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Pole Dancers Buff Image With Rules and a Dress Code

Group Tries to Shed Burlesque Roots to Become an Olympic-Worthy Sport

• VERONIKA GULYAS

LONDON—There are terms a pole-dancing judge just doesn't use at the World Pole Sports Championships.
"Spatchcock," for instance.
That's what pole dancers usually call the maneuver Liza Szabo worked into her routine at the contest held here in July—a move that evokes a chicken splayed for roasting. But the old name wouldn't do for this venue.
Here, her move was officially the "FM10," and for good reason: The meet's organizers want to reform pole dancing into a sport respectable enough to go to the Olympics.
So they've written a rule book that gives code names to compulsory moves, specifies scoring methodology and bans pole-dancing staples such as removable articles of clothing. And they'd like people to call their event "pole sports" now.

IPSF

Liza Szabo tries a 'Spatchcock' at the World Pole Sports Championships.

"We're trying to be stricter here and become respected as a sport," said Florenza Pizanis, 43, a pole-dancing coach in Dortmund, Germany, and head of the International Pole Sports Federation's technical committee, which wrote the rules and applied them for the first time at the London championships.

At the world championships for pole sports in London, athletes are here to compete and change attitudes about pole dancing. WSJ's Veronika Gulyas reports. Photo: IPSF.

Among the written regulations: no dancing "in an overtly erotic manner"—banned, for example, is "gluteal dance"—and no "hats, canes and anything that is not considered attached to the costume."
Regulation is the latest advance in pole dancing's evolution from strip-club staple toward serious sport. The pole has already won some global respect in recent decades, and organizations have formed in various regions to press its cause.

Liza Szabo

The federation, based in a London suburb, seeks to raise the bar by meticulously codifying competition.
Some dancers worry that regimentation may take some fun out of it. In a traditional pole dance, "you can perform a lot more, you can have a lot more fun, you can be a little more crazy," said Lisette Krol, a 27-year-old from Dublin, Ireland, who competed in London but also dances in venues that don't involve disrobing but do let dancers express more sensuality.

More

• International Pole Sports Federation: Rules and Regulations
• Athlete Manual: What Judges Are Looking for in a Routine

But other pole athletes say rules were badly needed. Required moves "set a standard—they help sort the men from the boys, so to say," said Yvette Austin, 45, a former gymnast in Kent, England, who competed here in July.
At previous championships, judges ruled more loosely, said Anne Goswell, 37, a judge at this year's meet, from Edinburgh, Scotland. "Last year, basically everyone who was judging," she said, was "doing it on their own criteria."
The London championships resembled a gymnastics meet more than a burlesque hall. Dancers wore warm-up suits emblazoned with their countries' names and rosined their hands before approaching the apparatus.
Nearly 100 competitors from two-dozen nations performed routines, choosing five strength moves and five flexibility poses from the federation's list of compulsory maneuvers.
Among those moves: FM6, a horizontal split with extended legs ("Chopsticks," to traditionalists) and SM7, in which the performer lies belly-up while gripping the pole (elsewhere sometimes called "Jump to Table Top").
Stern-looking judges scored performers like Ms. Szabo, who was trying to hew to the rules with her FM10 move. Holding torso perpendicular to the pole with outstretched arms, the 43-year-old pole-dancing-and-fitness instructor from Budapest spread her legs into a vertical split and paused.
"They'll most likely deduct for that," she said after she climbed down from the stage. "It was a bit sloppy."
The rule book's requirements for the FM10: "Hold the position for 2 seconds, ankles to the pole (not the bridge of the foot as the toes need to be pointed)." She had erred by pressing her insteps against the pole.
The judges, who received training over the previous three months, meted out deductions for toes not pointed and backs not curved graciously enough. Falling from the pole was a three-point deduction.
One performer lost a point when feathers fell from her headdress.
The federation's rules frown on anything that falls off a dancer. They mandate disqualification for "intentionally removing items of clothing," ban costumes from being "used in an erotic manner" and require "neckline of no lower than eighty (80) millimetres from clavicular notch."
Despite Ms. Szabo's worries about her FM10, she won first place in her category, with 44.9 points out of a possible 60.
The awards ceremony evoked Olympic scenes, with the top three athletes in each category climbing a three-tiered stand to receive gold, silver and bronze medals.
The Olympic ambience fits the image that KT Coates, 36, president of the pole-sport federation, wants to project. The federation eventually wants to ask the International Olympic Committee to add pole dancing as an official sport, she said, and the new rules should help by making competition conform to standards set for Olympic gymnastics.
Ms. Coates, of Hertfordshire, England, said she hopes to persuade an official athletic body to recognize pole dancing as a sport—the first step toward consideration for the Olympics.
The idea of Olympic pole dancing "is one of those pretty regular stories by sports and pastimes wanting to join," said IOC Spokesman Mark Adams. A sport must meet criteria for matters such as gender balance, geographical spread and governance, he said. "They first have to become a recognized sport and then there is a long process to be gone through before they can take part in the process."
"In my lifetime? I don't know" said Ms. Coates of her Olympic aspirations. "We're hopefully changing people's perceptions about pole sports."
Some dancers still gravitate toward more-permissive venues. At the Pole Dance Cup this July in Warsaw, Poland, there were no mandatory moves and no bans on clothing type, props or sensual gyrations, said the event's founder, Natalia Maria Wojciechowska, 30, of Warsaw. The cup's only rule: contestants couldn't fully disrobe.
"I need the glitter, the hairdo, and most of all, dancing," said Renee Richardson, 30, a Budapest burlesque performer and pole expert who said she does shed garments in some venues. "The sport's nice but my heart beats for the glamour."
Ms. Coates said different approaches to the pole can coexist. "BMX and Mountain biking use the same apparatus but are completely different activities," she said.
Write to Veronika Gulyas at veronika.gulyas@wsj.com