302 SEPTEMBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
FITNESS
FITNESS>304
VLIFE
Pole Searching
As pole-based movement wins over fresh interpreters—from
FK A Twigs to athletes angling for Olympic recognition—its appeal goes
beyond routine fitness. Laura Regensdorf gets a grip.
HOLD STEADY
INCREASINGLY
SOUGHT-AFTER FOR
ALLOVER MUSCLE
SCULPTING—AND
THE ABILITY TO
CONNECT THE
BODY AND MIND—
POLE SPORTS ARE
HAVING A MOMENT.
PHOTOGRAPHED
BY GUY BOURDIN.
In the dimly lit basement of Body & Pole, a
sprawling three-level fitness studio in New
York’s Chelsea neighborhood, Sam Doblick is addressing
a room of pole-dancing hopefuls. Slim-hipped and barefoot,
dressed in a summer-weight tank top and black briefs,
the up-tempo instructor stretches his right arm up to grasp
a floor-to-ceiling steel rod. “This is your lat,” he says in a
safety-first tone, patting the shoulder-stabilizing muscle that
hugs the rib cage. “Latissimus dorsi is its drag name.”
It is a godly hour on a humid Sunday morning, and the
eight of us, all women, have our reasons for seeking out
the intro-level class: in my case, to escape a ho-hum yoga rut
and to get out of my head—and into some slow-rippling
body rolls. After years spent in prim posture at the barre,
pole dancing promises to be a reorientation by 90 degrees,
not to mention a serious full-body workout. The movement
technique—mesmerizing for the way it absorbs disparate
dance styles, from lyrical jazz to aerial tricks—has rocked
the cultural consciousness of late. Scouted via Instagram,
the Providence-based pole artist Neyon brought her languid
spirals to Solange’s 33-minute video for When I Get Home,
the album she dropped this March. Soon after, viral footage
of FKA Twigs—unfurling herself high in the air during
a pole sequence for her Magdalene concert tour—flooded
the internet. The British musician embodied an exquisite
contradiction: tensile strength and sylphlike ethereality.
“I train like an athlete,” Twigs recently explained, describing
her dedication to a practice that she took up less than two
years ago to “go deeper. Rebuild. Start again” following
surgery to remove painful fibroid
tumors from her uterus. It’s one thing
to muse on her unflinching tenacity; it’s
another to watch her unleash a “jade
split” before a crowd of thousands, her
upside-down body hugging the pole as
her legs sketch the horizon line.
Such raw athleticism is exactly why
there’s a growing push © THE GUY BOURDIN ESTATE, 2019
