UKPPC Final

Sunday 11th December was the final of the UK Professional Pole Championships held in Birmingham. We were there to support Robyn of 360 Pole Dancing in Bristol who was competing in the Professional Level having successfully made it through the video heat and the live semi final back in October.

There were so many performances that I was looking forward to seeing over the three categories and I was not disappointed.

First up were the instructors. These are people who teach pole but do not perform. There were lots of great performances but the two stand out ones for me were Emily Smith and Nicole McIntyre. Sadly Emily didn’t place but Nicole was awarded runner up. The category was won by Kristina Walker. You can watch her winning performance here –



Next up was the Professional category. These are people who teach and perform. This was my favourite category which I think on the whole featured the best performances of the event. Robyn put in a good performance but unfortunately didn’t place. Lauren Red was the runner up and Bendy Kate was the winner. Also from this category Sarah Scott was given the Sponsors choice award. You can Bendy Kate’s winning performance here –



Lastly was the Elite category. The competitors in this category are all winners or runners up in a national professional competition and are competing by invitation only with no video heat or semi-final. Again all of the performances were brilliant. Karen Chaundy was the runner up and Annie Norris won. You can watch Annie’s winning performance here –



As well as the competitors we also got guest performances by Tess Taylor and Jess Leanne Norris. Both of which were very entertaining. I had been looking forward to seeing Tess perform as I really like her style.

So it was a very enjoyable event. They are planning on running it annually so I am very much looking forward to next year’s event!

UK Professional Pole Championships

Yesterday I went up to Birmingham to watch the semi final of the UKPPC and to support Robyn of 360 Pole Dancing in Bristol who was competing in the Professional Level.

The journey up was nice and easy and we found parking and the venue easily. We got into the venue and had really good front row seats.

First up was the instructor category. The standard was really good and I enjoyed all of the performances. My favourite was definitely that of Emily from Emily’s Pole Fitness in Swindon. She did a fabulous Saw themed routine which you can see here –



After a short break it was the turn of the Professional Competitors. Again the standard was really high and there were some fantastic performances. You can see Robyn’s routine here –



In addition to the competitors we also got to see two guest performances which were doubles acts. Bex and Emy with their Tomb Raider themed routine and Dan and Steve with a vampire themed routine. I never used to be a fan of doubles but I do quite like it now (although I still much prefer singles).

Six competitors from each category were selected to go through to the final which takes place in the same venue on 11th December. I’m pleased that both Robyn and Emily made it through to the final which I am very much looking forward too. For the final there will be the Instructor and Professional categories along with the Elite category which consists of previous winners of national competitions.

General update

Well as you can see the blogging more often has been a failure so far! In fact July has pretty much been a failure and I’m glad to see the back of it! A lot has been going on in the past month which has left me lacking in motivation and energy but now I hope I’m back to some kind of normality and ready to go again.

My pole classes remain busy. They are no longer full but still have a healthy attendance so that’s good. It always goes quiet over the summer anyway so I expect it to get busier again in September. I’ve been working on re-designing my website and hope to have the new version up and running sometime this month. One of my students is due to do her PDC level 3 grading this month, she works really hard and has achieved a lot.

I covered a pole party for Robyn at 360 pole dancing in Bristol on Saturday. I haven’t taught a party for ages so it was quite good to get back into that.

My personal pole practice has been ticking along slowly. My no handed genie has improved (although is still in need of a lot of polishing and practice!) and I feel that I am slowly making progress with my aysha again, I think I will have it back before too long.

It’s my birthday this month so next weekend I am holding a garden mini pole jam at my house. The idea started as some of my students said they wanted to have a go on a stage pole and a Chinese pole so I said I would do something in the summer so that they could. I am planning on building an outdoor Chinese pole but haven’t had time as yet but hopefully I’ll be able to buy the rubber this week and get an x-pole up to use as a Chinese pole.

I am considering entering the UK Professional Pole Championships. This is a new national competition for instructors with three different levels of which I would be entering the lowest level – Instructor (the other two being Professional and Elite). The first round is by video submission for which the closing date is 31st August. I’m not sure if I’m going to be ready by then. I have picked a song and have part of the routine worked out but all of my moves require polishing and I need to be able to pull off that aysha convincingly. I’ll see how things go!

I haven’t been to corde lisse all month as I was late trying to book onto the last block and it sold out before I could book my place. The new block starts tonight though and I am signed up to it so looking forward to getting back to that. Hopefully I won’t have lost too much strength.

I’ve still been going to bootcamp every week. That’s going well, I can see improvement.