PhysiPole Albury student  Maggie Groves only been poling since October 2017 and has just passed Level 4 with lots of hard work and dedication. I spoke with Maggie while she was practising for the Valentine’s Day competition last month to find out what keeps her motivated to pole.

You’ve only been poling for a few months, and you’ve really embraced it. What brought you into pole and what keeps you going?

I’ve always wanted to do pole dancing as a type of fitness. It’s fun and social and makes you feel good about yourself on the journey, not just when you’re six months in. You lose weight while you’re having so much fun.

You’re four months in and doing your first competition, the Valentine’s Day Competition. What made you want to enter a competition so quickly?

I don’t have a dance background, so because it was a sexy one…I can twerk! There’s only a maximum of two invert moves; it’s mainly about strutting around, feeling sexy and twerking on the ground. So, I just twerked around, sent an entry and got in.

I’m going into it for the experience and to just enjoy it. Since it’s at a PhysiPole studio, we’re all in the same family and there to support each other.

Every time I see you, you have a smile on your face. You’re always so happy. What advice would you give to anyone else in the Physi family to just keep at it and have a positive outlook.

Well, first of all, I would say progress photos. You don’t realise how much progress you’ve made until you go back – photos and videos of not just your body but also your tricks and how you pull into them. Take a moment and realise how far you’ve gone.

I moved down here with a really bad boyfriend and ended up homeless and luckily landed on my feet. That was a turnaround for me.

I started to do this thing where every time I saw a nice photo of a girl, I would make myself write a nice compliment on the photo and move on. It felt so great and you feel so powerful when you know that you are comfortable and confident enough to give a compliment. Instead of comparing myself to other people here, I stopped and gave them a compliment and then I feel good and they feel good.

The only competition is with yourself, if you’re only competing against yourself you’re always going to win because you get better and better every day that you rock up to class.

Written by Rhiannon Veness

Interview with Maggie Groves from Albury while she prepares for her first ever comp.