2008 Woodie Awards
Dropping weights to lace up stripper boots
Danielle Plenzo '09
Issue date: 2/7/07 Section: Features
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What do you get when you put a dozen women of various ages, body-shapes and backgrounds into a steamy mirrored room complete with a stripper pole, some chairs, thumpin' beats and the shared desire for some cardiovascular fitness?
No, this is not a joke; it's the art of exotic dance, the fitness trend that has swept the nation, from A-list celebs like Carmen Electra and Lindsay Lohan to your next door neighbor, the kind woman that always sends over holiday cookies but has a secret seductive side that would shock her book club.
This innovative substitution to elliptical and treadmill boredom has captured the attention of women worldwide.
After hearing Oprah Winfrey and the women of The View chat about this phenomenon and discovering there is a studio right around the corner, my curious demon viciously beat up (perhaps maimed) my levelheaded angel, and I found myself outside Master Jay's Studio on Sansom Street in Center City Philadelphia.
My disgruntled roommate by my side, I tentatively pushed open the relatively hidden and discreet door and climbed three flights of stairs before arriving at my destination. Images of bodacious, skilled seductresses workin' the poles flooded my mind. Would these types of women be my classmates? Would they point and laugh at my stripping inexperience as they performed one-hundred-eighty degree flips and turns, all while wearing six inch stilettos?
Deciding I would feign an asthma attack if things got rough, I walked in and tried to pretend it was completely normal to tell the receptionist that I was "here for the strip aerobics class."
This particular exotic dance class was in the main room that everyone has to walk through-go figure.
The class-goers were astonishingly diverse: a sweet, mildly mortified Indian woman and her daughter, a twenty-something year old friendly Asian girl (that usually joined in yoga class upstairs, but decided to spice things up a bit), and a couple of other middle-aged women.
No, this is not a joke; it's the art of exotic dance, the fitness trend that has swept the nation, from A-list celebs like Carmen Electra and Lindsay Lohan to your next door neighbor, the kind woman that always sends over holiday cookies but has a secret seductive side that would shock her book club.
This innovative substitution to elliptical and treadmill boredom has captured the attention of women worldwide.
After hearing Oprah Winfrey and the women of The View chat about this phenomenon and discovering there is a studio right around the corner, my curious demon viciously beat up (perhaps maimed) my levelheaded angel, and I found myself outside Master Jay's Studio on Sansom Street in Center City Philadelphia.
My disgruntled roommate by my side, I tentatively pushed open the relatively hidden and discreet door and climbed three flights of stairs before arriving at my destination. Images of bodacious, skilled seductresses workin' the poles flooded my mind. Would these types of women be my classmates? Would they point and laugh at my stripping inexperience as they performed one-hundred-eighty degree flips and turns, all while wearing six inch stilettos?
Deciding I would feign an asthma attack if things got rough, I walked in and tried to pretend it was completely normal to tell the receptionist that I was "here for the strip aerobics class."
This particular exotic dance class was in the main room that everyone has to walk through-go figure.
The class-goers were astonishingly diverse: a sweet, mildly mortified Indian woman and her daughter, a twenty-something year old friendly Asian girl (that usually joined in yoga class upstairs, but decided to spice things up a bit), and a couple of other middle-aged women.
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