Bombshell Movement Studio Seeks to Empower Women

Sydney Seymour is a local business owner. She hopes that her studio can help women to be comfortable with who they are, which includes being comfortable with their sexuality. But Seymour knows that some pockets of society frown on what she is trying to do.

In fact, Seymour only talked to Patch under the condition that we not use her real name. Sydney Seymour is the Joliet woman’s stage name.

Seymour owns . She’s married and has one child. She has owner her own business since 2007. But her day job is as a youth minister and she has some conflict with that.

“This community doesn’t know me yet and I don’t want that to be a battle from a spiritual level,” she said. “The religion community is not as liberal, initially.”

Bombshell Movement Studio has been in its current location since 2010. Although their classes do help women get more physically fit and flexible, that is secondary.

“Number one, we’re not a fitness studio, we are a sensual or a feminine movement studio, so the workout is secondary for us,” Seymour said. “Basically we are big on women embracing their bodies where they are now.”

Seymour said she notices that a lot of women seek out fitness because they are dissatisfied with their bodies. She doesn’t want them to have that outlook at Bombshell.

“We believe in accepting who you are and where you are right now,” she said.

“We want to change how women think about themselves and other women.”

“They find friendships; they find community in our studio.”

Behind the half wall in the Joliet studio are a half a dozen poles. Bombshell Movement Studio employs pole dancing in their studio. When people find that out, though, they go straight to a stereotype.

“I think the most common thing is are we teaching woman to be strippers,” Seymour said. “What were doing has nothing to do with men, stripping is typically a man-oriented thing.”

Instead, Seymour sees women dancing at the studio as something they do for themselves. This is possibly especially true because dancing is something Seymour has always done for herself. Before opening her business, Seymour was a modern dancer.

“For me, it is a very personal thing,” she said. “To someone who is really a dance enthusiast, dance is therapeutic, dance is a vehicle of communication, dance is a vehicle of release."

“It represents all of those things in a woman’s life.”

But, there is more than just dancing. Seymour creates an atmosphere of camaraderie.

"When women walk through our doors, they find a community of women," she said. "It’s truly a melting pot."

"You have to learn to encourage other women and you can't do any of those things until you learn to do those things yourself."