" title="Andrea James Lui"> Andrea James Lui

This trick is called Yogini (aka Basket, Cradle, Rocking Horse) – it’s pretty much a yoga bow pose on a pole. The pole is squeezed between my arm and my side and just like the actual yoga pose, the harder you kick your legs back, the nicer your back arch. Incidentally, kicking your legs also pulls your arms back, squeezing the pole more securely against your side.

This photo is courtesy of my friend, Cynthia, at her home pole room. She’s a good friend of Style Steve and offered to take me to pole classes with her while I was visiting Australia – she had already been training for a while in Sydney (home of Felix Cane) at Pole Fitness Studio and that’s how I ended up in Fontaine Bradbury‘s classes… and way out of my league! So Cynthia trained me one-on-one at her house. She drilled me on conditioning exercises, which was vaguely reminiscent of my past circus training where I was taught that with strength and flexibility, you can master any trick. She also encouraged me to train on a 50mm (the widest) stainless steel (the slipperiest) pole without grip aid – with which she would reward us after we had exhausted ourselves! Here’s a beautiful photo of Cynthia: