Miss Erica’s strutting her stuff

Meet the woman who’s gone down a Storm and empowers women to make themselves feel good.

By Joel Campbell

BULLIED BECAUSE of her height and made to feel uncomfortable in a host of everyday social situations most of us take for granted, Miss Erica Storm had enough one day and literally turned her pain into her purpose by creating the Strut Masterclass,

Featured on the Channel 5 TV show 10 Years Younger, helping the programme subject recapture her confidence and selfesteem, Miss Erica, a former International Dominatrix, showed women how to walk correctly in their high heels whilst owning their space.

Some talk the talk, but Miss Eric tells Lifestyle that after meditating on a way to use the very thing that had been the bane of her existence in a positive manner, she decided it was time to walk the walk, or rather, strut the strut.

“Everything that I have always done in my business has always been a reflection of what I am personally going through in my life, hence the Strut Masterclass, which was a huge success,” Miss Erica said.

“We got featured in national papers, I then became the face of Ann Summers, which was absolutely amazing.

Platform

“I did a show called 10 Years Younger, In Ten Days, where I taught this beautiful Black wom an how to own her space and how to walk correctly in her highheeled shoes. It was a great platform to show the power of my Strut Masterclass.

“But the reason I created that was because I went to seven dif ferent schools and I was always the tall girl, so I always stood out.

“I learnt from a very young age that it is always about how you hold yourself when you walk into a room. And I’ve realised that so many other women are afraid of taking up space, and that was how my Strut Mas terclass was born.”

Miss Erica believes every woman should feel sexy and confident, and she continues to empower women one strut at a time.

“Before I embarked on this journey I was living a very, very different lifestyle,” she said.

“I was successful but I wasn’t happy. I read a book once that said, ‘do the one thing that comes natural to you’. That’s supposed to be the thing that you are supposed to do.

“So I went through this whole list and I continue to do it now; what is my purpose? What comes really naturally to me?

“So many things came to me, and the one thing that really resonated with me is the way that I walk.

“When I used to go out, whether it was a restaurant or walking down the street, people would always compliment me on my walking.

“So I thought, what is so impactful about my walking?

“And I realised it was because I walk into a space like I deserve to be there. The more I spoke to women about it, the more they resonated with my story and the more they were like, ‘I feel really shy to take up space. I’m too short, I’m too tall or I’m too big.’

“I was like, I need to create something, I need to create a safe space where all of these different types of women, from all different types of backgrounds, can come together and celebrate taking up space. But I wanted to do it in a really fun way.

“We all love heels, and I am the type of woman that loves her heels, and I know so many women that do love heels and don’t wear the because they don’t feel comfortable or confident enough to wear them.

Where do you go to learn how to walk in heels? We see all of these fabulous stilettos but there’s no one to teach us how to walk in heels and it is a skill.”

Formerly Madam Storm, Miss Erica first came to notoriety when her infamous Mistress training was featured in a Louis Theroux documentary on channel 4. She has rebranded herself as she evolves to the next level of her career as a qualified yoga teacher and clinical sex and relationship therapist.

Her new YouTube Channel, Ask Miss Erica, showcases her work as a qualified confidence coach and sex educator. Subscribers send or call in their questions, which range from how to introduce kink into your relationship to how to walk into a room and own it.

“I’m working on a few things,” she tells Lifestyle

“The main thing at the moment is to become a psychosexual therapist, which has been a very challenging and interesting journey. I’ve faced some difficult challenges being a Black woman in this area, but I am learning how to work through that and I am going to stick with it because I feel that Black women and women of colour need to take up these spaces.

“I’m not just doing it for me, I am doing it for my nieces and I am doing it for those other young women coming up after me.”

She added: “I also just qualified as a yoga teacher, which is an amazing accomplishment for myself.

“It’s been a real personal journey because being a yoga teacher and practising yoga allowed me to delve into my own feminine energy, and it was a great way for me to heal.”

“I am healing my womb from fibroids at the moment, which I know a lot of women, especially women of colour, are facing at the moment. So many women are getting hysterectomies and suffering really badly with fibroids of PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) and I’ve found that through my own healing journey, doing yoga has really helped me.”

The last few years have been a bit of a whirlwind for Miss Erica.

You may have seen her in the recent My5 programme How To Have An Orgasm, where seven women share what improved their experience of orgasms.

Powerful

A powerful motivational speaker; she has shared the stage with Mayor Sadiq Khan and is regularly booked to appear on panels for women’s events, radio shows and podcasts.

She’s on a mission, and far from finished yet

“I remember saving up and spending the last bit of my money and going into the Strut Masterclass studio and doing all of these individual struts that I had visualised during my periods of meditation, not knowing if it was going to work but knowing that it felt really powerful to me.

“If I felt powerful doing it, I thought it’s all about energy, so if I come into this with a clean heart and my intentions are to empower these women, then that’s what they are going to get from me.”