On Tuesday nights, West Hollywood’s Heart Nightclub is transformed into an all-gender pole dance extravaganza.
Two nearly 14-foot-tall poles and a lyra hoop are added to a pair of narrow, pop-up stages, one in the center of the room, the other by the bar. The main stage, which features a full catwalk and steps, is flanked on all sides by plush booths reserved for VIPs and customers who purchase bottle service.
Bartenders prepare $10 cocktails and stand by to exchange big bills for stacks of ones. Dedicated sweepers scoop dollar bills off the ground and into trash bags as a pole cleaner who goes by the name Euphoria climbs the pole to clean it between sets.
Through it all, Miles Woods — known professionally as Yung Pole Master — flits around the room, making sure his Pole Master’s Playhouse goes off without a hitch.
The 28-year-old, a first cousin of golf legend Tiger Woods, has been breaking barriers his entire life as a man participating in female-dominated spaces. Now with Pole Master’s Playhouse, Woods is ushering in other talented, marginalized dancers.
“There were not a lot of Black male pole dancers before me,” he said over lunch in Hollywood. “I can name them on my hand, barely. It was extremely [challenging] for me to navigate into this world, but I did it by respecting the culture and the women first. And growing through that has allowed me this opportunity to bring other people in.”
Woods, a pole influencer with more than 114,000 Instagram followers, frequently underscores his statements with a decisive “period.” A veteran of L.A.’s nascent pole dance community that began in the early aughts, he has been dancing professionally since he was 19. But the road to this career high has been long and hard.
“I’ve been bullied, shunned,” he said. “I’ve been threatened, I’ve been abused. I’ve been in spaces where I was not welcome due to homophobia. It wasn’t safe, it was scary.”
Which is why he set out to create an authentically safe space for pole dancing with the Playhouse, which features dancers of every gender identity, race and creed. “If you’re straight, we do not care,” he said. “Gay, don’t care. We have trans bodies here, masc bodies here, femme bodies, all colors, all shades. I want it all.”
Although he has taught and danced in strip clubs, Woods is careful to point out that Pole Master’s Playhouse is not one. “We’re not doing lap dances,” he said. “It’s not a strip club, it’s a pole extravaganza. And the crowd has been so receptive and beautiful and diverse. Everybody’s in here, friends, families. It just boggles my mind. Every time I’m onstage and I look around, I’m like, ‘Oh my mama here. And she throwing ones up!’”
Woods was born in Wichita, Kan., but raised in Bakersfield after his parents, Sheilah and Dennison, split up. Before their divorce, the couple owned and operated several nightclubs and liquor stores. “I told Miles, ‘I think we made you in a nightclub,’” Sheilah said with a laugh.
In separate conversations, both of his parents said they knew their son would grow up to be a performer from the time he was 3 years old. “Miles was visiting me at Christmas and he was dancing and I had a video camera going,” said Dennison. “He turned around and threw his hands up and his head back and on the tape I said, ‘Oh Lord, Miles is gay.’ This is when he was 3 years old. So I knew then and I’ve loved him the same ever since.”
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While attending Stockdale High School, Woods was active in theater productions, singing competitions and the cheerleading squad, where he became the first male varsity cheerleader in the school’s history. Still, “I always wanted to get the f— out,” he said.
He left at the first opportunity, following his sister back to Kansas for college, where she was playing Division 1 basketball. “She had this beautiful group of girlfriends,” Woods remembered. “I mean they’re gorgeous, the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen in my life. Nails done, hair done. I’m like, ‘What do y’all do?’ They were like, ‘Girl, we are strippers.’”
The 17-year-old was mesmerized. With the aid of a borrowed ID, he got to witness them dancing during an amateur night at the now-shuttered strip club Jezebel’s. “There would be girls from Oklahoma, Kansas City ... just a Midwest juke joint,” said Woods. “The talent in there was amazing. And the emcee was like, ‘If you’ve got what it takes, come onstage.’”
At the end of the night, Woods spied his chance. He ran onstage, grabbed the pole and flipped upside down. “I didn’t know the pole spun, so I was holding on [for dear life]. I thought I was doing something but they were like, ‘Get your drunk ass off the pole!’”
So Woods committed to getting better. The girls from the club took him under their wing and he practiced three or four more times before moving back to Bakersfield.
When he finally moved back two years later, he dedicated himself fully to progressing as a dancer. “He took everything out of his bedroom, put it in the garage,” said Sheilah. “He had a professional guy take the ceiling fan out and he put a pole up. I swear to God, the only thing in Miles’ room was a pole.”
“I slept on the floor for about a year and a half,” said Woods. “I was like I’m dead serious, I want to be the best pole dancer. I want to eat, breathe, sleep pole. I want to get the f— up out of Bakersfield and I want to be the best. I want to be the highest-paid pole dancer, period.”
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He was referred by a friend to a local studio, Simply Irresistible Pole Fitness. Impressed with his skills, they offered him a job teaching twerk classes in exchange for pole lessons. “One of the girls that I met at the studio was like, ‘They want you to teach but they’re not going to pay you. Come teach out of my apartment and I’ll teach you so you can teach other girls.’”
So Woods began teaching classes out of her Oildale, Calif., apartment. The first weekend, 15 girls showed up for private lessons. “After that, it was like a snowball effect. I kept teaching and then eventually I got into L.A. and started working at the Catch.”
Jewel’s Catch One in Arlington Heights was the longest-running Black disco in L.A. before owner Jewel Thais-Williams sold the establishment in 2015. When Woods was dancing there, renowned pole dancers like Apple Watts, Candace Cane and Twirls McFilth were regulars. “It was a packed house,” he said. “I was not ready. I still showed up and showed out, but I was just there to get inspired.”
That summer he started teaching at Secret Pole Dance Studio, commuting 135 miles each way to the Fox Hills studio where he was paid $20 a class. While working at Secret, Woods also held a part-time job at Nike’s Tejon Outlet store. While there one day, he got an Instagram DM inviting him to dance at an LGBTQ community event at UCLA. The coordinator asked what his booking rate was. “I said, ‘Oh girl, I don’t know. $150.’ She said, ‘I’m going to add a zero on that because we have the budget for you.’”
Woods, who has asthma, thought he was only to perform for two songs, but the event coordinator put him on for 10 minutes.
“My breathing technique wasn’t there yet but that check made sense! I put my heart on the floor and they loved me,” he said. “I was like, ‘This is for me. This is what I need to do.’ That just proved to me that I had promise in this city.”
Through a connection made at the Nike store, Woods was introduced to the popular Hollywood strip club Crazy Girls, where he began training the club’s dancers in 2017. Eventually he had his own themed night and became the first male to ever dance onstage at the club after the girls he taught advocated for him. “And the first night, I made $3,000. So I had to navigate the situation not as somebody from the outside coming in but somebody from the inside coming out.”
Following his 21st birthday in 2015, he finally moved to L.A. “Right after I moved out here, I got a call and got booked to dance for Britney Spears. That’s when I knew my whole life was completely changed.”
After submitting an audition tape, Woods was handpicked by David LaChapelle to appear in the music video for the pop star’s 2019 single “Make Me,” featuring G-Eazy. “That night after the shoot wrapped, I took David LaChapelle and Pamela Anderson to G-Eazy’s birthday party, which I booked dancers for. Drake was there, Ty Dolla Sign was there and it was my first major booking. And that’s what segued Pole Master from [being just a performer] to working with celebrities and booking [high-profile gigs]. After that, people knew to call me for anything stripper-related.”
Woods has an undeniable star power. From the minute his 8-inch heels click across the stage, the crowd is rapt. Despite the fact that dozens of his dancers performed many of the same complex tricks before him, Woods’ control of the audience is exemplified through the dollar bills that seem to rain from the rafters.
“I touch that pole, I grab it, hold on with one hand and that’s a whole séance,” he said. “When I touch the pole, it’s like a spiritual connection. And I’ll do my stomps to channel my ancestors. I feel like when I stomp I’m channeling some power because it works. It’s something deep.”
“The energy he brings when he’s on the stage or when he’s dancing, it’s just so good,” said Adolfo Espinosa, the owner of Heart and two Rocco’s locations. “He just brings a crowd out. He knows how to work his surroundings. And people are not used to seeing a guy on a pole. So when you see him you’re like, ‘Oh wow, guys can actually dance on a pole too.’”
Woods was approached by Espinosa at his drag-themed birthday brunch in March. A fixture in West Hollywood’s dance clubs, Woods had long been on Espinosa’s radar. So the club owner soft-pitched Woods his own dedicated night during the week, offering him carte blanche on whom to hire.
“I was like, ‘Oh you should have never said that because I’mma hire the best of the best across the world,’” said Woods. “My connection and reach is so vast, I have friends in Tokyo, I have friends in Costa Rica. I’ve developed my name as someone who’s showing that you can make money from this in a safe space. You don’t have to be limited to a [strip club], you can dance for Britney Spears. You can do whatever you want to do.”
Espinosa says working with Woods is an easy partnership. “He’s very open to working as a team and making sure it’s going to help the venue, staff and the entertainers,” Espinosa said. “The talent that has been coming to this room is so shocking, it’s insane.”
After 9 p.m., 10 handpicked amateurs who have been prescreened by Woods take the stage, warming up the audience before the 15 core dancers perform. Amateurs have to apply online before being granted an audition slot. Woods vets each applicant to make sure they have the skills and stage presence to wow the crowd. He likens it to the Radio City Rockettes with a pole. “Usually eight to 12 people audition,” said Woods. “I have over 130 applicants. And so far I auditioned 36.
“I don’t want people just coming in here like ‘I want to dance’ because you’re taking away opportunity from people who really need it and deserve it,” he added. “And also I want to make sure that they’re prepared to handle what it’s like to be on that stage, to dance for seven minutes, to have that skill set. This is not a game. This is not for play-play. I’m really trying to provide people the opportunities to shine.”
He’s training his dancers not just to be onstage but to brand themselves. “That’s why the energy is so good in the room, because everybody’s there to support somebody that they know or someone new,” says Woods.
Woods is already setting up the future of the Playhouse, which he hopes will include a docuseries, TV show, Vegas residency and world tour. “This is just the beginning,” he said. “To have a space like this, where it’s truly diverse and it’s a safe space and everybody can come in, I’ve never seen that in West Hollywood before. [They might] have a specific night like Arab night, Latin night, Asian night, Black night. Like Black people can only go to the gay club on Thursday and Sunday. We’re limited to certain smaller spaces.”
But on his night, everyone is welcome, he said. “You’re going to enjoy yourself. I’m just so thankful I’m able to provide these talented individuals with opportunities to provide for themselves and do what they do best. There’s so many amazing, talented people. But I’m the master for a reason.”
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