New workout craze a pole lot of fun

TURLOCK -- The sexy crawl. The backslide. The pirouette into a squat. Heavy hair, also known as the sexy push-up. The grand finale: the fireman spin.

This is not your grandmother's workout. This is pole dancing, for fitness, in downtown Turlock.

Women in groups of five to 10 have been meeting sisters Diane Flores, 29, and Tina Kelly, 26, four times a week in a purple backroom at the Blown Away Salon & Spa on Center Street.

The shades are pulled tight. The light is low and four stainless-steel, 9-foot poles run floor to ceiling. There are slinky baby-doll T-shirts with the company logo -- Venus Pole Fitness -- for sale on one wall and a stack of stripper shoes from shining red patent leather boots with 5½-inch heels to frilly, lace ballet slippers -- with 5½-inch heels.

There are no two-drink minimums. No dollar bills. No nudity and no men. There isn't even any crude language or "pros," i.e. exotic dancers. This is exercise. With a pole. In stripper shoes.

"Women love it," Flores said. "It's new and fresh. It's the next new Pilates or yoga for women."

The exercise routine incorporates stretching and yoga-style movement with a little derring-do. Many of the moves are slow; body weight acts as the resistance to strengthen muscles. Some moves involve pulling oneself off the ground. Some advanced moves seem to defy gravity.

In Pole Dancing 101, the sexy crawl is a way to approach the pole. The pirouette into a squat is a way of connecting to it -- ending with the pole against the dancer's back, squatting. The backslide is a move from standing to sitting. Heavy hair basically is a slow, drawn-out push-up, with the behind coming up first, as if the head and hair are heavy, held to the ground.

And the grand finale, the fireman spin, is a leap up and spin down and around the pole, just like a fireman.

"Women are so amazed when they leave sore or feel sore the next day," Flores said.

The two sisters saw pole dancing as an exercise on Oprah Winfrey's talk show a few years ago. Then, a couple years later, they were thinking of something fun to do with friends and decided on a pole-themed "girls' night in."

Flores and Kelly are married with children and have not worked in the industry that made pole dances popular.

They had such a good time with that first party, that they started hosting pole-dance parties around the region. Soon, partygoers were interested in a more sustained workout, so Flores cleared her husband and children out of her home in Hilmar two nights a week.

"No one in the area did it, so we thought, 'Why can't we do it?' " Flores said. "We both have supportive husbands, we're married and we're looking for something fun to do."

Venus Pole Fitness is the first business of its kind in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

The poles are made in Fresno. The sisters hold day jobs in the medical field -- Kelly checks patients into a local emergency room and Flores does medical transcriptions from home -- but as word spreads, that could change.

Classes immediately expanded

Most students heard about the class online, Flores said. The studio opened Feb. 3 with two classes a week and immediately had to expand to three. Classes are booked through February. In March, classes will run four days a week. The Valentine's Day lap dance workshops sold out.

"It's the up-and-coming thing right now," said Khristina Syl- vester, owner of Curves at Roseburg Square and Standi- ford Avenue in Modesto -- two women-only workout centers. "It's not what I'd be doing, but I do know women who have done it. It gives us something to talk about."

Kelly has a Venus Pole Dance sticker on her car and said she's caught some static. Flores said she lost a friend who didn't like the idea. They often have to reiterate that they're married, with children, are not strippers and never have been.

"All we ask is you come and try a class," Kelly said. "People can't really have those opinions until they come in here and see what we do. This is a class for everyday women."

It might be sensual, Kelly said, but it's not dirty.

Flores and Kelly said their average student is a 35- to 40-year-old woman and they've had everyone from doctors to lawyers to teachers -- a lot of teachers, Kelly said.

There is a certain stigma, though.

In a recent class, only one of six students agreed to be interviewed. Most of the students were young women, under 30, and weren't excited about seeing a male reporter awkwardly leaning against a wall, video camera in hand. (For being good sports, Flores gave them a free class.)

Judy Perez, 56 of Merced, however, didn't care who knew about her new exercise routine.

"Its fun!" she said. "It's great exercise!"

Perez, who has had a total hip replacement and recently dislocated clavicle, said it's not at all difficult. Every woman moves at her own pace. A country-western and salsa dance veteran, Perez said many of the moves are just like dancing.

"The difficulty's here," she said, pointing at her head. "But you know what? You only live once."

Bee staff writer Michael R. Shea can be reached at mshea@modbee.com

or 578-2391.