We are going to approach this topic from the perspective of an instructor and studio owner, because it is the one I know best, but I am certain that students should be armed with the knowledge of why these dynamics start to develop. I would love to hear your personal experiences as students, or instructors, though, so do comment or reach out!
It's a journey and it doesn't happen overnight.
You’ve been picked, or chosen, to be an instructor. You, hopefully, undergo some level of training and then you get your own class. It’s exciting. You stand up and lead small groups of people every week. You’re the authority. It’s your class, your rules. You build a community, you build bonds, you’re passionate, it’s fun, your students look up to you and call you their “pole mumma” and then… time passes and you start to feel resentful.
You give so much of yourself and get so little in return. Students walk all over you and take advantage. There’s a lot of drama. And you’re not even making a lot of money. You’re probably teaching on top of a full time job or trying desperately to make pole your full time job. You’re burnt out.
We live in societies that are starved of community and connection. Families live far apart. Third places in which people build friendships are becoming rarer. Many of us are isolated and stuck with our heads in our phones and it’s hard to make friends as an adult. Studios often provide a welcoming environment full of like-minded people. That's one of the things we often loved most as students and when we go out to teach ourselves we will try to emulate that. What is often overlooked is how unhealthy these environments can become if we aren’t careful and this is because the concept of community is being unconsciously exploited as a business tactic.
Some studios are giving cult. Cults prey on vulnerable people and studios are not exempt from doing this. We can make vulnerable students feel special, and like they are a part of something bigger, but then it’s very easy to throw them away when they won’t conform or when we simply can’t meet their level of needs anymore. We don’t think of it like this but being a pole instructor does put us in a position of authority. Clients can, will and do see you as someone to look up to and will put you on a pedestal whether you like it or not, and when you’re put on a pedestal you can always be knocked off.
Realistically, none of us have the capacity to have insanely deep and close friendships with every single student we have, unless you only teach one or two classes a week, and so we can end up making promises that cannot be kept, particularly when, for some instructors, it’s an act to begin with. Community isn’t a bad thing and even healthy communities can consist of some of the elements that cults do, but there is a thin line and it’s very easy to trip over into unhealthy dynamics (I’ve been reading cultish by Amanda Montell recently, it’s a good read btw).
It's akin to the companies that profess "we're like a family!!" in the interview and then you find out that they're actually the type of dysfunctional codependent family that most people want to get away from. It's forced, it's fake, it's engineered and new students can be forgiven for not seeing it until it’s too late. It’s the pole instructor who constantly professes about community, how all their students are their friends, how they give up their personal time to help their students, how they’re essentially a therapist. But in reality their studio is full of drama, bitchiness, no boundaries and the instructors throw a tantrum because they secretly believe YOU owe THEM something. You feel like you can’t be yourself, have to watch what you say, worry about training elsewhere or outshining anyone. You don’t actually feel safe there anymore.
(Btw: please stop with this therapist bullshit. Pole can be therapeutic, connection and community can be therapeutic, but you are not a therapist. You are not qualified and you could do far more damage than good when it comes to vulnerable people. All you’re doing is stoking your ego by thinking you’re helping people. Listening to and giving someone a hug is one thing… therapy is entirely another. In the UK there is currently funding for the mental health first aid at work course. I highly recommend doing it if you can as it’ll teach you how to appropriately deal with issues surrounding mental health).
Some of this stems from the fact that this is a low paid industry of passionate people. Pole is more than just a job for many of us but ,when we also don’t get paid well, we subconsciously resort to chasing after ego boosts. We all need purpose, meaning and to get something for our hard work. It's easy to start looking to our students for validation.
It’s not that these studios don’t care. I think they care too much. They put too much of their identity and validation into their studio, their community and their students. Then they start to feel a sense of entitlement - to your respect, to your love, to your support - and resentment when they don’t get it. But it’s a business and the needs of the community will eventually start butting heads with the needs of the business.
Your relationship with any client is conditional. It's conditional on providing a good service and being a good person no matter how invested your client is. In fact I'd argue most relationships in your life will be conditional. The vast majority of your students will not care as much as you do and those that do will only put up with so much. The cracks will start to show. I can’t even count how many times I have seen a max exodus of students from studios that mistreat people and feel a sense of entitlement.
Ironically you don’t even have to sacrifice community and connection to solve these issues. You just have to be real with yourself about your intentions, what you can provide and create boundaries about how you run your business. When you act from a place of clarity and conviction you’ll notice that the clients who are not for you simply walk away on their own, leaving you with people who are your ideal client. Not every studio or instructor is for every student and vice versa. But if you’re playing bait and switch by professing things you can’t live up to…you’ll attract the wrong people, suck them in and then, when they realise it’s a mirage, shit hits the fan.
When you’re able to keep some distance emotionally, enforce your boundaries and be real about your motivations it is much easier to enforce rules which in turn actually creates a more cohesive and connected community. Everyone knows where they stand. When someone inevitably does cause issues with bullying, or other unwanted behaviours, it is much easier to handle it without taking it personally. You can have a difficult conversation that either helps that student to change or asks them to leave. You won’t feel resentful. It's just a part of business.
You have to get into the mindset that you are a business owner. You can't afford, both from a practical and mental health sense, not to and when you do you'll be happier and probably earn a better living. You'll have less drama to deal with and when there is drama it just won't phase you as much. You'll know what you stand for, you won't take it personally and you'll be able to create that distance. And you'll still have a great community and great bonds with your clients. It's a win win!
It's not about not caring for your clients and students and exploiting them to make money. I love my students. They're fucking awesome. They're amazing, interesting people and I would love to befriend many of them. It’s just unrealistic to do so when you have tens or hundreds of students. When you start to blur the lines between the business and your personal life with that kind of dynamic in place - rather than just being a human and treating them like an actual person - it rarely ends well. In the end it can only go one of two ways - you learn or your business fails.
And I am able to say all of this because I have, in my twenties, been the person subconsciously looking for an ego boost and validation from my students. I’ve ended up feeling resentful and burnt out when they didn’t live up to my impossibly high standards or I found I couldn’t meet theirs. I’ve been the person with no boundaries and no rules who ended up with drama after drama and drunken texts from students at 2am that crossed a bunch of lines. I've been a pole mumma (a term that gives me the ick these days but that’s a whole other conversation that ties into this one) at a studio with a slight cult vibe and now I'm a business woman with a successful business and a great community of students. I learnt. You can too.
P.S to the students reading this: you don’t have to put up with being treated badly. Your studios and instructors don’t own you. Respect is earned on both sides and goes both ways.
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