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Published November 17, 2025

Failing Beautifully

Pole dance taught me to embrace myself—even what I'd seen as my failures.
Caption: “In January of 2024, I was deep into a self-help book that challenged me to do something out of my comfort zone.” Ami: “Oh God…” Caption: “I was out of work, depressed, and struggling after a failed pregnancy journey.” Ami: “Oh jeez.” Caption: “That all led to a creative block. I was desperate to claw myself out of it all.” Instructor: “We’re going to start with a basic move today. Start by hooking your leg low.” Ami: “Oh no…” Caption: “And that’s how I found myself in “Intro to Pole.”Instructor: “As you push your hips forward, kick off and bring your toes together into a backhook spin. Now you try!” Ami: “How!?” Caption: “I’d never been graceful nor very confident before…” Ami: “I mean, there’s no way.” Caption: “That winter, my self-doubt was a crushing weight that burdened everything I did. However…”Caption: “Standing at that shiny pole, what else was there to do but try?” Instructor: “Push your hips forward.” Ami: “There’s simply no wa–Hey!? I’m…doing it!” Instructor: “Well done!”Caption: “My first foray up a pole was driven by a challenge in The Artist’s Way.” Ami (reading from book): “Do something that makes you uncomfortable.” Caption: “Pole came to mind right away.” Ami: “Why is there a school for that?” Caption: Why was I so quick to judge pole dance? Just as I’d been so quick to judge myself…” Ami: “This is all your fault. My fault. That’s right…”Caption: “For all my recent shortcomings. I was in a dark place. And despite a free schedule that I’d longed for…My creativity stalled completely.”Caption: “When I first stepped into the studio I quickly found myself shimmying up, twisting and spinning around,” Instructor: “Like so.” Caption: “Pushing my body through discomfort and finding I could reach higher, learning moves and dances that seemed impossible!” Ami: “Err…” Caption: “Pole was a mental and physical challenge like no other.” Ami: “I can’t, I can’t.” Instructor: “You can!” Caption: “My instructors urged me on,” Instructor: “I’ve got you! Just let go…”Caption: “Supported me.” Amy: “I did it!” Caption: “And let me be at ease with myself in a way I didn’t know I needed.” Instructor: Now just regrip…” Ami: “Not sure I can!” Instructor: “...or just slide to the ground, that works too.”Pamela, dancer and instructor: “How would I describe pole? I would say empowering.” Ami: “And how has it changed?” Pamela: “I started teaching fifteen years ago. Back then, nobody ever knew what pole was…” Caption: “Humans have danced with and around poles for thousands of years, but modern pole is said to have originated in fairgrounds of the 1900s where dancers used tent poles in their acts.”Caption: “The first places where dancers combined burlesque, circus, and striptease on a metal pole were at strip clubs in the 1950s. Fighting strict regulations, social stigma, and sometimes exploitative club practices, strippers nevertheless took the dance to new heights in the decades that followed. By the 1990s, pole stepped out of the club with videos and studios that promoted it as healthy exercise. Even though some of these early hobbyists sought to distance pole from its sex work origins, claiming that pole was built on anything other than sex work is disrespectful and only furthers harmful taboos.”Caption: “In pole you must balance flexibility, strength, and coordination, all while moving with grace.” Ami: “You can kick into this move like me, but eventually…you’ll build the core muscles to lift into it.” Caption: “A few years before pole, I had a miscarriage.”Ami: “God…fuck!” Caption: “And then an IVF failure, and another. At the same time, I ran out of work. Depression set in. It wasn’t my fault. But that wasn’t how my brain saw it.”Caption: “When I turned to my art for comfort, I found my creative voice completely. I struggled to look at myself in the mirror without crying. That was when I found myself signing up for pole. I honestly never thought of myself as mother material. I wasn’t that type of person. But I never thought of myself as sexy or elegant either. And hey, look what I can do!”Caption: “Dance brings joy. That is something we’ve known to be true since we were first humans. A recent study even supposes that the process of learning pole can turn gender dysphoria into euphoria with the concept of ‘failing beautifully.’ I love that concept!”Caption: “It took a while for me to finally film myself in class, a common practice during choreo in my studio…when I finally did, I had a look after class and was shocked. My eyes didn’t jump to my clumsiness, profuse sweat or bad posture. Though I searched, I didn’t see the failure I’d been telling myself I was. Pole gave me the surprising chance to see myself apart from the negative voices in my head. And put me back into a creative flow I don’t think I’ll ever lose touch with again.”Caption: “I’m so excited that there’s still so much for me to learn from pole. As for the pregnancy, I’ve accepted it most likely won’t happen. But isn’t it beautiful that I tried?”

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