practiced the sport and led classes, he's not an active participant. There are men who compete, but the sport, he said, is 80 to 90 percent female. According to Coates, men have become more interested recently. "First it was housewives, then gay guys, then straight guys, and now, even kids." A studio called Little Spinners has attracted attention for offering classes for kids as young as three. But it's only natural that a range of people (even kids) would take up the sport, as the U.K. now has over 300 studios that teach pole dancing, according to Coates.
