Splits, Smiles and the Stage - Meet Joanna Littlewood-Johnson
(Photo by Nina Otranto)
You may know Joanna Littlewood-Johnson from her seemingly effortless pole combos, her incredibly athletic pole performances, or perhaps you recognise that killer smile and dreamy six-pack she is rocking! Either way, Joanna Littlewood-Johnson has been an inspiration to the pole community for well over a decade.
Joanna is a professional pole dancer, competitor, performer, studio owner, pole and Pilates instructor, event manager, mother of 2 boys, wife, and an all-round total boss lady! She has dominated the Australian pole competition scene since 2011, placing in almost every competition she enters. With titles including Arnold Classic Pole Championship Series winner in 2019, Pole Theatre Professional Drama Winner in 2017 and International Pole Championships Ultimate Champion (Masters) in 2015, Joanna’s ‘pool room’ would be rather impressive and dripping with sashies.
We sat down to chat about Joanna’s amazing career so far, her background in dance and Pilates, her love of performing arts and a good to-do list, plus a new instructor training program she has in the works! So get comfortable babes and put the chocolate away, because Joanna’s story is the only treat you need today!
A Passion for Performing
There was no doubt that Joanna would end up spending her life performing. Her mum owned a ballet school and Joanna started taking classes when she was 4 years old. Her passion for dance bloomed and she moved to Perth at the age of 16 to do a diploma in dance at the WA Academy of Performing Arts. After a season in the corps de ballet with the WA ballet company, Joanna momentarily questioned if this path was for her.
"I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this! I don’t just want to be in the background!’” she laughs. “So, I was I went and worked in banks for a while and I wasn’t dancing really at all.”
During this time Joanna auditioned for a musical, more as an escape from a previous bad marriage than anything. When she successfully got into ‘Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat’ she discovered the bold and upbeat world of musical theatre.
“That was much more fun – singing and dancing!” smiles Joanna. “I did that for 12 months and then it was hard to get regular work so I came back to Perth to try to sort out my marriage. That’s when I started dancing in the pub shows and it was exciting again! There was a little pole also, but back then there were no classes, just the clubs and bars so, we experimented I learned from a friend who had danced in Paris and from VHS videos – it’s changed a lot over the years.”
After having her kids, Joanna returned to pole dancing, and realised it had started to go wild in the muggle mainstream. There were even proper pole dancing classes you could take!
“I had done bits of pole before my kids. We would shoulder mount, invert and [do] spins and climbs - that was just part of our shows. There were no schools or anything back then,” Joanna recalls. “I had my kids and then there’s this pole dancing stuff everywhere! One of my friends at the playgroup was in a Miss Pole Dance competition, and I went along to watch that and I was like ‘whoa! I could do that!’” she tells me.
Joanna quickly progressed through pole classes, and while she was a total natural, there were some things she found difficult at first.
“Remembering! Remembering the routines – that was really hard! So, I understand what it’s like for my students, because I would go to class and be like ‘I can’t remember any of this stuff!'” she says bursting into a laugh. “I used to go home and go over it in my head that night, so that I could remember it the following weekend. That was probably the hardest part for me,” she says, before adding, “And Superman! Superman was my nemesis move, and I used to say that it was worse than childbirth!”
After just 6 months of taking pole dancing lessons at Bobbis in Perth, Joanna entered her first Miss Pole Dance competition in 2009. Joanna didn’t know what it was about competing that intrigued her at first, she just knew that she had to be on that stage!
“Once I did that first one, I thought may as well do it again!” she tells me. “Then the year after [my first Miss Pole] I won, so I went to Miss Pole Dance Australia. I guess I got the bug! It was just good to have something to train for and I liked being onstage.”
(Joanna performing one of her early Miss Pole shows)
Champion of the Stage
Ever since stepping onto the stage at her first Miss Pole, Joanna has become a regular on the Aussie pole comp scene. Scoring sashies since ‘09 (can we please put that on a t-shirt?), Joanna displays unwavering dedication towards her shows and training.
Joanna’s achievements include:
Feature Pole Artist in ‘Cabaret de Paris’ at Crown Theatre in Perth 2020
Miss Pole Dance WA 2019 – 2nd Runner Up
Miss Pole Dance Australia 2019 – Finalist
International Pole Championships 2018 Pole Fit Champion (Masters) - 1st place
Pole Championship Series (Arnold Classic) 2017 – 2nd runner up
Featured in Infamous the Show 2017
International Pole Champs (IPC) 2015 – Ultimate Champion (Masters)
Aerial All Stars (Pole Art) 2015 – 2nd Runner up
Australian Pole Championships 2014 – 2nd Runner Up
Australian Pole Championships 2013 – 1st place
International Pole Champs (IPC) 2013 – Ultimate Champion (Masters)
Australian Pole Fitness Championships 2013 – 2nd place
Australian Pole Fitness Championships 2012 – 2nd place
Australian Pole Championships 2012 – 2nd Runner Up
Miss Pole Dance WA 2011 – 1st place
Miss Pole Dance Australia 2011 – Finalist
Miss Pole Dance WA 2009 - 2nd Runner Up (Joanna’s first comp!)
Joanna was also an Australia’s Got Talent Finalist in 2013 and travelled to London for the World Pole Sports Championships in 2012. Oh, and did we mention she is also an X-Pole Australia ambassador?!
Picking competitions to enter based on what feels right at the time, Joanna tells me she has been very lucky with her pole comp career so far. But also, she is smart and reads the comp criteria!
"I’ve just been really lucky that I have always done well in all of them!” Joanna says. "Every time I’ve gotten into a comp I’ve either placed or done pretty well, so maybe it’s luck or maybe I’m just good at reading criteria!” she says laughing. “You don't necessarily have to be the best at one thing, but you have to meet the criteria that the judges are looking for otherwise you won’t get a place,” she explains. “Also, I think I do a good show – I perform well.”
Yes she does! Joanna performs so well in fact, that she was asked to perform for Arnold Schwarzenegger himself at the Arnold Sports Festival in 2017, as part of the Pole Championship Series.
“That was really cool – I sort of got dobbed in!” she laughs. “But I had to keep waiting [for my run-through] because he hadn’t arrived yet. Afterwards I was like ‘alright I'm happy now – I can go home!’. Then I think I had an hour until I had to go onstage and actually compete. So, it wasn’t really a run-through [in front of Arnie] because I smashed it out and put everything in, but then I had to compete like an hour later!”
(Photo by The Black Light)
Dominating in ‘pole fitness’ style competitions like the Arnold or IPC, Joanna started to feel that people had forgotten that she is actually a very versatile performer. To remind us all, she recently put on a sassy performance at Miss Pole Dance WA in 2019, and came away with third place and a spot in the national final.
“In the last 5-6 years, people see me as a sporty or contemporary type of a dancer and I thought I want to show that I'm still versatile, that was where I started and that I can do different styles of dance – I don’t want people to put me in a box,” she explains. “I went in [Miss Pole] not expecting anything because I don’t generally dance that style anymore and I knew I was going against girls who do. So I was like, I need to pull out some big guns and thought, ‘I’m going to do my Russian Splits in heels!’”
(Photo by Vertigo Photography)
Yes you did read that correctly my blog loving friend. Joanna performed a Russian Split IN HEELS. You can watch this epic performance here. Splits aside, Joanna's Miss Pole show played to her strengths as a natural performer and included some great dancing both on and off the pole. “I think I dance more off the pole, so my style is different and I think it stands out,” she says.
Another jewel in Joanna’s competition crown is her treasured piece from Pole Theatre in 2017, where she won the professional drama category with an Anne Frank inspired performance.
“Someone sent [that song] to me years ago. It was only when I researched it and found out what it was about (it's family history for me as well, because my family is Jewish), it actually became quite emotional. That song would give me shivers,” recalls Joanna. “I just really tried to make my movements tell the story and embody the character. I had to really take a moment to condense all of that [emotion] before I went on stage, and I was nearly in tears when I came off from it. It was very emotional. It’s really the only serious show I’ve ever done and I would love to do it again at some stage. I think that one really had a deep meaning to me.”
(Photo by Vertigo Photography)
Pilates meets Pole Dancing
Just like peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, or pole dancers and booty shorts, Joanna has found combining her love of pole and Pilates to be the perfect combination for her.
“I started my first [Pilates] course when my first son was 18 months old and he's just about to turn 20, so I have been teaching Pilates for 18 years,” she says. Teaching Pilates 6 days per week, Joanna is very passionate about the mind-body connection.
“I’m very pedantic about the fine-tuning and right muscle engagement in my Pilates and pole classes, and I’m very aware of that myself. Like ‘what am I engaging’ and ‘what am I feeling’,” she tells me. “I will do drills either on or off the pole to find the connection, so that when I’m on the pole I don’t have to think about it as much. There’s a lot of brain work – a lot of mind-body connection!”
Joanna says while Pilates is great cross-training for pole dancing, and has helped her, you don’t necessarily have to do Pilates. She explains it could be yoga, gym or even body weight exercises and conditioning – just as long as people are building up that awareness of their bodies and the associated movements on the pole. “I definitely see the difference in the people who do Pilates and pole," Joanna advises.
Training smart & listening to your body
As a professional pole dancer, competitor and instructor, Joanna gives her body as much TLC as possible so that she can keep living her best, pole dance life. "I do a lot of muscle release work and I do a lot of conditioning,” she says. “I’m not super flexible so that probably holds me in good stead because I’m not hypermobile, and that’s definitely a challenge for people.”
Joanna says that she has always had strong legs and great splits (oh the flexy envy!), and even though she can perform a Bird of Paradise to perfection, she wouldn’t push her body into something that doesn’t feel good for it.
“For me the stability and the mobility, as opposed to flexibility, is important. I would never push my body into something that it can’t do, or push my students into something that they can’t do. Basically, work towards it and if your body doesn't do that, then your body doesn’t do that,” Joanna explains. “I’ve got pole dancing students overseas, all over 40 years old, have been pole dancing for a really long time, and they all want to go back to working on the basics and fine-tuning longevity in their pole lives. I find it really interesting that people that are a bit older are well aware of that.”
As the pole world grows and evolves on social media, Joanna thinks no matter what background you have had, learning the basics and laying a good foundation in pole is key. It can be difficult for dancers to learn and understand their body without proper guidance from a teacher, even if they are able to wing their way through a trick that they’ve seen during a 'Gram scrolling sesh.
“I've had people come to me and they say, ‘oh, I've done gymnastics so I don’t think I need to do Beginners [pole class]’, and I’m like you do,” Joanna says. “You just might get it faster, move up faster or understand it better. But I think it won't hurt to go over and learn the basics, because it pole is so different to everything else.”
As we are well aware, nailing the basics usually comes hand-in-hand with a growing pole obsession. Even though not all polers compete, many of us find ourselves in multiple classes a week and training often. As well as looking after her body, when it comes to training for a pole competition or show, Joanna says it’s all about training smart and planning out your approach.
“When you’re training for a comp, you’re putting more hours into that training time, so you don’t want to put too much energy into doing say, five classes a week. But it might be that you change what classes you’re doing alongside your training,” Joanna explains. “So instead of going, ‘I'm going to do five pole classes a week and I'm going to train for my competition’, you might need to go and do some Pilates or some extra conditioning, or something that turns it down to maintain the body outside of those training times.”
She continues, “I think it's still good to have (even if it’s one class per week), a coach or someone to be monitoring your technique and your form while you're training. It's really easy when you start to train for a comp, to lose some of those things because you’re thinking about the routine. It might even be good to go back and do some lower-level classes, do the technique, and then train your routine which is your higher-level stuff," she tells me. “I think it's just about balancing it out and listening to your body.”
Wearing all of the hats
Before opening her pole studio, Joanna was practicing pole alone in the front room of her house and teaching small classes from there. She was hiring the local hall run her Pilates classes, when the idea hit her like a bolt of lightning from the pole gods.
“I was like well I’ll look at opening a [Pilates] studio and if I have a studio, why don’t I add pole – that was pretty much it!” she laughs as she reflects on how Core Fusion was born.
(Joanna in her home studio - on 50mm poles!)
Today Joanna has a well-established studio called Core Fusion Pilates & Pole in Western Australia. Moving into a new, bigger space 2 years ago, the studio had grown to include five rooms. “Now I’ve got a reformer studio, I’ve got a mat-work studio which is huge, I’ve got a small pole studio, I’ve got a larger one and then I’ve got a private Pilates room upstairs,” she tells me with a grin.
As many other studio owners would know, having your own pole and/or Pilates studio comes with many, many hats to wear. From studio maintenance, admin, social media, timetabling, customer service, managing staff and teaching classes, Joanna says finding the time to train some days can be hard. On top of this, she also organises the heat of a pole competition for her state – the WA Pole Championships. So how does she balance it all?!
"Probably not very well!” Joanna says bursting into a laugh. “Sometimes it’s hard, I may be a little bit of a control freak and I want to do it all. But I pre-plan everything. Like the pole comp, I have spreadsheets and everything is all organised – my husband tells me I have too many spreadsheets!” she laughs. “But nothing goes wrong! I am really organized, so on the day I don’t have to worry about it. I’m a list person and a spreadsheet person!”
(Joanna training at her studio, Core Fusion Pilates & Pole)
Joanna’s two sons also help and work reception at the studio, as well as encourage their friends to come along to try classes. “When we were shut down last year for two months [due to a COVID-19 lockdown], they couldn’t go to gymnastics so every Saturday they came [into the studio] and we had pole dancing lessons!” she tells me smiling.
Not only did last year’s lockdown create some family time for Joanna, but it also gave her a new idea...
Core Training Program with Joanna
Since Zoom went BOOM in the pole world, and online classes became the new norm in 2020, Joanna has found herself teaching students from all over the world. From the US to the UK, she is able to share her coaching skills on a global scale thanks to technology.
“It’s awesome! It's really nice. It’s hard to schedule time in sometimes though!” Joanna chuckles. “In a way there’s an element of teaching on Zoom that I like. I can see more of what they’re doing, because I can come up near the camera with my glasses on and I can actually pick up stuff that maybe I wouldn’t see live. And because I can’t spot, I have to be really specific with my explanations and directions.”
Realising she could mix technology with teaching, Joanna was inspired to launch her own pole training program, called ‘Core Pole Training by Joanna’, to train and upskill pole dance instructors. Like many other studio owners, she found it was getting hard to organise all of her staff to come in on the same day for upskilling and training, and needed to revamp her instructor training manual to make it more specific.
As she started to update her studio manual, Joanna noticed that while there are a lot of pole teacher training courses available around the world, not many have a follow up or record of hours spent applying the knowledge.
“I thought there’s a lot of pole courses out there, and they teach moves and they teach theory but I wanted to give a bit more of my knowledge and my experience. When I did my Pilates course, and in most Pilates certifications, you have to have prerequisite hours and then self-mastery, teaching and observation hours after you’ve done the course. I wanted to incorporate that,” explains Joanna.
In her program, Joanna has added ongoing learning stages and development hours which can be done virtually with her if you live outside of Perth.
"With the Core Training Program, if people are not in Perth, there’s an optional online component for the theory but the practical part must be done live on Zoom. It’s not just reading a book and watching the video; there's a discussion and an interaction as if it were live,” says Joanna.
Launching soon, the Core Pole Training program is ideal for aspiring pole instructors or current pole instructors who are wanting to deepen their knowledge. It can also be a great resource for studios like Joanna’s, who may find it tricky trying to tee up teacher training days with their large team or across multiple locations. You can stay up to date with the program and the launch date by following @corepoletraining on Instagram or visiting the website by clicking here.
A Life of Spreadsheets & Spreadies
Having achieved so much in her pole dancing career already, Joanna tells me her love of performing and teaching her students is what keeps her motivated and the spark burning bright. Even when she gets busy, Joanna always tries to find time to squeeze in some pole training.
“It takes me a long time sometimes to get started, but once I get started, I can stay and keep going for a long time. I just love the feeling of dancing,” she says happily. “Every now and then I get the opportunity to do a show and that gives me something to work towards. I did Infamous (the circus) and then I did Cabaret de Paris as well recently, and it’s great! I actually really love performing to non-pole dancers because they get very easily impressed!” Joanna laughs.
Juggling school runs with stilettos one spreadsheet at a time, this busy Cinderella won’t be turning into a pumpkin anytime soon, thriving off a fast-paced life. And when she does have a second to spare, Joanna tells me she loves to spend it with her family or to go and see a musical like Kinky Boots or Westside Story.
An explosive performer with a natural talent for dropping jaws, we can always count on Joanna Littlewood-Johnson to dazzle us with dynamic pole combos and terrific splits. Radiating with passion in all that she does, Joanna may leave the stage with a sash, but her audience will always be left with butterflies of inspiration and a smile.
How incredible is Joanna?! Leave a comment below & tell me which of her shows you love the most!
