Jennifer Sanders is a wholesome-looking woman, petite but a bit off-center from her belly bulging with seven months of pregnancy. At the moment, she looks uncertain about how to get back up the pole she just slid down. Not fireman style, and not in a sexy kind of way. Wearing a white shirt with a black and floral collar that matches her black-floral shorts, Sanders slid down using her back, then squatted, her knees parted for her belly. And stayed there. She's comfortable. Says the baby feels secure. Doesn't look quite ready to get back up. But this is supposed to be about pole-dancing, not pole-sitting, so she concentrates, breathes, raises her arms above her head and, hand over hand, slowly heaves herself back up.
"I'm enjoying it," she says, perspiration dotting her brow. "The exercise, the workout. It relieves tension in certain areas."
It's a class-in-the-making, soon to be offered by local midwife Lydi Owen, and you're supposed to be shocked by it. "The first thing people do is turn white. Because they associate it with stripping," Owen spits. "Why has every female thing been so perverted that we associate it with something nasty?"
And then there's the area of pregnancy fetish, but we'll just keep those questions to ourselves. Because it's not just stripping that turns Owen's mood to vinegar. Such topics as male doctors, C-sections and weak women can upset this well-meaning, self-taught midwife, and there's no reason to fuel the fire with fetish talk.
Over the last 30 years, she's delivered almost 2,500 babies in women's own homes, where they sit backwards on the toilet, then squat, then, only for the delivery, lay on their back. It's intuitive, allowing gravity to work with the woman instead of planting her in bed and telling her to hold off on pushing, as she says doctors do.
So she's started a pole-dancing class, because 30 years in the business of screaming about doctors giving unnecessary C-sections and women renouncing control over their own bodies hasn't caught enough ears. On Valentine's day, when she was hanging out at Studio Open on Industrial Road, for a local news segment on pole-dancing for housewives, she squatted with the pole and thought, That's it! This is what pregnant women need to exercise the right muscles and prepare for birth. And the sensual, fun aspect didn't hurt.
For a meditative yoga studio, the scene is surprisingly chaotic. Lydi stands, watching Jennifer circle, spin and slide down the pole. Children jump on pillows and scream like banshees, shimmying up to the pole to grab and spin. One little princess marches right up to pregnant women and slaps them on their bellies. Hard. Another pregnant woman talks about cervical ripening gel. And Jada Fire, the dance instructor who owns the studio, swirls around the pole, gripping it with her hand and swiftly, gracefully, moves down until her body's a heap on the ground. Thankfully, Jennifer doesn't follow.
"What I'm teaching to the pole-dancers is totally out of the context of a strip club. It's on a spiritual level," Fire says. "They can take that into the process of their birth."
And if they wanted to try out some pasties, it just might be good practice when it comes time for diaper adhesive.
For more information about pole-dancing for pregnant women, call Lydi at 454-2233 or Studio Open at 651-6736.