When I told people I was off to take a pole dancing class, they expected me to leave the house in glass heels and return with a tub of toonies, not knowing that at the studio where I was headed, the women wear yoga clothes and the only refreshment is water.

Pole dancing classes, like strippercise, are normalizing what was once naughty. Oprah has plugged the exercise repeatedly and there are two companies in Edmonton — Aradia and PoleJunkies — dedicated to teaching pole dancing in our city. A third, British Columbia-based EmpowerNET, sells skin care products in conjunction with home pole parties in cities across North America, including Edmonton.

Since 2005, Aradia has taught pole dancing moves to an astonishing 10,000 women in this city, in one-hour introductory sessions, group parties and studio lessons. PoleJunkies — a four-year-old Calgary-based company that holds pole parties in Edmonton, offers oneon-one classes streamed to your home via live webcam and plans to open a studio here later this year. Since its inception, PoleJunkies has instructed more than 1,000 students, including a handful of men.

People from 18 to 80, of all body types and professions, have taken up pole dancing. “We have [taught everyone from] people who haven’t worked out in 10 years, to fitness instructors,” says Krystal Kolenich, owner of Aradia Fitness Canada and operator of its franchises in Edmonton and Calgary. For women, pole dancing has multiple attractions, says Kolenich. It builds confidence in the sexiness of their bodies, but also develops core strength and promotes true fitness. “Toning up is an understatement,” she says, adding that many of her students lose weight because with body confidence comes a desire to appreciate themselves, so they drastically change their diets and lifestyles. “We’re not trying to teach women how to be exotic dancers,” says the 33-year-old former X-ray technican who, before discovering pole dancing in Vancouver four years ago, used to work out at the gym, then eat fries on the way home. “It’s about empowerment.”

Aradia’s students were uncomfortable with a man observing them for research, so I attended a mock class in which Kolenich played instructor and two instructors, Aspen Gowers and Janine Kupsch, played students. They demonstrated Level 1 moves (there are nine skill levels, taught in six-week blocks that cost $150 each, plus other classes in strength and dancing).

We started with rudimentary warm-up exercises, like the cat spiral. It’s categorized as “sensual floor work,” aimed at working the triceps, abs and core muscles — all of which need to be ready for some serious effort once you get to the pole. Sensual floor work lessons end with a transition move, “the mud flap girl,” in which you start in the side-reclining pose depicted on many a truck’s mud flap and then silkily push yourself up to address the pole.

Kolenich says many of the moves are modified Pilates and yoga positions. Your thighs, butt and abs still get toned, but when you add the element of the pole — lifting your body mass with the strength of your arms and holding it with the will of your legs — you gain a vigorous upper-body and core workout. I was determined to be the first male to get up Aradia’s studio pole. The instructors humoured my attempts at a “pole hold” — a basic move in which you hold your body up, kick back your knees and slide down — only to watch me fall in defeat, nursing sore arms.

Gowers and Kupsch then demonstrated what a master of all levels can do, spinning and twisting around the apparatus as if their manoeuvres were common reflexes. Normally, these advanced-level moves would be performed in what Aradia student Brittany Ernst calls “stripper boots” – high-heeled, platform-soled footwear made of pleather for a sticky grip. The boots add an erotic flare and a workout for calf muscles.

Ernst, a 23-year-old social worker, is at Level 3, where students tackle upside-down moves. When she began two years ago, she wanted a fitness exercise that was effective but more fun than running on a treadmill. “Within three classes I could see the toning of muscles in my arms, legs and abs.” She has since ditched other exercises. “I get way better results than in the gym.”

If you prefer solo workouts, PoleJunkies offers 11 levels of online schooling, each four weeks long, for $159 per level. For $475, you buy a portable, easy-to-assemble pole that affixes to your floor and ceiling by pressure. Unlike Aradia, the company also instructs men. But Alena Downs, the company’s 38-year-old owner and the Canadian representative in the International Pole Federation (an association of pole instructors), says men are taught different moves that concentrate on upper-body strength: “Rappelling, resistance, core strength. They stay away from swings, the inverted styles where you hold on with your toes.”

Downs says there are more than 500 pole moves and there are “girls around the world creating new pole moves every day.” Working your way past the “fireman spin” to the “candlestick” (an aerial position in which you hold your body upside down with only your hands), it’s unlikely you’ll get bored, whether you practise in the studio or the living room.

And if someone should try to stuff a $5 bill in your waistband, just consider it another of the many perks.