Competitors To Vie For Annual US Pole Dancing Championship

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The co-founder of a national pole dancing organization says its "everyday women," not strippers, who will be strutting their stuff this weekend for a chance at a title.

The US Pole Dance Federation is hosting its 4th annual US Pole Dance Championship in New York City on Saturday night.

Wendy Traskos, co-founder of the federation, told 1010 WINS' Aaron Gerberg her organization was the first in the country to take the "athletic art form" out of gentleman's clubs and nightclubs and put it in a "theater venue."

There will be both an amateur and professional competition, which will feature 10 participants.  The competitors, Traskos said, are chosen from videos submitted to the USPDF board.

The finalists are picked based on criteria, including techniques, transitions, flexibility and musicality.

So who will be participating? It may not be who you think.

"As far as I know, none of the girls that are competing in our organization currently are strippers and if they have been strippers, it wasn't a known thing. Most of the women...are everyday women that have just mastered this and want to take it to another level," Traskos said.

Traskos said that her organization wants to "showcase pole dancing in a really positive way."

"So we got ourselves a theater and started promoting it, created our structured way of judging things," she said.

The federation said that since its founding in 2008, it has "brought women together around a passion for this form of fitness."

The competition will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Symphony Space Theater.

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