About Me

I am an AFAA certified group fitness instructor and a Pole Position certified pole fitness instructor. I have worked with pole intructor-training leaders, Shawn Francis Lee and Sharon Polsky.

This is probably not what you would expect, but I’m a shy stay-at-home mother of two. I love my current role, but I was also very content at my last paying job which was sitting at a desk all day, giving computer technical support over the phone. Don’t sound much like an "alternative" dancer, eh?

Then, sometime in 2005 I discovered Sheila Kelley’s book, The S Factor: Strip Workouts for Every Woman (at the library, no less!). I was intrigued, so I decided that I wanted to take a class. I searched the KC metro, but couldn’t find anything being offered. Finally, I thought, “Fine. If no one else is going to teach this type of class here, then I’m going to!” Once I decided that, I got more and more excited about it. I bought Sheila Kelley’s DVDs and started thinking non-stop about what I wanted my approach to my new class to be.

The next big challenge was explaining my plans to other people. It’s one thing to think about striptease, it’s another to tell your family and friends that it has become a career aspiration. In my own mind, I am a sexy hottie. Yet, half the people I told about the class said, “You?”

Yes, me!

Then, they say things like, "But you're so normal! You're so down-to-earth." I have to admit, I'm much more likely to be working with my kids on their homework than dancing in something slinky. As cliché as it may be, I’m a carpool mom, a PTO member, and an enthusiastic purchaser of tiny little tap shoes and ballet slippers.

On the other end of the spectrum, the people most unfazed by this new endeavor of mine, were my husband, my parents, and my in-laws. When I told my husband that teaching striptease is something I’d like to pursue, he simply said, “Huh, sounds like fun,” like I had just suggested that we watch a movie, and then he built my website. My father bought me Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease DVD series, my mother bought me some high-heeled stripper shoes, and my mother-in-law surprised me with a feather boa! They are all so supportive and encouraging.

Armed with my background as a traditional group fitness instructor, a few stripper documentaries, and my newly acquired DVD collection, my striptease workouts started to take shape. I have three brave friends that came over and let me practice my class on them (Hi, Sexy Mama Guinea Pigs!). On Dec. 6th, 2005, I started teaching my version of alternative dance fitness to the general public. As this niche of fitness has become increasingly more mainstream, I have been fortunate to learn from the pole-fitness industry leaders, the first women to offer pole instructor trainings for AFAA CEU credits, about how to best teach these skills while preventing injuries. I think pole-dancing is so fun that it is easy to lose track of time while getting a great interval, strength-training workout.