Ingredients to Avoid in Grip (and Cosmetic Products)
5 common ingredients to avoid in grip and cosmetic products you use daily and in the one you use to add grip to your sport performance.
There’s something that makes Erica Fucà’s story instantly relatable: it didn’t start from a strategy, but from a completely normal moment. A Saturday night in the living room, the pole right there within reach, and the urge to “do a quick spin.” That video ended up reaching millions of views—and from there, everything changed.
Today Erica is a hugely followed creator and an instructor: she opened her own studio and guides so many students to discover (and rediscover) pole dance, with the same passion she had when she first started.
Honestly, I didn’t use TikTok much—I kept installing it and uninstalling it over and over.
Then one Saturday night I was in the living room with my dad and my boyfriend Matteo, and I said: “Alright, I’m going to do a spin on the pole.” It really all started by chance. Unexpectedly, that video reached millions of views, and I just kept making more. I’m lucky because my family supports me in this—my beloved grandma is even in some of my videos.
I don’t remember exactly when I realized it, but it started to take up more and more space in my life. For sure, the success my videos had on social media pushed me to keep going with pole dance. I’m grateful to this discipline because it’s allowed me to have experiences I never would have even dreamed of—and to collaborate with important companies in the pole dance world, like our mutual friends at THEPOLE.
At first I got angry, I felt hurt… I questioned everything. But over time, I started to change my perspective. I realized that commenting from behind a screen is incredibly easy, and often the people doing it have no idea what’s behind a video: training, effort, insecurities, sacrifices.
Today I try not to give it too much weight. If I feel it’s worth it, I respond. If not, I let it go. Protecting my energy has become essential for me.
To anyone going through something similar, I always say this: don’t let a comment define you. People see a few seconds of you, but they don’t know your story.
My relationship with pole is still the same as it’s always been. It still moves me—every single time.
What’s changed, maybe, is the way I look at it: since I started teaching, I get emotional watching other people too. When someone gets passionate about it, I see myself in the version of me who started—full of curiosity and, let’s be honest, a little scared too.
The most beautiful thing is seeing the amazement in their eyes. When they say “I didn’t think I could do it” after a class… that’s when something special happens. It’s like, step by step, they discover a new version of themselves.
No, absolutely—the journey hasn’t been linear, and I think that’s normal.
During the first year when I started pole, I struggled with eating disorders. I can’t say pole helped me in recovery—actually, I had a hard time with the fact that in class it was always me and the mirror. It was a discomfort I’d had even before; since I was a teenager I never really liked myself.
On top of that, I’m a very insecure person. That insecurity has made me feel stuck, even in pole. I never feel like I’m enough and I often downplay what I do. Sometimes I think my success on social media is random—undeserved.
This has been, and still is, one of the biggest challenges: learning to recognize my worth.
One exercise I try to do every day is to notice when that feeling of “not being good enough” shows up—and to step away from toxic situations and people, or even simply from thoughts that don’t do me any good.
There was a period when I would watch my videos and focus only on my physical appearance—on how I looked, not on the performance. Thanks to therapy, I managed to see myself with different eyes. It wasn’t simple, because this sport can’t avoid the exposure of your body.
I started having a different relationship with the mirror, seeing it not as a judge but as a technical tool—useful for correcting lines and posture. And I started feeling grateful for what my body can DO: for the strength I have for an invert, or the fluidity of a combo. I shifted my attention from centimeters to technical milestones.
Sometimes I wonder too 🤣.
When I move in with Matteo, I absolutely want the pole—and our home has to have ceilings at least 3 meters high… he already knows everything!
But for now, I don’t think too much about what will happen. I focus on the present, especially when it comes to the studio—it's still a new experience for me, and I truly have so much to learn.
Sara Martinelli
Polipole
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