Back to blogging for The Pole Dancing Shop

The Pole Dancing Shop has been amazing to me!  They sponsored the Twirly Girls calendar and they just allowed me to guest blog for a third time!

http://www.thepoledancingshop.com/news/76/Will-Pole-For-Charity-by-Lori-Myers.html

Will Pole For Charity by Lori Myers

Posted on 1st Jan 2011 @ 8:42 PM

In April 2010, Twirly Girls Pole Fitness held a fundraiser to benefit the National Kidney Foundation.  One of our very own, the Lovely Rita, is a three-time kidney transplant recipient.  She does the NKF 5k walk in San Francisco each May and needed to raise money.  The studio happily held a day of classes, an open house, silent auction, raffle and dance recital to benefit the foundation.  We raised almost $3,000.

We decided to do it even bigger in 2011.  The Twirly Girls put together a calendar shoot, featuring students, instructors, and our supportive men.  We are planning to do another day of classes, etc. in April 2011.  We should easily be able to double or triple our donation this year.  We are asking other studios who are interested in getting involved to contact us to coordinate.  We can put you in touch with the National Kidney Foundation for fundraising materials.  It's a fun way to promote your studio and feel like you've done something good for the world.  [See my blog post:  http://lolorashel.blogspot.com/2010/11/calling-all-pole-studios.html]

For me, the biggest challenge is getting ready for the dance recital.  Performing for people outside of my comfortable and supportive class is very scary.  I am doing a group number with the FEVER! girls.  But I am also doing a surprise (guess it won't be much of a surprise if Rita reads this...so I won't reveal TOO much here) number alone.  I had set a goal two months ago to lose enough weight and gain enough strength to invert within six months (which would be somewhere around April).  I have a goal of losing a total of 35 pounds.  I have lost 8 so far.  Sometimes I move a little slowly, but at least the scale is finally moving in the right direction.

I am planning to start the Couch-2-5k plan in January so that I can start preparing for the Bay to Breakers in San Francisco (it is a 12K over some difficult hills).  I am already doing 5k's but I mostly walk/jog them and I want to be able to run the entire way.  It won't help much with strength but it will give me a good cardio workout so that I can lose the weight.  On January 3, I am starting a 7-week boot camp that promises to kill us on Mondays.  While losing the weight, I also need to work hard on gaining strength so that I can actually haul myself up into an invert without breaking my neck.

I have already increased my yoga classes and am going to add pilates reformer classes next month to help with flexibility and core strength.  I also took a pilates class that incorporated ballet moves, so I am becoming more interested in using those moves to make me stronger and help with my fluidity.
So, that is my plan for the first quarter of 2011.  I hate setting New Years resolutions because they are so easily forgotten.  That's why I set my goals now and plan to keep them.  What are your goals for 2011?

Lori Myers
Student at Twirly Girls Pole Fitness Studio in Pleasanton, California
http://lolorashel.blogspot.com/