You may remember from my 2020 pole goals post that one goal I am hell bent on achieving this year is to attend one month of Anna Frost’s Russian exotic classes at Pink Kitten Dance School . Well hip hip hooray bitches that goal is already one quarter complete as I attended by first Russian exotic class last week, and just about survived to tell the tale!
For those of you who are unaware of what exactly Russian exotic is, to be fair that is easily done, as “exotic” in general is multiplying at a glorious rate with many different styles and branches evolving into existence. The pole encyclopaedia that is Peach Lee Ray wrote a very informative blog about all the different styles of exotic pole dance and if you’re in the mood for a hefty read, I interviewed the awesome Jamie Taylor, Jordan Kensley, Kitty Velour, Peach Lee Ray and Diana Ljung for the 101 lowdown on all things exotic.
However, before I fire off on a tangent, this blog is solely focused on Russian exotic. To summarise very briefly, Russian exotic is fucking hard. It’s twisty, fast as hell and focuses heavily on flips, kicks and energetic, dynamic movement. It also looks bloody sassy. To see Russian exotic in action, I thoroughly recommend checking out Olga Koda and Eva Bembo. There are also slower styles of Russian exotic flow that are taught at Pink Kitten, but being the wally that I am I jumped straight in for the speedy, hard style class.
Now, as someone who is no stranger (yet no expert either) to dancing in heels and general exotic choreo, I foolishly didn’t think last Wednesday’s class was going to be too difficult. I mean, surely it was just going to be a slightly speedier version of the stuff I could already do right? Right?! Wrong.
Disclosure: The link above is an affiliate link, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn commission if you click through and make a purchase.
Shit the bed it was insane. After a quick but sufficient warm up, Anna jumped straight in with a recap of the section of the routine that was taught in last week’s class before cracking on with this week’s section. What we learnt so far was twizzly, thready and required a hefty chunk of coordination but I could just about manage it, and was feeling like quite the bad bitch in the process. Now to do it to the music…
H E L P M E.
Holy fuck that was fast! What in the hell just happened?! I have never in all my five years of pole dancing ever partook in such a speedy routine! The routine, which I thought I had quite a good grip on, suddenly sped up ten fold with the drum and bass remix of Vossi Bop playing time it, my legs were flopping about in all the wrong places and guess who had to freestyle it out in the end because I had got completely lost? This bitch right here.
After that speedy sweatfest of a class (Fitbit says I burned 328 calories!) you may have thought I shuffled on home feeling disheartened, a bit potato-ey and put off from ever trying to dance again. Well nothing could be further from the truth. I bloody loved the class! I am a firm believer that in this life that we do not grow unless we leap out of our comfort zone and challenge ourselves, and what could be a more fun and energising way to do that than mastering the art of Russian exotic? I am passionate about dancing in heels, and if I limit my exotic repertoire to just body rolls and a step around followed by a back bend, I am going to loose that passion very quickly. I am going to up that repertoire big time to include all the powerful spins, dynamic Russian flow and complex twizzly shit that will throw anyone watching me dance into a state of confusion for all the right reasons.
The very next day I joined the waiting list for the next Russian Exotic class and am desperately hoping that a space pops up. You mark my words dear readers, at some point in 2020 you will see a video on my Instagram of me perfectly executing one of Anna’s Russian Exotic routines from start to finish.
Thank you for my first intro into this incredible style and an awesome class Anna! If you want some solid, challenging choreo to up your dance game, this is the class to go to.
Chrome Chronicles 