International Pole Dance Fitness Championship

Last night after work I took the train directly into Shinjuku for the International Pole Dance Fitness Championship. I was invited by a friend and got a discount so, even though I had little real interest in going, I gave it a shot and went.

I arrived with a few friends to find a long line outside of the venue, the Shinjuku Christon Cafe (I swear they don't pay me to mention them in every other post, it's just that lots of stuff happens there). We eventually got inside and while everyone else was putting things in a coat check I talked to one of my friends who was working there and I got a booth and started ordering food.

I was eating with one other person for the the first few performances so I didn't get to see any of the show, though there was a brief but loud "USA!!", "USA!!" chant after one of the US performers went. It was like stepping into a wrestling show or a teabagger cavalcade or whatever it is you call a group of those people.

After finishing dinner, I watched a small portion of the pole dancing. It was pretty impressive in terms of what was going on. I mean hanging off a pole horizontally is no small feat. However, there is really only so much you can do with pole dancing. There's a pole, you can climb and spin and hang and that's about it for using the pole. What some people can do is pretty amazing but not 3 hours of my attention amazing.

This means that I ended up back in the dining area with some other people while most of the event was going on. I did occasionally pop my head out of the dining area and even went out and talked to a few other friends during the performances but for some reason I can't recall seeing much in terms of pole dancing. I saw some kind of cliche unattractive singing going on, then I saw a Taiko performance and even an appearance by the New-Half Ninja doing the New-Half Ninja show. (Have I ever mentioned what a new-half is? It's basically a half-op transexual or in other terms a ladyboy. The new-half ninja is a ladyboy ninja.) Not so much pole dancing though.

The crowd was kind of weird and seemed to consist of mainly businessmen, foreign businessmen and girls who looked like they were fans of pole dancing. It wasn't the normal crowd that I am used to for events so I didn't really know many people. I did run into some friends though so that was good. The food, as always was good, and I had a good time of it.