Where It All Began

It started with a video.

 

Just a year after YouTube first appeared on the internet, I stumbled across a clip posted by @zolid71 titled Winner of Miss Pole Dance Australia 2006 – Felix Cane. At the time, I was sitting alone in my apartment in Hamburg, Germany.

 

I remember pressing play.

 

And then… just staring.

 

What unfolded on the screen was something I had never seen before. It wasn’t what I thought pole dancing was. It was something entirely different. Strength. Grace. Control. Art. It was movement that felt almost impossible, yet completely mesmerising.

 

I sat there in silence, stunned.

 

I immediately began showing the video to the dancer in the company I knew.

 

“No, seriously,” I would say.

“You have to watch this. This is artistic pole.”

 

I didn’t receive the support I thought I would from fellow artists.

 

And that made me stop and think…

 

Hmm… why?

 

That moment stamped itself into my memory. Something shifted in me that day. I didn’t know when, or how, but I knew one thing for certain:

 

When my dance career ended, I would find my way to a pole.

 

Years passed.

 

In 2016, a pole studio opened just down the road from my partner’s dance studio. It felt like the universe was gently tapping me on the shoulder, reminding me of that moment all those years earlier in Hamburg.

 

The spark reignited.

 

But sometimes timing has its own plans. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I wasn’t allowed to join their classes. Once again, the opportunity slipped quietly past me.

 

Then, in 2019, I watched Kristy Sellars perform on Australia’s Got Talent.

 

Her performance was breathtaking. Powerful. Emotional. Completely unforgettable. But as I watched, something stirred inside me. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something deeper.

 

It was the memory of being dismissed.

Of being told I didn’t belong.

Of being overlooked simply because of my gender.

 

That moment brought everything rushing back.

 

Then the world changed.

 

Covid arrived, and like many people, life slowed down in ways we had never experienced before. Days blurred together. Weeks passed in stillness. I found myself joking that I was sitting on the couch adding one potato at a time to the pile.

 

But by the end of 2023, something inside me shifted again.

 

It was time to move.

Time to challenge myself.

Time to stop waiting.

 

My New Year’s resolution was simple: get rid of the potatoes.

 

So I searched.

 

And searched.

 

Until finally, I found a co-ed pole studio.

 

On March 4, 2024, I walked through the door and began my pole journey.

 

The spark that ignited in a small apartment in Hamburg all those years ago was still there. Still burning.

 

What has always fascinated me about pole is the extraordinary combination it demands — strength, discipline, artistry, courage. It challenges your body, but it also challenges the way you see yourself.

 

And now, all these years later, I realise something.

 

That video didn’t just show me a performance.

 

It showed me a possibility.

 

And today, the only thing I truly want is to share that same feeling — the awe, the inspiration, the moment when something inside you whispers:

 

“Maybe I can do that too.”

 

Because sometimes the smallest spark…

can quietly wait for years before finally becoming a fire.

The Video that changed everything.