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By N2H

Business

Pole-Dancing is Sport

Anyone who as ever watched the Olympics has probably never heard of or considered half of the events as a sport but according to the The Free Dictionary a sport is a “Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively (“Sport,” n.d.).” If that is the case, then there are many activities that can be considered a sport, even pole-dancing. Some people might scratch their heads at the very thought of pole-dancing as a sport, but the United States Pole Dance Federation holds the US Pole Dance Championship every year and it has been introduced in dance studios and sports gyms as a fitness activity. (2008). Like all sports players, pole-dancers have to perform according to a set of rules and customs, some of which are required by the government and others determined by the competitions. By its very nature pole-dancing is competitive, the best dancers make the most money, but the ones that enter competitions receive trophies and cash prizes, or as the United States Pole Dancing Federation says on their website, “compete because you love to pole dance. (2008)” Since pole-dancing requires physical activity, is governed by a set of rules and customs, and because it is competitive, is by the very definition of the word, a sport.

All sports are physically demanding is some fashion, even golf and gymnastics require large amount of physical exertion and strength. Some people might argue that for an activity to be considered a sport, there needs to be direct contact between contestants. The Olympics disagrees with this requirement and has many sports that do not require direct contact. Ice-skating, gymnastics, diving, and even many forms of competitive skiing do not required direct contact between competitors and still meet the required physical activity criteria needed to be considered a sport.

There is little doubt that Ice-skating, gymnastics and even cheer-leading required physical activity, but what might surprise some is how much physical exertion is required to pole-dance. A person can’t just walk of the street and perform the choreographed pole-dancing moves properly or without hurting themselves. Gyms across the country have started holding classes in pole-dancing. Gyms like Allure Dance & Fitness Studio in Los Angles offer classes in pole-dancing, that “teaches the foundation to the art: sensual movement, body strengthening & toning, increasing flexibility (“Pole Dance Allure” n.d.).” During their routines, the dancers perform spins around the pole, contort their body in all sorts of positions, constantly move about the staged and hang upside down with only their leg strength to keep them from plunging their heads into the hard floor (“Pole Dance Allure” n.d.). Since pole-dancing requires physical activity and risks bodily injury, pole-dancing more than meets the required physical activity criteria that is needed to be considered a sport.

There is more to sports than just being physically active, they also need to be governed by a set of rules and customs. Even before the first recorded ancient Olympic games in 776 BC governed the rules and customs of sporting events, people have used rules and customs to determine the fair play of sporting events. (“The Ancient Olympics.” 2009) . Without such rules, no one would be able to compete fairly and without fair competition, then sports would be reduced to just plain old exercise and showmanship.

People may doubt that pole-dancing is more than showmanship and many are surprised when they find out that there are many rules that govern what a pole-dancer can and can’t do, in both amateur and professional competitor levels. The amateur levels are governed mostly by the hosting club’s rules and vary from club to club and state to state. These rules have to do with mostly conduct and dress codes. The same way that basketball has less rules at the local park than it does in the NBA (Also known as street ball) , Pole-dancing at a club has less established rules than the professional competitions. Not all competitions have the exact same rules but most do not allow nudity or g-strings, music with explicit lyrics, and “As part of the judging criteria, entrants will need to incorporate required pole moves into their routines (eg aerial holds, inverts etc), to demonstrate their technique and creative execution of these moves (“Rules” n.d.)” Since pole-dancing requires dancers to follow established rules, it meets the requirements in both the amateur and the professional circuits and like all sports, both professionals and amateurs compete.

Whether a professional or amateur, perhaps competition is the most basic required criteria for something to be considered a sport. All sports have another person or team that they compete against. In contact sports like football, the players compete for the most scored touchdowns and goals, while in non-contact sports like gymnastics, ice-skating, or cheer-leading judges score contestants by a number system based on performance. For example, gymnastic judges at the Olympics take a look at whether or not your gymnast has followed the rules of attendance, judged the overall difficulty of the moves performed, and tally up all the points given (Hughes n.d.). This system is not to be confused with beauty pageants which are also subjectively judged by physical attributes of the contestant. Prizes for winning the competition vary by the events, but some common prizes are trophies and cash.

Just like all other sports, both amateurs and professionals compete for prizes and are judged on a scoring system similar to ice-skating and gymnastics. The amateurs compete solely for money and like the competitors of the Ancient Olympics compete nude or topless, while the fully dressed professionals compete for prizes and recognition (“The Ancient Olympics.” 2009). Unlike many of the other professional competitions that offer cash prizes, at the US Pole Dance Federation’s annual pole-dancing competition, dancers compete with other pole dancers from the United States showing off their moves, physical strength, and their passion for dance and nothing more (2008). Since pole-dancing is by its very nature competitive, it meets the necessary criteria to be considered a sport and like all sports, players receive recognition, prizes and trophies. Wouldn’t Ma be proud?

Maybe Ma should be proud. If the mothers of gymnastic competitors, a sport recognized by the Olympics, can be proud of their sons and daughters, than why not the dancers of the pole? Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that something as taboo as pole-dancing could be recognized as a sport but because of the recent addition of pole-dancing to fitness gyms, this sport is becoming more and more mainstream. Just like the typically acceptable sports of cheer-leading, ice-skating, and gymnastics, pole-dancing requires physical exertion, follows a set of rules and customs, and is as competitive as any other sport. Pole-Dancing can obvious be defined as a sport. Maybe one day it will even be an Olympic event. It would certainly be a lot more fun to watch than curling.

Works Cited.
“The Ancient Olympics.” HickokSports.com. HickokSports.com, 18 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. .
Hughes, Murray. “Gymnastics Judging – A Brief Overview.” EzineArticles. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. .
Pole Dance Allure – Home Page. Ed. Nicole Williams. 2009-2010. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. .
“Rules.” Australian Pole Dance – 2009 Championships. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. .
“Sport – Definition of sport, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.” Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus – The Free Dictionary. Farlex Inc. Web. 11 Feb. 2010.
US Pole Dance Federation. Ed. Anna Grundstrom. 2008. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. .

Wal-Mart is Turning the American Dream Into a Nightmare

At one time, many towns in the United States looked like the tranquilly that Norman Rockwell used to capture in his paintings. These towns were places were a the local man could open a store and compete with his neighbor’s businesses. Those stores would employ local families and sell goods made by similar families in an American Factory. They were not the run down boarded up shops of a below the poverty line town with a single Wal-Mart. They were not the kinds of places that would send the wealth of America over to a communist country that enslaved its people. They were the kinds of towns that existed before Wal-Mart and other big box stores moved in. Some researchers argue that, “Wal-Mart has had a substantial positive impact on America’s economy” (Hansen 4). I say that Wal-Mart severely hurts the overall economy of the United States, because Wal-Mart uses unfair business practices, keeps its employees below the poverty line, and sends America’s wealth overseas.

If you own a retail store in a town with a Wal-Mart, then you don’t need anyone to tell you that Wal-Mart uses unfair methods to destroy local businesses and eliminate all fair competition. Most small businesses start from the ground up, slowly growing their business’s over time without the use of government subsidies and are at the mercy of American job providing and prevailing wage paying factories. On the other hand, Wal-Mart received over one billion dollars nationwide in government subsidies (Greenwald). These subsidies help build roads and provide the utilities for a new Wal-mart store. These are benefits that the existing stores in an area never get from their local or state governments. Local businesses have to foot all the bills themselves, but Big-Box stores like Wal-Mart do not have to. These subsidies, along with having to compete with Wal-Mart’s overseas factories, make it impossible for the local business person to compete with the lower costing items sold at a Wal-Mart Store. In Stacy Michell’s book Big-Box Swindle:The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, she contends that “…the economic structure that mega-retailers are propagating represents a modern variation on the old European colonial system, which was designed not to build economically viable and self-reliant communities, but extract their wealth and resources” (xiv) In short, Wal-Mart destroys the ideals of the free market and makes us dependent or enslaves us to them.

Another reason small business can’t compete with big box stores like Wal-Mart is, Wal-Mart keeps its employees below the poverty line and relies on government programs to off-set their employees cost of healthcare and food. The average Wal-Mart clerk earns below what the federal government considers the poverty line (Hansen 5). Wal-Mart actually encourages their employees to go on programs like Medicaid and Welfare and their employees cost taxpayers over one billion dollars (Greenwald). That’s right, I said one billion dollars and there is barely over three hundred million people living in the United States according to the United States Census Bureau. Keep in mind that Wal-Mart has over a million employees and is the world’s largest employer (Hansen 2). Go ahead and add in your share of the Wal-Mart tax burden the next time you are buying one of their ultra cheap products. Now let me clarify; first we subsidize the building of a Wal-Mart store with taxpayer dollars, then we subsidize their healthcare program and their employee’s wages, and local businesses are supposed to compete with them in a free market. No wonder Wal-Mart is so profitable.

The worst part is, the money spent on Wal-Mart’s merchandise doesn’t even stay in the United State’s economy, it is sent to one of fifteen counties including Communist China, a country that treats its citizens like slaves. Wal-Mart “imported more Chinese products (12 billion) than any other retailer” (Hasen 20). I’ve personally walked around a Wal-Mart trying to find a single product made in the United States and failed to do so. According to Stacy Mitchell’s book Big-Box Swindle:The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, “aside from their local payroll, which typically accounts for less than ten cents of every dollar spent at a big-box store, chains return very little of the revenue they take in back to the local economy” (40; ch. 1.2) Wal-Mart thirteen of the countries that Wal-Mart does business in have booming economies and have had over a four percent annual growth since Wal-Mart arrived (Wilkerson). If that doesn’t show where our dwindling economy is going, I don’t know what does. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad about it, if they were not exploiting what I generously define as indentured servants. In Robert Greenwald’s documentary Wal-Mart the High Cost of Low Price, A girl employed by a Wal-Mart factory in China is forced to live in a run down dorm, she works seven days a week, over twelve hours a day, and she does all of that for three dollars a day. Go ahead local hardware store owners, try to compete with three dollars a day with no overtime.

Supporters of Wal-Mart argue that Wal-Mart has had a substantial positive impact on America’s economy (Hansen 4), that they have wrung inefficiencies out of the supply chain saving consumers money. (Hansen 2), that they are merely giving the customer what they want (Hansen 6), that low prices help bolster the nation’s economy (Hansen 4), and that property-tax revenue generated by big box stores far outweigh any detrimental impacts (Hansen 9). Wal-Mart itself has said, “Saving money is a means to helping our customers live better. By offering the best possible prices on the products our customers need, we can help them afford something a little extra” (About Us). That’s nice but when my taxes are paying for the labor and construction of a Wal-Mart, I just don’t see how I’m saving any money. I also find the idea that Wal-Mart is putting more money in consumers pockets by selling them a Chinese made pair of toenail clippers for less money than an American factory would illogical. If you are unemployed because you can’t find a factory job making toenail clippers, then you can’t afford to buy ones made in China no matter how low they sell it for. Despite what the supporters of Wal-Mart say, I have yet to hear an excuse worthy of justifying the killing of small businesses, the paying of slave wages, and the exporting of America’s wealth.

There is hope and it comes in the form of voters and city ordinances. In Rhode Island, Exeter’s Town Council voted four to zero to amend zoning so that retail stores couldn’t be larger that forty thousand Square Feet (Naylor). This effectively keeps out stores like Home Depot and lets the smaller stores thrive. “Dozens of other communities have capped retail store sizes, including Boxborough, Mass. (25,000 sq.ft.); Ashland, Ore. (45,000); Flagstaff, Ariz. (70,000); Taos, N.M. (80,000); and Stoughton, Wis (110,000)” (Hansen 8). From the year 2000 to 2005 ordinary citizens halted around 200 big-box store development projects (Mitchell x). Three hundred and fifty businesses in Austin have formed an alliance that promotes buying from local businesses (Mitchell x). If more and more towns and more and more voters follow this trend, then maybe we can take our jobs back from China and keep some of our tax dollars in our communities. On paper, the simplest thing that people can do is spread the word and not do business with big-box stores like Wal-Mart. I said simple not easy. Stopping ourselves from shopping at big-box stores might be the hardest thing for us instant gratification junky Americans to do. It is time for American shoppers to prove they care more about their country, their neighbors, and their children’s future, than they do about the convenience of shopping for everything under one roof. If you and I stop shopping at big-box stores like Wal-Mart then we support ourselves as much as we do each other. Join me in my boycott of Wal-Mart and similar big-box stores.

Works Cited
“About Us.” Walmartstores.com. Wal-Mart, 2001. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
Greenwald, Robert, dir. Wal-Mart the High Cost of Low Price. Brave New Films, 2005. DVD.
Hasen, B. “Big-Box Stores.” CQ Researcher. 10 Sept. 2004. Web. 13 Nov. 2009.
Mitchell, Stacy. Big-Box Swindle The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses. New York: Beacon, 2006. Print.
Naylor, Donita. “Council Rejects Big-Box Stores.” The Providence Journal. 08 Apr. 2008. Web. 21 Nov. 2009.
“US & World Population Clock.” Census Bureau Home Page. United States Census Bureau. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
Wilkerson, Michael. “Thewal-Mart effect.” Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale, Nov. & dec. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.

How to Be a Winner

You might be wondering why some people always seem to win. No matter what happens, certain people always seem to come out ahead. These people are not lucky, although luck does help. It is because they know something that losers do not. They know how to be a winner.

Here are the 4 steps to become a winner.

Step 1: You have to try.

“Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing. ”

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Many people are so afraid of losing that they never try anything. To be a winner you have to fail over and over again. Winners do not always win, but people who do not try never win. Don’t let your fear of failure stop you from trying.

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Step 2: Stop losing and start winning.

“Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”

Vince Lombardi

It sounds simple enough doesn’t it? Look, if you are losing or failing over and over again, it is time to change the game play. Don’t keep doing the same failed actions. If something doesn’t work, try again with a different approach.

Step 3: The worst wrong you can be is right.

“Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.”

George S. Patton

Sometimes people get so stuck on winning, that they become a loser even if they win. I once heard that New Mexico spent millions to investigate and convict a state worker that embezzled a couple thousand dollars. Yeah they won, I mean they sure got that guy. In the end, New Mexico was still a loser. Remember this next time you have an argument with your significant other, it could come in handy.

John Lowenstein

Step 4: Ignore the losses.

“The secret to keeping winning streaks going is to maximize the victories while at the same time minimizing the defeats.”

John Lowenstein

If all you do is obsess over your losses, then you will always lose. Winners obsess over their wins not their losses. You might lose a dozen times and only win once, but that still means you are a winner. Winning is very much in your head and so is losing.