"Whip your hair! ... Roll your hips! ... Turn that sexy dial all the way up!"

You couldn't tell it by the faces of the half-dozen women Danielle Green was training that night - they were having too much fun -- but they were getting a real workout. A few hip and shoulder rolls to start the class, some splits to keep limber, and it was time for a twirl on The Pole.

One could say that Green, owner of Vixen Fitness, at 1795 Washtenaw Avenue in Ypsilanti Township, lucked herself into the alternative fitness business by seeing opportunities others don't.

Ypsilanti's Danielle Green helps women all over Southeast Michigan "release their inner vixen" with classes in pole-dancing, as well as yoga and pilates.

Angela J. Cesere | AnnArbor.com

If not for a dare to try pole-dancing at a 2005 bachelorette party, Green might be stuck at a technical desk job rather than helping other women feel empowered.

"I had just had my first child, so I felt good regaining my strength, my confidence," Green recalled. "Then I got a pole for my house, and it became something I turned to as my outlet for fitness."

Green, who was enrolled at ITT Tech at the time, kept furthering her interest in pole-dancing. Before long she was hosting weekend bachelorette and girls night out-type parties, where she introduced the women to pole-dancing. These women shared the same fascination Green had after her first dance.

"I literally couldn't book enough parties," Green realized, but the lion's share of the money was going to someone else, even though she was doing the work.

"The girls were asking me 'where can I learn more?' 'Can you come back to my house and set up a pole?" Green recalled.

Soon it was time to go her own way, and in 2007 she opened the very first Vixen Fitness studio in Detroit. Today the Vixen Fitness brand has caught on with women in two different counties and is making its way to a third.

Despite Vixen's success in serving women, Green said that one area of expansion that holds no interest is the men who might be looking for something similar. Men aren't even really allowed in the studio beyond signing up women they know, dropping them off and picking them up.

Vixen's no-men, no-kids rule allows women to be in the moment and move with the music. Because everyone else is learning too, it's a supportive environment, whereas having idle spectators around would foster judgment, which fosters self-consciousness.

That Green comes by her entrepreneurship honestly, that she's no veteran of the stripper's pole, comes as a great relief to her customers, many of whom want to learn a few new moves to spice up their normal lives, not to pursue a different lifestyle entirely.

Kelsey Hanson came out to Vixen five months ago on a whim after her guy friends, who never thought anyone could get the tomboy to dance, dared her to try pole-dancing. By the end of the first lesson Hanson was hooked and she's been coming back regularly ever since.

Hanson, who faced her body-image issues growing up, said she feels both safe and empowered at Vixen.

"The workouts are challenging enough that you're not focused on anybody else's perception," Hanson said. "You see women of all shapes and sizes in here, and they make you just feel so un-judged."

Hanson's sentiment echoed that of the other students interviewed by AnnArbor.com after a small pole-dancing class.

Green credits positive word-of-mouth for Vixen's success. Vixen has never made a big advertising push and doesn't even really use its own storefront to further its visibility. If you don't know to look for Vixen in the Courtland Plaza, a few doors down from Little Caesars, you'll pass it.

Save for the token overreactions of a few husbands and boyfriends more afraid than intrigued by the empowerment women take from pole-dancing lessons, most of the reaction to Vixen has been positive, Green said.

While pole-dancing provides the controversy that sparks the initial interest, Green is quick to insist that there's more to Vixen than that. Vixen's yoga and pilates classes fill up just as readily as the pole-dancing classes, she said.

And apparently the model is working.

Vixen opened its Ypsilanti Township location in September 2009 and recently celebrated its one-year anniversary. In 2011, Vixen will expand its reach into Oakland County when it opens a studio in downtown Pontiac, Green said.

Expansion into northern Oakland County wasn't an immediate priority until Green set Vixen up in a Pontiac redevelopment program that would grant its first year of rent free in return for staying three years.

"This was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up," Green said as she traded her heels for gym shoes. "Our first studio was 400 square feet and two poles but next year we'll have three studios. Vixen has come a long way."

But there is a reason Pontiac is giving away free rent; the troubled suburb needs to draw in the kind of businesses that bring foot traffic. Green sees only opportunity ahead, not danger.

Ann Arbor was on Green's short list before she picked the Ypsilanti Township location last year. But when push would come to shove, either the rent would be too high or her would-be co-tenants would grumble about having 'a pole dancing business' move in, Green said.

"I'd show the property managers our news clips, the write-ups, but none of it mattered," Green explained, but her efforts were in vain. "People are going to think what they want to think, but Ypsi's been good to me."

But with a good deal of Vixen Fitness' Washtenaw County clientele and target market hailing from Ann Arbor, expansion west might just be a matter of time — if the right opportunity presents itself.

James David Dickson can be reached at JamesDickson@AnnArbor.com.