The surest way to put me on the defensive is to tell me I can’t do something because of my age. People love projecting their assumptions about skill, talent, and what’s acceptable onto others. I don’t know what I’m capable of, nor do these idiots. Meritless notions are gauntlets thrown at my feet. And now I must drag myself out of bed and prove them wrong.
This defiance is the ‘how’ and ‘why’ I stood half-naked on a stage in lower Manhattan in a pole fitness competition in my forties. I’d read a cloying article about diminishing dreams and estrogen levels, and I wanted to spit. The author babbled about radical acceptance and accepting my crepey elbows. “The beauty of age is knowing when to let go of impractical activities and embrace this stage of life and your chin hair—both signs of maturity and wisdom.”
I signed up for a pole class after I burned the article in a dumpster fire. It was intolerable to think that climbing a pole was behind me.
Ironically, I’d had a run-in with the pole fifteen years earlier.
Living in Los Angeles, I saw an ad for a fitness class one smoggy afternoon—Introduction to the Stripper Pole. I signed up. I was curious and thought people would think I was audacious. Paula Lord was the owner of You Foxy Studios. She’d turned the stripper pole into a workout, marketing herself as the Body Whisperer. Women took control of their sexuality, empowered themselves, blah, blah, blah—I didn’t care about any of that. I cared that Paula’s husband was a television producer on The X-Files. It came up on the website when I researched her class. I was a struggling actor, convinced he’d put me on the show if I could meet him.
My plan was rock solid: Befriend Paula and get invited to her house for a holiday or Hollywood confab. Meet her husband, ask her to use the bathroom, pretend to be lost, and snoop. Find Mr. Producer’s study, place my headshot and resume on top of the stack of television scripts on the coffee table, and receive a call from The X-Files casting director the following morning offering me a recurring role as a terrorist in a coma.
Paula’s class had too much talk of “pleasure journey” and “erotic truth,” and we didn’t become friends.
I was giving the pole another chance.
My instructor at Fitness & Pole, Holly, was six feet with a jet-black mullet, biceps like the Tetons, zero percent body fat, and a red-inked MOM across her chest. From the very first class, I was in love with the work. I can’t say why this time was different. Maybe because Holly never asked the class to feel themselves up while writhing on the floor.
I bought booty shorts and non-slide liquid for a tighter grip. I made friends with burlesque dancers and trapeze performers. Boy, did I regret not running away from home and joining the circus when I had the chance.
A month after I’d started, Holly told our class that the U.S. National Pole Championship was coming to New York. I asked her if she thought I was ready. I’d only hung upside down a handful of times.
“Definitely,” she said. “There’s an over-forty category.” I didn’t remember telling her my age. What, I wondered, could’ve possibly given me away? Her assumption fueled my “I’ll show you” fire building inside me.
When I returned to my apartment, I registered for the competition with an emboldened confidence.
I began training like a professional athlete.
I bought a pole for my cozy New York apartment. It stood at the intersection of the bathroom and the kitchen. Occasionally, my foot would get caught on the edge of the sink, but I persevered. I’ve never trained for a marathon or a beauty pageant where I had to be physically fit. I’ve dieted and danced in musicals—but neither required muscular grip strength nor the ability to climb using my feet and armpits.
My friend Sharon, who played Victoria, the White Cat, in the CATS National touring company, helped me choreograph my two-and-a-half-minute routine. I chose Sade’s soulful and jazzy song “Your Love is King” as my musical accompaniment—slow and controlled like I’d hoped to be on the pole.
Holly was a four-time champion. I was in good hands. In addition to physical and technical training, she advised me to avoid salty foods so that I wouldn’t retain water and to consider an enema on show day.
After three months of preparation, my inner thighs were black and blue, my calves were swollen and veiny, and the tops of my feet were torn like they’d been repeatedly whacked with a steel pipe. I was ready.
On the morning of the competition, I put on a black bra with strategic cutouts and teeny tiny black shorts underneath my street clothes. I accessorized with red ropes that crisscrossed the length of my forearms and threw them into my backpack. My bunion and age-related flat feet prevented me from wearing spiky high heels. I’m afraid it’s orthotics and cushioned soles from now on.
I rode my bicycle to the theater while drizzling rain fell on my freshly flat-ironed hair. Suddenly, I was hit with nerves. Why did my rebel yell have to be such a big production number? I’ll tell you why because my motto is, “Go big or don’t bother.” As uber model Linda Evangelista once quipped, “We have this saying, Christy [Turlington] and I… we don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” Same. Only instead of money, it’s someone challenging my ability and fearing they might be right.
Nerves aside, I’d picked up the gauntlet and wouldn’t turn around. I’d told too many people about my courageous quest. My performance was for women like me everywhere. Maybe I’d be nominated for CNN Hero of the Year. “Thank you, Anderson. I’m showing women that dimpled knees, hairy toes, and dry toast-like vagina aside, that anything is possible. This award is for them.
The theater lobby was abuzz. Men in loin cloths and women wearing little more than headbands strapped across their boobs kicked and twisted on the hideous red carpet in the hallway and arched over railings and chairs.
Walking up the three flights to the dressing room, I grew increasingly self-conscious. This is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous. I didn’t owe women everywhere anything. Unlike when I did stand-up comedy and could hide behind self-deprecating humor, the pole was too narrow to hide anything. My crepey elbows and flawed arrogance were about to be exposed.
Cracked mirrors and three-legged tables were strewn around the room. A female stage manager, wearing a headset and holding a clipboard, entered. “You have a half hour to practice,” she barked. “Please head to the stage.” Rehearse our routines? In front of everyone? I felt sick. Two poles were set up: one static and one spin. They were much taller than the one suctioned to the eight-foot ceiling in my hobbit hole. I stood in line with the fittest-looking bodies I’d ever seen, waiting for my turn. I wondered which of these contortionists and acrobats were in my group of forty-ites.
I had to admit that my riotous anger had overestimated my skill set. Oh, I can talk a good game. Is there a medal for “most convincing imposter?” When I was young, I tried convincing New Yorkers that I was a ballet dancer by waddling around like a duck. And now my hip dislocates when I fart.
When it was my turn, I took my opening position with fifty pairs of eyes watching. To my right, a young woman spun and twirled—hair whipping around her face. She’s going to have bone spurs in her neck when she’s my age, for sure.
An hour after the practice round, an announcement came over the PA system in the dressing room. The Master (over forty) group was performing next. I tightened the ropes on my forearms, applied another layer of Vaseline to my lips, and walked backstage.
Show time.
The Stage Manager gave me the signal, and I walked out on stage with my head held high. It didn’t matter what might happen—falling, tripping, or sliding down the pole face first. I’d already won.
Sade started singing, and I pressed my back against the pole. My routine started with a couple of body rolls, seducing the chrome with my bare midsection. After some minor moves, I started my ascent. When I climbed to the top, I performed my favorite trick—the crossed ankle-sit. From there, I twisted my lower body to one side, spiraling myself around the pole for a few rotations, and then dropped to the floor in painfully slow motion. A strand of my straightened hair stuck to my glossed lips. DO NOT FALL rang in my ears. I checked out for a few crucial moments, forgot the choreography, and had to improvise. In another spot, I rushed and got ahead of the music. But it’s all about how you finish. I hit my final pose, coiled around the base of the pole, with my hair still pasted to my face. I couldn’t stop grinning. My body was vibrating. When I heard hands clapping, I almost started laughing. I sprang up from the floor, bowed, and skipped off stage. I may have squealed.
When I passed the Stage Manager, she whispered, “Keep doing this.”
What? I thought. Wow, I must have slayed.
I sprinted to the dressing room, taking the stairs two at a time—proud and cocky. While I got dressed, I wondered what might have happened had I stuck with the Body Whisperer fifteen years earlier. Had I continued, I might’ve had both a television and pole career.
When the competition was over, the participants gathered on stage for the awards ceremony. The MC walked up to the microphone. “The second-place medal in the U.S National Pole Championships Over 40 group is…” I thought I had misheard when my name was called. It was unexpected and absurd but also so right. The Stage Manager is right. I should keep doing this.
A silver medal was placed around my neck—just like at the Olympics. The thunderous applause that I imagined was deafening. I also imagined ripping the microphone out of the MC’s hands and thanking my agent and the man upstairs.
As I peddled back to my apartment, the Stage Manager’s encouragement echoed. Her crumb of attention was a formidable invitation. Maybe it was the authority and power of her headset. You must know! I’ll do that now. The award confirmed what I’d been yelling about. “It’s not too late until I say it is.” I was going pro.
If I could place second after only three months of training, imagine what I could accomplish after four or five months: Pole World Champion, the Pole Masters Cup, speaking engagements, branding my own line of travel poles and knee pads.
By the time I hung up my bicycle in my apartment, the adrenaline subsided. I poured a Kombucha and sat at my kitchen table. Was I seriously going to upend my life to pursue the pole? I was a working (albeit sporadic) writer. It might’ve been an exciting pursuit back in my body whisperer days. But now, not everything that I try or am capable of has to mark a career shift. I’d have to be content dancing and poling alone like no one’s watching.
I’d probably regret it in the morning, but I microwaved a broccoli and bean burrito—I was starving. I also wasn’t in training anymore. When I was done, I went into the bedroom to change out of my pole costume. I pulled down my booty shorts and was shocked to see that I’d been wearing them backward and inside out.
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Fabulous article! I am so with you. As a woman who started Latin dancing in my 60s, I too hear the spoken and unspoken. You go, girl!