'A mix of sexiness and strength’

Sinead Hogan

“It’s like erotic gymnastics really, isn’t it?” a friend said when she heard there were pole-dancing classes in Cavan.

Karina had spoken beautifully about how her passion for pole-dancing has changed her life. Her enthusiasm for fitness and finding an exercise you’re passionate about was infectious.
“I used to maybe look at another girl walking down the street and think - oh, she’s so pretty or so fit. Now I’m really happy with me,” the Ballyhaise-based Latvian native told me.
“Pole-dancing changes your life somehow. It gives you confidence. To know that I am stronger than half of the men here makes me confident,” Karina said, looking around her during our intereview in the Hotel Kilmore.
There are other attitudes to pole-dancing, though, and mention of classes can raise eyebrows. Maybe it’s the fact that, as Karina acknowledges, sex-shops would be one of the first ports of call for buying poles. All dance is about expressing yourself with your physical body, but perhaps the sexual undertones with pole-dancing are more explicit.
“At the end of the day, you’re dancing with a pole between your legs,” a man in his 50s commented on the subject.
Whatever your own interpretation, the fact is that Karina Murniece is one fit mother-of-three, and the pole-dancing studio that she opened in Moynehall Retail Park in April is getting off to a promising start.
Karina has nine professional poles in her studio and with two students per pole, classes are for a maximum of 18. She opens five days a week, with one class some days and two others, and there’s no shortage of people (mostly from Cavan, but also Monaghan and Fermanagh) signing up.
She explained that it all started two-and-a-half years ago, when she was six months post-pregnancy with her third child, was unfit and wanted to lose weight. Before that she did “nnnnnothing!”
“I used to hate sport all my life. Like, I always skipped PE lessons in school. I would go to the gym sometimes, maybe once or twice a week, but I don’t consider it a sport.
“I was quite overweight. I put on 30kg when I was pregnant. I had lost some of that before I started pole-dancing but still was quite big, maybe 14kg overweight.”

Why pole-dancing?
“I like to dance, although I never did any dancing. To go to dance classes where you need a partner wasn’t an option for me,” she says, explaining that it wouldn’t be husband Alex’s cup of tea.
“I just heard about pole-dancing here and there. I like it, the high heels. I like the mix of sexiness and strength. I watch the videos on Youtube and the girl comes up to the stage in these seven-inch stilettos and then she’s a real acrobat. She’s doing this stuff which most of the men never dreamed of being able to do,” says Karina.
She signed up to the closest class she could find to Ballyhaise, which was in Drogheda - and hasn’t looked back.
“When I went to my first class, unfortunately there was no heels, and it was like an army! It was so hard I could barely walk for a week after my first class. I remember I was driving home, it was night-time, I had no idea where I was and I couldn’t push on the gas pedal because my legs were like jelly.”
Any exerciser will relate to her new attitude to such discomfort.
“I love this pain now. When you feel like you were hit by a truck, it means you’re getting stronger. I’m really addicted to it now.”

Commitment
She continued making the journey to Drogheda, getting home to Ballyhaise around midnight, every week for a year, but also bought herself a pole and trained after the kids’ bedtime.
She was “hooked” from the first time she danced at a pole - a passion that gave birth to commitment.
“I’d train most days, sometimes for an hour, sometimes longer. Sometimes you have good days, sometimes bad days when you can’t do anything. You get on this pole and you realise nothing is happening. Going to the studio once a week is not enough,” says Karina.
“I didn’t work outside the home then. I waited till my kids were in bed, and then I trained so it was my golden hour. I tried to find the time,” she says, joking that sometimes it’s as easy a choice as, “I’d better leave the dishes and go train!”
The long journey spurred her on to become a teacher. She started classes in a rented studio last November, before opening her own studio, 'Just Spin It’.
There’s no shortage of interest.
“Actually, I was very surprised with the response.”
She’s finding that commitment can be an issue with some students, as is the case with most hobby classes no doubt.
“People come, people go. For pole-dancing you really need to commit if you want to go to higher levels. You need to be passionate about it. In beginner classes we don’t do any extreme stuff like spins, but from the first class I start to teach pull-ups and ab-crunches to strengthen the body. To go to the next level, where you’re starting to climb the pole et cetera, you need some strength to do it. A lot of people are progressing.”
Karina has become competitive, delighted to take third place in her first competition, which was the Irish Pole Fitness and Dance Championship in Club 92 in Leopardstown.
But there’s so much to get out of pole-dancing other than trophies, and this is what hobby students are after.
Number one; there’s the fitness, and how that looks and feels.
“Pole-dancing is really good for toning your body. I was pleasantly shocked when I saw the changes in my body. It didn’t take that long time, say six months.
“In fitness terms, I honestly don’t know what can be better. It’s really a full body work-out. You’re engaging all your muscles, all of them. You have to lift your own body-weight only using your arms.”
There’s also the affect on posture, for which Karian is a good ad.

Grace
“One of the things I say most in class is 'point your toes’. I try to get the girls to maintain their lines with hands and toes. When you’re dancing you have to be graceful. It really makes a difference.”
But even beyond the cosmetic and physical benefits, there’s a massive psychological impact with fitness that anyone who is passionate about their exercise of choice is aware of.
“I like when middle-aged people come to my studio. It makes me so proud for them. Or sometimes the bigger girls who come to the studio are shy and scared. Then you see how they’re fighting. They’re starting to feel confident in their own body.”
As if that’s not enough, there’s the social benefit as well.
“Classes are fun and everybody is very supportive. When one person is struggling with a move, everyone will be clapping and cheering her up,” says Karina, who explains that the pole-dancing community is quite small, so she’s gotten to know a lot of other teachers and competitors.
“You know sometimes you want to talk about your pole-dancing problems! Discuss the bruises and stuff!”
With a start-up business, Karina is keen to attract more students to her studio and admits that she finds “people are scared, for some reason”.
She admits that it may indeed be the sexual associations and wants to clear that up.
“People need to do more research. There are so many different styles of pole-dancing. Recently there was a world pole-dance championship in London and they wanted to put it into the Olympics. It’s just pure gymnastics with a pole.”
She admits that this style isn’t her taste, and she aims to be more artistic.
“What I don’t like is they all seem the same, they have compulsory moves, there’s no individuality. That’s only my opinion, obviously there are lots of people who love this stuff. I like when you can see the emotions, and you’re telling the story. Pole-dancing is very much connected with contemporary dance, which I love, and would love to learn. It’s pure expression, telling the story using your pole. It’s beautiful, jaw-dropping sometimes...”

See www.justspinit.ie