Speaker 1: There's this feeling right when you do it, it feels
Speaker 1: like you're almost about to fall, but then you don't,
Speaker 1: and you can just feel the momentum carrying you around,
Speaker 1: like being a little kid on the playground when you
Speaker 1: just like throw yourself at like the jungle gym and
Speaker 1: go like we are out of the circle. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of that feeling um, but a little more controlled. Ah,
Speaker 1: Welcome to another Ausy Confidential. I'm your host, Eugene S. Robinson,
Speaker 1: and today we got something special. We got Renee. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, stories come to us a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: I love how this came to me via somebody else
Speaker 1: who said, Hey, at Microsoft, I was working with this
Speaker 1: genius engineer. One day she stood up at a meeting
Speaker 1: and said, fuck this, I'm leaving become an to National Proofs.
Speaker 1: Sexy is something that is like everybody has a vision
Speaker 1: in their head of what sexy means to them, and
Speaker 1: there might be overlapping pieces amongst different people's definitions, but
Speaker 1: there's also many differences. And I think sexy as a
Speaker 1: as a feeling, as like a theme as a concept
Speaker 1: is very very vague, and it's very big, and it
Speaker 1: can be many different things. So, yeah, I was working
Speaker 1: at Microsoft for a bit and I was pretending to
Speaker 1: be an engineer. So but what would you would you degree?
Speaker 1: I got my degree in physics, so I was um.
Speaker 1: I got my undergrad in physics, and then I have
Speaker 1: a master's technically and applied physics. I had started a
Speaker 1: PhD program, and then I quit the PhD program because
Speaker 1: at Stanford. So uh, bachelor's at cal Tech and then
Speaker 1: PhD ended up as a master's at Stanford, which is
Speaker 1: how I ended up in this area in the first place.
Speaker 1: Is why I moved here. Where'd you go to high school?
Speaker 1: Hong Kong? So I grew up in Hong Kong. Uh.
Speaker 1: I went to one of those international schools. So it's
Speaker 1: like they took an American school and transplanted it into
Speaker 1: Hong Kong. And so I was there from kindergarten all
Speaker 1: the way through high school. Which is why I speak
Speaker 1: English as as an American, because I was surrounded by
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of expats. But you also speak So
Speaker 1: I speak Man's are In because my families from Taiwan,
Speaker 1: and so we spoke Man's are In at home. And
Speaker 1: then I picked up Cantonese from just living in Hong
Speaker 1: Kong for seniors. I was good at math and science
Speaker 1: growing up, and so I assumed that I like it
Speaker 1: because no, when you're little, you like the things you're
Speaker 1: good at, and you never stopped to think about why
Speaker 1: you like it. You're just like, I'm good at it,
Speaker 1: therefore I must like it. That just carried me all
Speaker 1: the way through until you know, you're one of grad
Speaker 1: school when I realized, wait, I don't like and I
Speaker 1: realized that ass like quick, don't miss it. I started
Speaker 1: teaching pole around when I started working at Microsoft, because
Speaker 1: my two jobs picked up at the same time, and
Speaker 1: so at the time I quit Microsoft, I've been teaching
Speaker 1: for a while, but that was still when I had
Speaker 1: no real uh plan to have poled b my like
Speaker 1: actual job. Like Pole was still just a hobby. It
Speaker 1: was a hobby that like, you know, I got paid
Speaker 1: to teach other people. How did you get into that? Um?
Speaker 1: So I tried pole because I was at Stanford and
Speaker 1: looking for some form of dance to do because I've
Speaker 1: always been a dancer, and so when I googled what
Speaker 1: you did l sports? Yeah, so I did dancing gymnastics
Speaker 1: basically from the ages of like six onwards, all the
Speaker 1: way through the end of high school. UM So, I've
Speaker 1: always been dancing and I kept dancing all the way
Speaker 1: through college. And so when they moved up here for Stanford, so, okay,
Speaker 1: I need to find myself a dance studio. When I
Speaker 1: googled dance studios near Stanford, UM, potential popped up, and
Speaker 1: because because it is one of the few places with
Speaker 1: adult classes that is within like a half hour raised
Speaker 1: to Stanford. And so I was like, I've never done
Speaker 1: hole before, but I was like, why not, I'll try
Speaker 1: it came, I loved it from like the very first seconds,
Speaker 1: and I just never left. But yeah, So I was
Speaker 1: at Microsoft UM and then I decided that I don't
Speaker 1: want to be an engineer anymore because I was looking
Speaker 1: at my peers and they all were excited about science.
Speaker 1: They were excited about the research they were doing, come
Speaker 1: up with new ideas, and like the actual day to
Speaker 1: day process of it. And I was just like, wow,
Speaker 1: I am not like you guys. And so so that
Speaker 1: when you left this create with your parents cool whatever,
Speaker 1: or did you or did you already have a job
Speaker 1: lined up in UM? So when I left UM, I
Speaker 1: was totally excit see my parents to freak out, because
Speaker 1: I mean, of course they would they go to people
Speaker 1: Asian parent, right. They were totally cool with it. It
Speaker 1: was baffling, actually, I was like, wait, you guys are
Speaker 1: so okay right now? Were they cool because you already
Speaker 1: had the job? No? I had no job. So that
Speaker 1: goes into this funny thing is not from the US, right.
Speaker 1: I was born in Taiwan, I was raised elsewhere, and
Speaker 1: so it only came to college so I was on
Speaker 1: the student visa. And so then that brought up the
Speaker 1: other part of if I quit school by by student visa,
Speaker 1: I need a way to stay in this country. So
Speaker 1: I had been together with uh then boyfriend now husbands
Speaker 1: for a couple years now, and like we had already
Speaker 1: planned on getting married. It was just kind of like, okay,
Speaker 1: so I know we were going to get married like
Speaker 1: four years later, but how haven't we do this now?
Speaker 1: What about we get married like right now instead of
Speaker 1: four years later in this country? I was, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was honestly a little bit surprised. I was definitely um
Speaker 1: expecting some kind of resistance or some questioning of like
Speaker 1: are you sure this is a good idea? But they
Speaker 1: have been nothing but super supportive the whole way. And um,
Speaker 1: I think what they tell me is that they see
Speaker 1: how much happier I am now versus like when I
Speaker 1: was in grad school, when I was working at Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and so seeing that helps reassure about that, like I
Speaker 1: definitely made the right choice, because they're like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: you're a different person. You're a much happier person and
Speaker 1: this is a good thing. And so like, even though
Speaker 1: you are now doing something that's very different than what
Speaker 1: we all expected, like this is good. So the first
Speaker 1: move that I was ever taught how to do is
Speaker 1: called a roundabout or a zip spin. It's still my
Speaker 1: favorite move. And so what we start almost all beginners with,
Speaker 1: you just like hold onto the pole and you like
Speaker 1: make a little circle around. I don't want one hand
Speaker 1: on the one hand on the pole, one foot on
Speaker 1: the floor, so you're not even in the area, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you just like rotates big circle around the pole
Speaker 1: and you can just feel the momentum carrying you around,
Speaker 1: and that feeling is just it's so much fun. And
Speaker 1: there's something about it that just like really clicked and
Speaker 1: like resonated within me where I just felt like this
Speaker 1: is what I want to do, and then you know,
Speaker 1: it turned out that I was like reasonably good at it,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, now' here, I've never been
Speaker 1: shy about my body. Um. Again, somehow, lucky enough, I
Speaker 1: didn't really grow up with those body of his issues. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that is because good parenting. I think
Speaker 1: great coaches, because my gymnastics coaches. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of gymnastic coaches who really push people on, a lot
Speaker 1: of ballet teachers right who really pushed their students of
Speaker 1: like you're too fat, you need to be thin. There.
Speaker 1: I was lucky that I had amazing teachers and coaches
Speaker 1: who didn't like put any of that on us when
Speaker 1: we were kids and in staid, the focus was always
Speaker 1: on like what you can do, just what we tell
Speaker 1: people here and that right, you focus on what your
Speaker 1: body can do instead of what it looks like. And
Speaker 1: I guess I've just been lucky that I've always grown
Speaker 1: up with that idea, and so to me, it's never
Speaker 1: been a big deal. So like when I started to
Speaker 1: pull too, and you'll see this, when people first started, Paul,
Speaker 1: They'll start with like clothes and the first time you
Speaker 1: tell them like you gotta take those pants off. They're
Speaker 1: kind of like are you sure, or like the first
Speaker 1: time you like you have to get rid of the shirt,
Speaker 1: are you sure? Even some of our other instructors they'll
Speaker 1: tell you like the first time they went to the poll,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, no, I'm keeping all my clothes on,
Speaker 1: and now they're like everything right. Um. But like when
Speaker 1: I first started, like that wasn't like a hang up
Speaker 1: for me. It was just like I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's functional, therefore I will do it. And so I
Speaker 1: think like when it goes on stage, as long as
Speaker 1: it's functional, Like if nudity is important to the performance
Speaker 1: of doing, it's gotta do it. This is what it's
Speaker 1: going to have to be. So unless you think that
Speaker 1: what happens at these competitions is very much what happens
Speaker 1: at the strip club, you're wrong. It's not. These things
Speaker 1: take a better part of a day and they have
Speaker 1: uh polls that are kind of opinioned to the floor,
Speaker 1: huge stage, and a judging panel that's as unforgiving as
Speaker 1: any judging panel ever. And these are moves that a
Speaker 1: lot of times if you're on a sixteen ft pole
Speaker 1: or sixty ft up high off the ground on a pole.
Speaker 1: There's only one part of your body touching the pole,
Speaker 1: preventing you from plunging to your death below. So it
Speaker 1: is not without its risk, but to win you have
Speaker 1: to be a combination of skillful, strong, graceful, all while
Speaker 1: making it look slick as snot. Some expressions of sexy
Speaker 1: are easier to learn than others, and I think this
Speaker 1: is well in terms of like um movements and like
Speaker 1: what movements convey as sexy. Some move are easier to
Speaker 1: learn on the body, like for somebody who is new
Speaker 1: to dance to some form of like physical expression, Certain
Speaker 1: styles of movement will be easier for a beginner to
Speaker 1: pick up than other styles to me at least, And
Speaker 1: this is just like my interpretation of it. Sexy stems
Speaker 1: from confidence, and so it can be fast, it can
Speaker 1: be slow, it can be aggressive, it can be shy,
Speaker 1: but there's this underlying confidence and like um, the sense
Speaker 1: of contentment with yourself and like your own energy, and
Speaker 1: it's that when it's transmitted outwards that gets read as sexy.
Speaker 1: At Friday for a play the unofficial model of Friday
Speaker 1: four play right, someone somewhere finds it sexy no matter
Speaker 1: what you do someone somewhere find the sexy. There are
Speaker 1: some people who very much do truly believe, like in
Speaker 1: their own mind, that what they do has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with dripping, nothing to do with trip clubs. To me,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to see that it seems like that's getting
Speaker 1: slightly less common. Those people still exist. There are still
Speaker 1: people out there, and I think that is like in
Speaker 1: response or in reaction to the social stigma that's out there,
Speaker 1: because even here where most people are pretty chill with it, right, like, um,
Speaker 1: I worked at Microsoft, and nobody ever like questions the
Speaker 1: fact that I did both they all knew and how
Speaker 1: some of them had looked at my videos, and nobody
Speaker 1: like look down on me for it, Like nobody like
Speaker 1: made any remarks about it. Because in the Bay Area
Speaker 1: we're pretty lucky. People are pretty calm about this stuff.
Speaker 1: But even here we have some students who worry about,
Speaker 1: like what do I tell my friends? What do I
Speaker 1: tell my family? Because they will tell their family and
Speaker 1: their families not happy, their family is not okay with it,
Speaker 1: and they go like, I can't believe you do that,
Speaker 1: and so I can okay. So the use of the
Speaker 1: word that what do they mean, what do you think
Speaker 1: they mean when they see I think for those people
Speaker 1: who have that impression, I think it is because they
Speaker 1: they only have um this mental image of Poll in
Speaker 1: relation to sex work and stripping, and because they maybe
Speaker 1: haven't had very many interactions with sex workers of any form,
Speaker 1: They've made up this image in their head of what
Speaker 1: that seems to be to them. And unfortunately, is the
Speaker 1: case with most things, if you're just making up something
Speaker 1: in your head, you tend to assume the worst. I think.
Speaker 1: I think probably one of the most damaging things to
Speaker 1: the sport or to the endeavor had to be Chris Rock.
Speaker 1: Do you remember his routine where he was talking about
Speaker 1: contemplating being a parent and making the right parental choices,
Speaker 1: and he goes, you know, any choice that keeps your
Speaker 1: daughter off the pole. It's things like that, right that
Speaker 1: like feed into that impression where if you don't know,
Speaker 1: if if that's your only context by which you've ever
Speaker 1: heard of poll, then of course do you associate negatively
Speaker 1: with it because you have no reason not to. Do
Speaker 1: you think that this in general has improve the quality
Speaker 1: of of poll? There's just in strip clubs. In other words,
Speaker 1: do you is it is it is it neither fish
Speaker 1: nor foul thing? Do you find I'm wondering, like, how
Speaker 1: many people who actually do it pull start strip clubs?
Speaker 1: A lot of the moves that we take for granted
Speaker 1: now we're made up by strippers who were just you know,
Speaker 1: at work doing their own thing, and they made up
Speaker 1: these things and they spread and then you know, now
Speaker 1: we officially teach them. But now it's got it's got
Speaker 1: to the point where people are not talking about it.
Speaker 1: And they do this with new sports. A lot of
Speaker 1: times they talk about, well, should we get in the Olympics,
Speaker 1: Try to get in the Olympics. And I'm feeling that
Speaker 1: there's this kind of you know, push to legitimize it.
Speaker 1: There there is another push inside the community to like
Speaker 1: separate it from the strip club routes, right to say, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it was a strip club thing, but
Speaker 1: it's not, you know, there's no and it feels to
Speaker 1: me like the truth is somewhere in the middle. So
Speaker 1: much happening now. There's so many people who do poll
Speaker 1: now that like how many, Oh, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: You'll hear a lot of people say like this is
Speaker 1: their therapy, but like what they're seeking therapy from. I
Speaker 1: think that is where it differs in person to person,
Speaker 1: and for me at least that is part of why,
Speaker 1: like a big part of this for me is bustering
Speaker 1: the kind of community that encourages that, because this is
Speaker 1: that like safe happy space you can go to where
Speaker 1: you can learn to feel good about yourself. You can
Speaker 1: learn to feel proud about yourself and be okay with
Speaker 1: that and not feel ashamed of like yourself, your body,
Speaker 1: your abilities, Like you don't have to try to hide
Speaker 1: and pretend that you're not as good as you are.
Speaker 1: You don't have to try to fake humility. I Here
Speaker 1: we encourage people to be really confidence and be like, yes,
Speaker 1: I know I am good, I know I am great,
Speaker 1: I know I'm beautiful, I know I am strong, and
Speaker 1: to be okay with that, because that's not something that
Speaker 1: women especially get a lot. There's a higher chance that
Speaker 1: like a lot of times, you know, when I meet
Speaker 1: somebody new, when they asked what I do UM and
Speaker 1: I told them I own the pole an aerial studio,
Speaker 1: they go, oh, yeah, I've heard of that, or I've
Speaker 1: seen that, or it's like oh I thought about maybe
Speaker 1: trying it, or I know somebody who has tried it,
Speaker 1: And it's always easier when there's just more general awareness
Speaker 1: of what it is that you do right. And so,
Speaker 1: for sure, ten years ago, very different story would have
Speaker 1: been much harder than than it is now. Do do
Speaker 1: you do you miss physics? Now? Now? Next up next week.
Speaker 1: Javiermendous What yeah, look, he is like the Bill Belichick
Speaker 1: of m m A Mixed Martial Arts. It runs a
Speaker 1: place called a K a American Kickboxing Academy. The winning
Speaker 1: ist fight Jim like in the world and uh, we're
Speaker 1: excited to get kick to him. You want to hear me?
Speaker 1: Fanboy out next week. Ozzie Confidential. Ozzie Confidential is produced
Speaker 1: by who Else May Eugene S. Robinson, an executive produced
Speaker 1: by Robert Coolos, and this episode was sound designed, edited
Speaker 1: and mixed by Nick Johnson. For more Ozzy Confidential, check
Speaker 1: us out on azzi dot com. That's o z y
Speaker 1: dot com slash Confidential