Peta Willis – Aunty Peta

Peta comes to us with 18 years of dance training behind her. Not only has she been a student with IWRBPD for 2 years but she started training in dance from the grand old age of 6. Bless.

Yes she’s one of those…..’Been dancing since she was little, always points her toes and looks elegant and graceful in every spin she does.’

Yet for some reason we just can’t hate her? She is down to earth, funny and her homoeopathic roots means she is a caring and loveable character!

Not only does Peta have her own little boy to look after but she also helps teach ballet and modern to children as young as 6 years old.

She juggles home, life and teaching along with her studies for a Masters Degree in Psychology.

So in short she’s heavily experienced in dance, always points her toes, caring, funny, patient, a multitasking mum and a real brain box when it comes to Psychology!

So we think she’s an all round good egg!

Anyway enough of me here’s what Peta has to say about being a mum and pole dancing!

Us mums all know that having and raising children is the most amazing and rewarding thing you will ever do. However, us mums also know that it’s not always sunshine and rainbows… After having your children do you find that you sometimes feel…

  • Like all you do is work, wash, cook and clean?
  • Less sexy than you used to?
  • Like you’ve forgotten that your first name isn’t ‘mum’?
  • Unfit?
  • Like you fancy a bit of a challenge?

Finding that work/life balance is can be tough, and often it is mum that ends up compromising on ‘me-time’ so that all the school uniform is ready for Monday morning.

However, it seems that could be a way to solving all of the above dilemmas in one fell swoop… Pole dancing. Now, before you switch off and navigate away from this page, let me try and dispel some of the myths that surround this amazing sport.

Pole dancing is the same as stripping

  • Pole Dancing and Stripping are two different things but you are right that they sometimes (i.e. in some unsavoury venues) are used to encourage men for a private dance. Stripping is ….well, taking your clothes off. The only time you’ll be doing THAT in class is when you take your coat off at the door. Pole Dancing is dancing with a pole. Just the same as line dancing is dancing in lines. Pole Fitness incorporates the pole using it as a fitness tool and Pole Gymnastics… well you get the idea. The classes I am talking about are a collaboration of the Pole Fitness, Dance & Gymnastics.  It requires amazing strength and flexibility, and whilst you may see some of the world’s top pole dancers wearing pants and a crop top, this is generally so that they have as much skin contact on the pole for grip purposes.

You have to be young/pretty/strong/skinny/flexible to pole dance

  • Let’s take these things one at a time. The age range in our classes ranges from 18 to 55, so age is definitely not an issue here!
  • Being pretty and batting your eyelids might make getting a free drink from a guy in a bar an awful lot easier, but it means absolutely nothing in a pole class. Everyone is there for one thing only, to get fit and continue on their own ‘pole journey’.
  • Whilst being strong does help when pole dancing, it is something that you develop along the way, sometimes without realising it! Most of us rarely use the muscles required to pole dance in our everyday life, so most of us are starting from scratch in this department. Strength for pole dancing comes from practise and training, so it doesn’t matter how strong/weak you were to start with! This is the same with flexibility – it comes with practise and training and anyone can do it if they work at it,

Mums don’t/shouldn’t pole dance

  • It has come to light that mums definitely do pole dance, as we have proof that over 50% of our current students that attend our classes are mums. I am also of the opinion that mums definitely should pole dance, because it gives us the chance to learn a new skill, get fit, become body confident, and make some friends along the way.

I, myself, am a mum, and I started pole dancing just over 2 years ago, and I can honestly say it was one of the best things I did. I have gained so much on so many levels from going to classes, from body confidence, to strength, to determination, to some amazing friends. I started off as one of those people who said “you’ll never get me in a pair of shorts”, and a couple of months later I was in a pair of shorts without a care in the world. I have loved it so much that in the past year I have been training to be an instructor and have successfully passed all levels with distinction! For that I feel rather proud of myself!

I am really looking forward to sharing my passion for the sport and introducing more people, particularly mums, to pole dancing.

Thank You for reading my story and hope to see some of you in a class soon!

Peta  🙂