I’m tall, 5’10 to be exact. In the pole world, that’s a lot of legs to lift. Speaking of legs, last month at Polecon, I purchased a pair of Shibari Chic Goddess Grip leggings from the brand, Active Elixir.
Pulling them up my legs felt like putting on a bat suit! I wondered if there were built-in superpowers (hey, you never know!).
What is it like to wear grippy clothing on the pole? Well, if you’ve never tried it, I’ll start by saying it can be pretty cool. For one thing, grippy material feels to me a bit like using training wheels.
A few pole performances ago, I learned a move that my instructor refers to as a “roley poley.” I’m not sure what the official pole term is, but it’s similar to a torso switch. When learning this move, the scariest part for me was trusting the flip over to the feet. Even though it’s low to the ground, the key is a strong knee grip.
As you can see in the video, I’m wearing grippy leggings as I performed the move during a rehearsal. However, my goal was to perform the move without the leggings.
The grippy leggings made the move less scary and I eventually became comfortable enough to remove the leggings and do the “roley poley” without the grip support (see next video).
Grippy clothing comes in handy for initial support. Depending on the types of pole moves you are hoping to do, grippy clothing can lessen the fear. However, there is no guarantee of success.
Successfully accomplishing a pole trick takes time, patience and persistence. In fact, I’m totally okay with not getting tricks. Having overcome a significant injury, I recognize when to back off (you can read about my pole journey here).
They can also be pretty stylish. If you are like me and have trouble deciding what to wear for pole, owning some grippy clothing lets you expand your wardrobe options.
Overall, in reviewing these particular Goddess Grip Leggings, I found them to be very easy to pull my knee pads over the grippy material and the foot stirrups fit well as I wore my heels, though you can choose not to use them.
Let’s face it, these particular leggings are a bit of an investment, but if they have the potential to help you conquer a specific pole move like they did for me, then it may be worth a splurge.
I’d love to hear from you: What are your takeaways from using grippy pole clothing?
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