The glamour girl starred in a homemade sex tape with TV presenter John Leslie and fronted a porn channel but says she has put her days as a sex-crazed celebrity behind her.

Now blonde Abi says her new acting career has led to a quieter life.

But that has not stopped her learning a new habit – pole dancing – for her latest role as a raunchy exercise teacher in Glasgow stage show The Naked Truth.

But fans hoping to see Abi strip will be left disappointed.

She confessed to a radio station: “I am closer to a nun than you would think actually, these days anyway.”

Abi, 33, who plays alongside ex-Emmerdale star Lisa Riley in the show- said she had a removable dance pole fitted in her home to train for the role.

She added: “I play Gabby who is the teacher of this dance pole class. The play centres around me and the five women in my class and you watch them struggle hilariously with pole-dancing.”

Source. The Sun

Wearing a gauzy blue two-piece costume that resembles a circus acrobat’s uniform, Laura Martin climbs up an 11-foot steel pole in a move popularly called the “Caterpillar Crawl.”

Aggressive and athletic yet fluid and hyper-flexible, she proceeds to blaze through a pole-dancing routine of inverted suspensions, spins and slides.

Hoots and whistles from the female-dominated crowd compete with the live music provided by the rock band Avowed. One woman screams to a friend, “It’s just like trapeze!”
Martin, a former exotic dancer, appreciates the comparison of what she does to something other than adult entertainment.

“I want to see pole dancing get away from the stripper connotation,” says the 30-year-old San Diego-based performer and personal fitness instructor. “I want people to see it’s like any other dance form.”

The weekly showcase at Club Good Hurt in West Los Angeles represents the latest evolution in pole dancing’s migration from the strip club to the fitness class to the mainstream performance venue. It features Southern California pole dancers performing to live rock music in a setting where, according to show producer Emilee Wilson, there’s “no tipping and no stripping.”

While pole dancing has been gaining acceptance in recent years as a form of physical fitness — classes are offered in gyms and dance studios across the country — there have been few performance opportunities outside of exotic dance clubs for dancers who spend years perfecting their skills and seek professional, artistic recognition.

Though the fact that the dance poles are easily portable and installable on a variety of surfaces point to a range of performance possibilities, Wilson and others say the opposite is true.

“There’s just not a lot out there right now so that people can see pole dancing as a serious dance form,” says Leigh Acosta, a 30-year-old pole dance instructor, aerial artist and recent performer at the showcase. “I think a lot of people still see it as something scandalous, the way people thought burlesque was scandalous, or belly dancing.”

That may change, however, considering that Cirque du Soleil hired a champion pole dancer in January to perform in its Las Vegas-based “Zumanity,” and pole-dance competitions judged by dancers and choreographers have sprung up all over the world.

The year-old New York City-based US Pole Dance Federation, for example, plans to sponsor annual competitions and pledges on its website to promote pole dancing as a “sensual and athletic art form.”

Locally, there’s Wilson’s effort to produce an “acrobatic pole show for women who want to perform but not in a strip club.

“What I’m doing is offering women a safe space where they get respect,” says Wilson, a 27-year-old actress and pole dancer who used to perform at Jumbo’s Clown Room, a Hollywood bikini bar. “Most of the women I met at Jumbo’s were really artistic, and none of them had implants. They were there because they really wanted to perform, and performers need an audience.”

About 100 people — with a roughly 3-2 female-male ratio — packed the red-paneled bar and checkered dance floor area on a recent Monday to watch a lineup of performers that included Acosta, Nicole Williams, a popular local pole-dance instructor, and Mina Mortezaie, whose forte seems to be perfectly executed vertical and inverted split maneuvers.

Mortezaie, 26, trained in gymnastics, modern dance, jazz, ballet and hip-hop before discovering pole dance. “I got addicted to it immediately because it combines everything I’ve been obsessed with: strength, flexibility, grace.”

Though she considered working at strip clubs, Mortezaie has created her own performance opportunities, which have included staging “pole nights” at the Culver City restaurant and bar Rush Street and forming her own burlesque dance troupe that incorporates the pole in its repertoire.

“I didn’t want to dance for men in clubs,” she says. “I wanted to dance for myself.”

For her performance, Mortezaie wore a tiny pink-and-black bikini and sported thigh-high shiny black boots. All of the performers wore bathing-suit-type costumes, a necessity, they say, since bare skin allows them to perform moves that require gripping with various parts of the body. As for their high heels, “every dance has its shoe,” observes Anna Grundstrom, the co-founder of the US Pole Dance Federation. “In high heels, you can grip higher on the pole.”

As a dancer, Mortezaie seemed to accentuate the sexy elements of her movements. She considers this “empowering,” while other dancers, like Martin, favor a less overtly sexual approach.

“I actually try to numb that part down,” says Martin, a self-taught pole dancer who cross-trains in martial arts, yoga, boxing and running. “You can’t take a woman’s natural seductiveness away from her, but I tend to stay away from the shake-your-ass maneuvers.”

Acosta, who demonstrates a languid, graceful performance quality in her routines, feels she’s “not a very sexy performer” but defends the dancers who are.

“I think it would be wrong to take out the sexual appeal of it, otherwi

Years of channel surfing have taken me to ESPN to see every kind of fitness and body building competition, my favorite being the aerobics choreography. But I have never had the luxury of watching a pole dance competition outside of YouTube.

It’s no surprise that pole dancers have competitions, but it is a surprise that in Utah we are having our own this weekend. Sexy twirls and tricks that showcase the strength of these ladies who’s skills range from beginners to advanced.

Pole Fetish 2009 has been in the news for several months as Davis County Commissioner Bret Millburn has resisted this dance pole of the devil, but with strict rules forbidding the dancers to sexually arouse the audience, the show will go on.

The battle of the stripper pole kit dancing dancers takes place on Saturday, May 16 from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Davis Conference Center, 800 Heritage Park Blvd. Tickets are $20 for general admission and $50 for VIP seating. For more information call 801-678-0225.

Buy pole dancing kit

Pole professional Adam Webb – who goes by the stage name “Corey Cruise” – has been running pole dance lessons at the Penthouse Night Club in Wellington Street for four years.

I’ve been teaching dance all my professional life,” Cruise says.

“As far as I know, there’s no other pole dancing men in Australia.

“I find it to be like ballet – the girl is the star and the guy is the pole.”

Cruise regularly straddles the pole himself, but says he’s only ever taught pole dancing to women.

He says he wants to teach blokes how to participate in the exercise fad that’s been the exclusive domain of women-only gymnasiums in recent years.

It wouldn’t be such a stretch, Cruise says, because he’s been teaching both sexes how to strip for years.

“We actually had a female model who wanted to learn to strip to give her boyfriend a surprise and get him to propose to her, and he did,” Cruise says.

“I’m actually thinking about turning that concept around and starting up ‘teach your hubby how to strip’ lessons.

“It’d be a great way of giving her a Valentines Day pressie without spending any money.”

Cruise says pole dancing, both male and female, has huge potential.

“The exercise and all that side of it has definitely taken it out of the strip clubs and into the mainstream,” he says.

“It has still got that rude connotation, but it’s no longer considered crude.

“There’s companies out there now petitioning to have pole dancing included in the Olympic Games.”

Cruise maintains the pastime suits gay and straight guys alike.

“I’m straight, but everyone thinks you’re gay because of what you do,” he says.

“It’s the old Billy Elliot thing – you’re considered a ‘poofter’ if you do it.

“It’s normally a girl’s world, but for a guy to step into it shows he’s comfortable with his sexuality.”

Cruise says he has even half-written a ballet inspired by the raunchy art form.

“I want to do for pole dancing what Tap Dogs did for Tap,” he says.

Jacinta Dudley studies advertising and marketing at Edith Cowan University by day, and pole dancing with Cruise by night.

“He’s a great teacher – very strong and he can catch,” Ms Dudley replies when asked why she chose to learn pole dancing from a man.

“I am pretty strong, but sometimes you get yourself in a tricky situation.

“Some of the routines are pretty hard and it’s good if someone can spot you the first few times.”
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Pole dancing is so hot! check out these girls pole dancing in New york city subway.

The former ‘Baywatch’ actress is so obsessed with the raunchy exercise regime that she has designed a fold-away pole which can be set up anywhere.

She said: “I am so excited to have a new pole coming out, a portable stripper pole. The great thing about my portable pole is you can put it in your own living room or you can do the workout in your bedroom. No-one has to see you do it. It’s up to you – you can perform for your husband or boyfriend, or do it more as a workout and focus on that.”

Carmen, 36, also said she has no intention of following in the footsteps of Beyonce Knowles, Ashlee Simpson and Mariah Carey and having a quickie wedding, because she wants to take things with fiance Rob Patterson “super, super slow”.

She added to ‘Fox News’: “I have known Rob for years – we were friends first and then we just started dating. He’s super sweet, really, really nice and a really kind, loving person. There are no plans for the wedding as of yet, we’re taking things really, really, really, slow.

“It’s just funny how you get engaged and everyone thinks you’re getting married tomorrow – even my friends were calling me going, ‘Are you pregnant? I heard you’re pregnant. Is that true?’ All these rumours and gossip start, it’s funny. But it could be 10 years. I really want to take it super, super slow.”