About 25 girls--some in tight exercise pants, others shyly clad in baggy sweats--crawl cat-like across the Rec. Center floor, then writhe on their backs to hip hop music, sliding their fingers playfully down their front-sides and thrusting open their legs.
"You slide down your body with your hand," says a blonde girl demonstrating at the front. She's Jessica Treidl, a Hopkins senior, Ladybird dancer and Strippercize class instructor.
"Don't forget to keep eye contact!" she reminds the girls, her eyes coyly playing with the wall-length mirror at the front of the dance room.
Strippercize, a new fitness course at the Rec. Center offered each Thursday, uses sexual, stripper-like dance moves to give girls a cardiovascular work-out and improve flexibility.
"It's a dance-based class that pushes the boundaries," said Anne Irwin, life-time sports coordinator at the Rec. Center. "It's sort of evocative. There are a lot of squatting and hip movements and back arching. The arms aren't choreographed, and so everyone can improvise."
Girls are asked to leave their hair down and to wear extra layers of clothing to strip throughout the class.
The first week, they learned to seductively peel off a layer of pants; the second week, they learned to take of their shirts and twirl them "like a helicopter."
"The whole thing is teaching different ways to take things off," said Elizabeth Martinez, freshman and class instructor.
"But nobody gets naked," said Irwin.
Irwin came up with the idea last year in response to the growing popularity of striptease aerobics and the exercise video, Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease.
"It's something that gets some press," she said.
She passed the idea by Dean of Student Life Susan Boswell and then recruited three instructors: Treidl, Martinez and freshman Amy Kjose.
"They're from the Ladybirds dance team, and they're very well-versed at performing," Irwin said.
The girls took a striptease aerobics class from a stripper and watched the Carmen Electra video to train for the course.
"We took that video, went with it and learned how to strip from it," said Martinez, who is a ballet dancer and had little experience with jazz or hip hop before the class. "For the first five minutes of the class, it was kind of like, what am I doing? But you loosen up pretty quickly."
The girls meet each Sunday morning to plan the routine for the week, finding ideas from striptease books and videos and from their own dance experience.
"You can take a lot of regular dance moves and turn them into stripper moves just by touching yourself somewhere or putting attitude into it," said Kjose.
They plan to introduce a theme for each upcoming session, ranging from ties to cowgirls. As the class advances, they have also considered teaching a routine that features high heels.
"It's a different kind of moving, but when you go clubbing it's kind of similar," said Preeti Balakrishnan, a sophomore taking the class.
With each session offered on a first-come first-serve basis and limited to only 25 girls, many come early to make sure they have a spot in the class.
Sophomores Abby Burch and Hallie Pobanz, who liked the class so much they dragged along their friends, said the instructors make the class comfortable for girls who would usually be shy about strip dancing.
"They turn a potentially awkward situation into something funny," said Pobanz.
Also, guys are forbidden from watching.
"This is new territory for some people," said Irwin. "Boys are not allowed."
Even the stripping is limited to the girls' comfort zones.
"We don't get down to Victoria's Secret," said Martinez. "If you're not comfortable taking something off, don't take it off."
Wary of making women into sex objects, the instructors have tried to focus on female empowerment and a way to both exercise and express emotions.
"We're trying to promote empowerment and expression, not showing yourself off but having a good time being who you are and letting go of inhibitions," Martinez said. "It really makes you aware of yourself and what you're able to do."
Many students have bought the $40 fitness pass required for all Rec. Center fitness classes only to take the striptease class.
"I signed up for the pass right before the class," said sophomore Lolita Nidadavolu. "Strippercize got me out here."
The class not only gets a new group of students exercising, but it also teaches them the extent of what they're capable doing.
"It attracts a lot of people you wouldn't necessarily think would be comfortable with that kind of stuff," Kjose said
"But you get them in the room and you encourage them, and they feel comfortable. It is really fun to see people open up like that."
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