International Pole Camp 2010!

Wow, where to start?!

Firstly a mahoosive thank you to Alena Downs and everyone who put so much work into planning, organising and delivering IPC 2010!

It only struck me half way through the weekend that it would be perfectly normal to be quite daunted by the thought of flying 9 hours from the UK to Canada to meet a group of people I'd never met before... That thought had never crossed my mind: The pole community is so amazing, so friendly, helpful, welcoming and unique that when I landed in Calgary on Wednesday, I felt like I was about to meet up with old friends.

When I saw 2 girls checking into the hotel on Thursday (after a lot of shopping in the mall!), one wearing a pole shirt, it was simple to just go up and say hi. My first new friends, Linda and Monique.

Thursday night was the first IPC event, the cocktail party, which was a great way to get to know each other. It was also an opportunity to perform - which I utterly love and wish I could do more! This was only the 4th time I'd ever poled in public in a club type environment and every time I do it I want more! It was also great to see everyone else doing their thing, see the guest instructors (Karol Helms, Alethea Austin and Josiah Grant) totally rocking the pole.

The beautiful thing about the pole community is it doesn't matter how good you are, nobody is comparing or judging (How do you follow Karol Helms? You just get up there and do it, do what you do, even if it's not as great as what she does). Everyone knows we were all beginners once, were all intermediate, and are all still learning, we all appreciate what everyone has to offer.

Community and camaraderie were mentioned many times over the weekend. IPC was of course an amazing example of this , but I haver to mention something else I experienced recently. I was watching a competition here in the UK and this beautiful girl with a fabulous costume began her routine, which promised to be great. Then 30 seconds in, she froze, or forgot her moves, and just stopped. I could see her so upset, a little shake of her head as if to say "I can't do this, I've got to get off this stage". And instead of the crowd going quiet, rippling with sympathetic murmurs, we erupted. We cheered and applauded like she'd just pulled off the most amazing trick in the world. We weren't letting her off that stage! In our cheers, we told her how much we loved her, that these were her 3 minutes and that we wanted to see her. And she carried on and I watched with tears in my eyes at how amazing the pole community is.

So back to IPC. I love performing. My tricks aren't amazing, I probably still hold myself with that stiffness in my upper back that my dance examiners commented on as a child (in fact, I know I do as Alena pointed it out!) so I'm not as fluid as I'd like... but everyone is so amazing and encouraging that I know it doesn't matter, I can get up there and do what I love, and every pole person there will whoop at the good bits and not laugh at the bad bits, just as we all do for everyone who gets up there. I get such a buzz out of performing and I love IPC for giving me that opportunity. As if that wasn't enough, Josiah came up to me and said he loved watching me! Wow!

Friday was instructor workshops and the party bus Whiskey nightclub night out! "Your Man" by Down With Webster will now always be the IPC Party Bus song! The buses were epic and were like the icing on the cake of the weekend, I totally rate the Party Machine buses! Thank you Tom and crew for sponsoring IPC and providing epic transport :)

Throughout the weekend, I had workshops (one-2-one or small group) with all the instructors as well as the group workshops on Saturday and Sunday. I've got plenty of new things to practice, and have shared some of what I know with others. One of the other (many) wonderful pole things is that there's always something to learn from someone else, whether it's a variation on something, a spin you've never seen before, a new trick, an inspiration... Alena gave some great talks on safety, spotting and grips, stuff every poler needs to know. She's so knowledgeable about the human body and the mechanics of pole, it's amazing to have the opportunity to learn from her... and indeed meet her in person! I've had online lessons with Alena (brilliant, by the way: if you want to do them, then do, they are great) so it was great to go from 2D to 3D! Hell, IPC was 4D, the pole dimension is a whole other dynamic to add to everything!

A big shout out to all my roomies: Kenna, Krista and Veronika, and then Brenda, Mel, Linda and Monique! And all the other wonderful people I met, laughed and poled with, I won't name everyone as I'll miss someone out but you all know who you are!

Thank you Heather for the herbal remedies and for looking out for me when I totally crashed on Saturday lunchtime... (as well as everyone else who checked on me to see if I was ok) and thank you to the wonderful lady who gave me the ginger ale at the same time, I've no idea who you are as I was so spaced out but thank you, it really did help!

I'm running out of momentum to write this, there are so many more things I could write about and even then it wouldn't cover everything that happened and what a totally unique and amazing experience IPC was. I've made new friends and have memories that will last for ever. If anyone from IPC comes to the UK, you are more than welcome to stay with me, and my instructor Lisa will open her studio to you (loads of lovely high X-poles to play on!) for free too!

I hope to be back next year, and aim to bring some other folk from the UK with me too...

Love and pole