Hidden between the flashy lights of pubs on Greenville Avenue is a little red door that leads you to The Girls Room. It’s dark outside, which sets the mood.
Britney Spears, Demi Moore, Carmen Electra and many more celebrities started a new workout craze: pole dancing. You can walk in any studio all around the country as a beginner or with previous experience and find the class that best suits your abilities, one that will mold your body into having flat abs, smaller thighs and perfect buttocks. In just 50 minutes you can burn up to 500 calories.
The Girls Room is just one of the numerous places where you can try the workout of the moment. It’s girls only, and the participants are not professional pole dancers.
“Pole dancing is cardio, body mechanics, strength training, core strengthening, upper body workout, power by breath work while increasing flexibility,” said Karyn Lynn, the owner of The Girls Room.
Lynn is a former Playboy model and showgirl who decided to start a studio to “show and teach women how to express their femininity in a sensual and exotic fashion through dance.”
A few women shyly entered the studio and ask about the pole dancing class. The women are wearing regular workout clothes, and have no idea what they are getting themselves into.
Lynn’s assistant, Tiffany Drenn, begins spinning around the pole and showing the women a few tricks. Two to a pole, the women try to copy Drenn’s moves.
“Some like to find themselves through yoga and meditation, while others like to explore their sexuality and dance,” said Katie, a brunette business student who does not wish to be identified.
Drenn is not a professional pole dancer; she works in sales. She took Lynn’s beginners pole-dancing class in the fall. She is now taking the advanced class and judging from her upside down position on the pole, one could swear the classes really work.
“The Girls Room is like a sanctuary,” Drenn said, “this is not a place for men to watch, it’s a place meant for girls only.”
The new women watch Lynn, intimidated.
“You will be bruised, you will be sore, but it’s a fun workout,” Drenn said. Fifteen minutes into the class, one of the girls hurts her foot and is bleeding.
In the first half of the class, the women spin around the pole trying to learn a few tricks. Lynn calls their attention and explains the importance of attitude while showing the women different walks to get to the pole.
The first walk, the “drag walk,” as she calls it, is a sensual slow walk. The second and the third, respectively the “Heidi Klum” walk and the “Burlesque” walk are faster but just as sensual.
The women line up at the end of the room and start walking up and down, imitating Lynn. All of them are smiling and laughing, clearly finding their own imitation of the walk quite amusing.
There is no tension and no pressure to be the best. The only requirement is to have a good time. One of the women taking the class, Samantha, tells me she picked pole dancing after “watching a video of ‘The Girls Next Door’ in which they were learning how to pole dance.” The popular show is about Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends and their lives at the Playboy mansion. Following the their example, Samantha, who in her everyday life is a student who loves the energy and sensuality pole dancing evokes.
Lynn’s goal is not to train professional pole dancers. “In essence the confidence and boosting of the girls’ self-esteem and self-awareness will make them able to choose the right profession or present themselves in a more confident manner in whatever profession they choose,” she says in an e-mail interview.
The women all agree that this workout is still considered taboo. Some asked not to have pictures taken of them. However, there is no judgment inside The Girls Room. “It is a safe place to express your inner diva,” Lynn said.
