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Kavita Daswani

The first time Ray Kayan stepped up to a fitness pole, he thought he had it covered.
He was a regular at the gym, had taken part in bodybuilding competitions and had even played hockey. He assumed adding pole for fitness would be straightforward.
“I can do this easily,” he remembers thinking.
He discovered a much more challenging reality.
“Gym strength does not translate into pole strength,” the 58-year-old says. “Not at all. You’re bruised all over your legs, your body aches and you can’t even spin around the pole properly. It was very humbling. A lot of people try it once and think, ‘I’m never coming back.’”
But Kayan – who was born in Hong Kong and emigrated to Los Angeles with his parents when he was one – did not give up. He was enchanted by the idea of using a pole for fitness.
“Just watching people do amazing things on the pole, how they spin, how graceful they look – it was something I really wanted to do.”


From silks to pole
While Kayan had always been fit and active, an injury forced him to avoid contact sports. He then came across aerial fitness, where silks suspended from the ceiling are used to perform acrobatics.
He practised it for a couple of years, and while he enjoyed it, a lack of community kept him from truly committing.
The same studio was offering pole classes, so he decided to give it a try. It took some time to adjust. He ordered a pole online and set it up at home, giving it a whirl now and then, but it sat largely unused until Covid hit.
Forced indoors, he began taking online pole classes whenever he could, fitting them around running the insurance business he had set up with his ex-wife.
By the time fitness studios reopened, Kayan was in a good place and felt confident on the pole.
He began substituting for teachers at Los Angeles fitness studios and became a fixture at international pole events, including those in Thailand and South Korea.

Yoga in the air
Pole fitness requires a higher form of athleticism than one might think.
“It allows all forms of bodies to showcase their strength and flexibility,” Kayan says. “I call it active flexibility. In the gym, you’re doing one thing at a time. In pole, you have to use your whole body.
“Imagine doing yoga or Pilates on a mat on the ground. With a pole, you’re trying to make the same shapes, but you don’t have the ground to push against. You’re using thin air.
“You’re really pushing, lengthening through your hips to the end of your toes. There’s nothing helping you up there.”

Studies of pole dancers – though mostly women – underscore the benefits of the sport.
A 2020 study showed that they have greater muscle strength and lower back and hamstring muscle flexibility than control group participants who were not trained in the sport. They also have significantly less body fat and more muscle mass in their arms.
A 2024 study found participants in a 20-week pole fitness training programme lost fat mass while gaining muscle mass and hand grip strength.
What Kayan most appreciates about the practice is that it is a great equaliser; everyone starts at zero, no matter their level of fitness.
“It doesn’t matter what your body looks like or where you come from,” he says. “Everyone understands how hard it is. This isn’t a drop-in class. I always tell people, give it at least five classes. You have to commit.”
Don’t let age get in the way
The activity, as a form of fitness, has grown since Kayan first started, even among men. He remembers the instructor of the very first pole class he wanted to attend not letting him in because of his gender.

Now, he says, men are regulars in classes, and he sees people in their sixties and seventies approaching a pole for the first time.
“I’m at that age where mobility issues start to creep in, little aches and pains,” says the father of two children in their 20s.
“When I first started, I was already in my fifties, and I was on the pole so much that I was getting injured and needing a lot of [physiotherapy].
“But then I learned how to condition those muscles properly, to stretch them and warm up so that I don’t get hurt. It’s something everyone needs to be cognisant … of – that as we get older, we don’t have the ability to bounce back like we did in our twenties and thirties.”
Despite its growing popularity, he concedes that pole continues to carry misconceptions.
“People can’t separate it from its origins,” he said. “It was born in strip clubs. But that’s not all it is.”
Outside that context, it remains, for many, misunderstood – often dismissed or reduced to something erotic, or even seedy. Kayan sees it differently.
“It’s a journey – a soul-searching journey,” he says. “When I first started, I was very insecure. Pole helped me peel back those layers. It allowed me to express myself and not care about what society thinks I should be. I was always thinking, what should a man be? A husband? A father?
“All those expectations – it just throws them out the window. In the gym, there’s this idea of what a body should look like. Not in pole.”

A form of therapy
Kayan is realistic about the demands of the practice, and injuries have forced him to adapt.
These days, he balances pole with regular conditioning and physiotherapy exercises, and he does callisthenics at home.
Beyond the way that pole keeps his body conditioned, it is also a form of therapy.
“Even though you don’t always get the tricks, or don’t always have a good day dancing, the fact is you showed up and got on the pole. It’s good for the soul and the mind. It’s empowering.
“You see people who are short or tall, full size or skinny, and they’re all strong in their own beautiful way. That’s what I love the most about it – it adapts to all forms of bodies. All.”
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Lifestyle

Health & Wellness

Health

Hong Kong-born LA resident Ray Kayan found that gym strength means little on the fitness pole, an activity he finds ‘empowering’


Hong Kong-born LA resident Ray Kayan found that gym strength means little on the fitness pole, an activity he finds ‘empowering’.


How to age well

Health & Fitness

Chinese overseas

Asian-Americans

How pole keeps this 58-year-old former bodybuilder in top shape mentally and physically

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Hong Kong-born LA resident Ray Kayan found that gym strength means little on the fitness pole, an activity he finds ‘empowering’

Hong Kong-born LA resident Ray Kayan found that gym strength means little on the fitness pole, an activity he finds ‘empowering’