Dance-battle between pole-dancing champs

Oona Kivela, winner of the I Pole World Cup, and Grazzy Brugner, organizer of Miss Pole Dance Brazil, held an impromptu dance-battle at Rio's Up Dance Studio, performing crazy, acrobatic routines that stagger the imagination and inflame the senses. It may be NSFW, but it's pretty wild acrobatics.

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Hottest Dance Battle Ever [break.com]

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MORE: brazil • dance • Sex • video

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Nadreck

Now that’s what I call Personal Magnetism! Having Magnetic super-powers is the only explanation I can come up with as to how those dancers stay glued to the poles!
mrgoldenbrown

This is NSFW in the same way that going to a yoga class or gymnastics competition or even a track and field event are.
Marktech

I only clicked on this because I thought the headline said pole-dancing chimps. O well.
EH

The blue/green lady is much better, more creative, but does anybody else marvel at the existence of a pole-dancing studio?
$16228947

mrgoldenbrown, a dancer, long-term yoga student and practitioner, I can honestly write that’s just how it is: dedicated women and men doing what they love and in the safety of their studio or sanctuary.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1153257811 Jesse Hamilton

Kind of interesting that they can do all that hanging upside-down and doing sit-ups stuff and not have arms like popeye. They’re definitely fit, but I would think you’d need more muscle mass to do that kind of acrobatics.
- http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino
  
  While they are very fit, they do use momentum to their advantage. Notice that the motions using mostly their arms are the shortest ones. The poses held the longest are done using their stronger legs and core muscles.
  
  Their strength is probably comparable to that of parallel bars gymnasts, and female gymnasts never look like body builders.
http://www.facebook.com/toshfieldsend Tosh Fieldsend

um…wow
Antinous / Moderator

Indian men pole-dancing. My vote is for number two.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=521240745 Ryan Griffin
  
  :o wow they win for sheer prowness.
techdeviant

Pole dancing is a great work out! After taking a few classes myself I have mad respect for these and other ladies that do what they do. There is a delicate balance between gripping the pole tight enough to hold you up and loose enough to move around. These two move like water.
MarcVader

I like turtles.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=607675355 Brent Kirkham

I’m not a big fan of pole-dancing per se, but these ladies are athletes. In the same way those guys/gals do co-ordinated free-fall stuff in a wind tube. Very impressive, props to both the ladies.
http://www.facebook.com/nihilgeist Chris Strasser

PLEASE! make this an Olympic sport.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  PLEASE! make this an Olympic sport.
  
  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35524563/ns/world_news-weird_news/t/are-olympics-ready-pole-dancing/
http://deansli.st/ Dean Putney

We have a pole in my house, and occasionally I go have a swing around on it. I can do some basic spins and a basic inversion. It’s far more difficult than it looks, and these girls make it look easy.
thebelgianpanda

I think the only proper reaction to this is, “HOLY CRAP!”. I could watch that all day, not for any supposed sexuality, but simply because of the ninja-like athleticism (same reason I enjoy watching parkour in fact).
Paul Renault

I always thought that Billboard magazine should run a chart of the Top Ten hits in strip clubs.
http://www.facebook.com/michael.valera.s Michael Valera

I’m not sure this counts as a dance off if David Bowie isn’t there to be the ref :D
Pag

Man, I’m going to start going to strip clubs now that I know they’re actually showing Cirque du Soleil stuff on a daily basis.
- house.au
  
  Not even a slight exaggeration; I used to hang out with a girl who was a Poledance Champion, she now works for Cirque du Soleil full time as I understand =)
Guest

Turn the bar 90 degrees and you have an olympic sport. Just saying.
- Cowicide
  
  Yes, and quite a bit less cheesy as well.
CH

Minor nit pick, but it’s Oona Kivelä, and I would guess she was the one in blue. Her stuff was really nice acrobatics, the other lady’s… um… well… cheap, it felt embarassing to watch for me. But well, I guess I’m of the wrong gender/orientation to appreciate anything else than the acrobatic part.
http://religionsetspolitics.blogspot.com/ Joshua Zelinsky

It seemed like the blue/green one was doing a lot more technically impressive stuff whereas the other lady was going slightly more for sexy poll dancing. But the level of technical skill on both their part (strength and coordination) was very impressive.
bcsizemo

Poll dancing was ruined for the me the moment I learned that the pole can rotate….

Not saying that they aren’t impressive, but it’s like watching how a magic trick is done. All the mystical illusion is gone.
- soap
  
  Don’t judge me, but I’ve been to hundreds of clubs, and never seen a pole that rotates.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Poll dancing was ruined for the me the moment I learned that the pole can rotate….
  
  The fact that you can’t do it within fifty feet of a polling place is what gets my goat.
- wolcotte
  
  I’ve taken classes, and the pole definitely did not rotate. That would be pretty dangerous, in fact.
  - bcsizemo
    
    Like others have stated, a rotating pole can be dangerous and is much harder to control. But it also gives the user greater ability to spin at different speeds and added a different dimension to their performance.
    
    http://www.pole-dancing-for-fitness.com/rotating-dance-pole.html
Dave Feland

The pole can’t rotate – if it did, you couldn’t your spin around it.
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Schweitzer/100000462546876 David Schweitzer

Curling is an Olympic sport, this should be as well, its like dance dance cept in a a vertical plane.
wayfare

There are poles that rotate, but they aren’t the norm – you may find one pole out of 10 in a studio that rotates, and very few of the ones at clubs do (they’re significantly more expensive).

Rotating poles actually make most tricks like inversions where you aren’t trying to spin more difficult since you need to use your core to keep the pole from inadvertently turning.
http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

I see a Simon Cowell-Tyra Banks collaboration – America’s Top Pole Idol.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7OL6GKTE55IAZU3GXUWBNUX7DA B Zimm

My favorite part is when the second dancer starts her acrobatics, and the first dancer is jumping up and down with excitement watching her moves. Not really a competition, just two artists egging each other one.
http://twitter.com/teflaime teflaime

How is that NSFW?
- Cowicide
  
  Two words. Crotch shots.
- racerabbit
  
  Because we’re prudes here in the U.S.
http://profiles.google.com/spockosemail Mr. Spocko

Just remember, it takes a Pole to hold up the America flag! (As my Polish mother often said after someone made a Polish joke.)
Vnend

Well, they have Ice Dancing and Rhythmic Gymnastics (which is false advertising, since there isn’t any nudity…). What we just saw easily qualifies if they do.

In my book, Grazzy easily took the technical side and had major points for style. Oona would probably win the Artistic Merit score and scored well on the technical side. Grazzy by a hair and her delighted laughter watching Oona.
dorkus1218

Are the people claiming that this isnt NSFW (double negative i know) suggesting that this isnt erotic dancing? thats nothing illegitimizing on the sportsy talent front, but it is what it is.
bklynchris

My male partner saw this and once again reiterated, that excepting for that whole procreation thing, he is absolutely gobsmacked that women agree to have sex with men. I would have to say that here, I would concur wholeheartedly. If these seems objectifying-ly sexist, I really have no defense.
http://twitter.com/hexopod hexopogs

I LOVE videos like this. I find it so much more interesting, and far sexier to see proud, athletic, confident women doing something FUN than just taking off their clothes and shaking their asses.
Mockiovelli

Well, you can tell right away that the lady in the blue-green suit is the Russian, that’s for sure. I had an opposite reaction to many posters before me: Ms. Kivela is performing technically very difficult moves but in a robotic, detached fashion. Coming from a background of working in the circus, I have plenty of respect for Grazzy’s ability to emote and exude character in the midst of serious athleticism.
- CH
  
  No, she isn’t Russian, she’s Finnish (pretty obvious from her name, but yeah, I checked: http://www.oonak.com/ ).
  
  Dunno how humping the floor really is character.
Jaan

To be blunt, I think when you take the nudity and sexuality out of pole dancing, it looses everything. I mean, isn’t that the point?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  To be blunt, I think when you take the nudity and sexuality out of pole dancing, it looses everything. I mean, isn’t that the point?
  
  I feel that way about Track & Field.
  - Cowicide
    
    I feel that way about Track & Field.
    
    The penalty for not quite clearing the hurdles could be pretty severe for a naked man.
    
    http://www.albinokraken.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/hurdle.gif
LaHaine

Can someone please upload the video without the audio to make it watchable in Germany?
http://twitter.com/DokHolocaust Patrick Batemare

Someone needs to replace the soundtrack of this with Dueling Banjos.
ocker3

Physics and Geometry can be Sexy!