“Sport?”, you say incredulously. “Surely this is the realm of strip clubs and shady bars?”

You’re wrong. Pole dancing has now been included as an ‘observer sport’ by the Global Association of International Sports Federation (GAISF), meaning while it has some way to go to be recognised as an Olympic sport – Sellars says her young daughter may get to see it included –  it’s certainly not the stereotype of sleaze most media would have you believe.

Sellars has just returned from the International Pole Dance Fitness Association Championships in Brisbane, or IPC, where PhysiPole Studios won the International Studio of the Year.

It’s a welcome recognition for the business which started as a small studio in Ballarat almost a decade ago, and now has franchises across the eastern seaboard.

“It's studio of the year!” exclaims Sellars. 

“I know it's probably hard when you're not in this industry and you don't know all that much about it, but it is such a prestigious award. When I saw the final line up, I naturally went and had a look at all the other ones. There's an Milan pole studio which is amazing; studios all around the world entered. I think there were four Australian entries in the final 15.”

Walk into the Peel Street studios of PhysiPole and, yes, there’s a wall of extraordinarily thick-soled stilettos on one wall. Seriously neck-breaking stilettos. But there’s also complimentary water and a supportive atmosphere. Instructors wander in and out, quietly chatting about classes. Sellars’s own line of fitwear, designed locally, is displayed prominently. 

It’s as far from a nightclub as you could imagine. Not that Kristy Sellars denies the fun and sexual side of what she teaches. She simply sees more in it than raunch and stripping.

The level of fitness is daunting. In one studio ivy leaves line the ceiling. A forest panorama stretches down the wall. Instructors Jem Dyer and Lauren Jebramek-Miller fling themselves up and down in aerial silk routines, hanging with insouciant ease high above the floor. They make the exercise look gracefully simple, but the veins in their arms and necks show the effort involved.

“Our instructors all specialise in different things,” says Sellars.

“Some of them compete at national and international level. Some of them specialise in beginners. We've got pole and we've got the aerials, which is silks and hoop; and we also do hammock which is kind of like yoga but in a hammock. It's stretching and activating the muscles and you feel energised.”

It’s clear that Sellars regards what she teaches as art, dancing and spiritual awareness as it is about fitness and sensuality. 

“It's funny because people sort of think ‘Ohhh pole dancing you know... they’re just jumping around, doing whatever...’ In fact the competition held in Brisbane on the weekend was amazing.”

It’s interesting to learn there is a growing, sizeable number of men performing in pole dancing. In fact, says Sellars, the men’s competition in Brisbane was very impressive this year. 

“In particular Dimitry Politov. 

“He's a Russian poler. The men's division was far stronger than the women's this year and just incredible. His piece – I've never seen anything onstage like it ever. His musicality, the performance, the tricks! He's flipping OFF the pole but then catching it...”

“It’s a bit last minute but we’re hoping to get him down here on the weekend to take some workshops,” says Sellars.”

“I was going to ask him if he would perform his routine – but I don't know about the height of the poles! It's just that he does theses flips off the top of the pole to the floor and it’s actually insane...”

“His performance was about being homeless, and he had this briefcase and he was in a full suit for the whole thing. He did the whole performance in a suit. I’m like, ‘how are you doing this without using your skin?’ Because naturally to grip on to the pole, we need skin.”

Competition poles in IPC are 3.3 metres in height, as they are at PhysiPole Studios.

Sellars trained as a dancer and has performed and taught in The United States. She has a Diploma of Performing Arts, and her choreography for the routines she performs is renowned. One routine, Toxic, has had over 800,000 of views on You Tube and won her the Miss Pole Dance Victoria competition in 2012/13.

But she is also a successful businesswoman who sees part of her mission as enabling other women to succeed as well.

Her Ballarat PhysiPole Studio welcomes 230 students a week, from children’s classes to people in their 60s. Aside from pole classes – and there are two kinds of poles, fixed and spinning – there are also mixed aerial classes and stretching.

She says people can come in and have fun, get impossibly fit and not have to think about reps or weights as they would at the gym.

“If people have never had a go at it before, I would really encourage them to do a trial class just to see what it's like,” say Sellars.

“You yourself walked in and said it’s different to what you thought to be – and it is. It’s more complex.”

Sellars is the franchisor of PhysiPole Studios, which now has nine studios in Victoria, three in Queensland and another one in NSW. Sellars says by the end of 2019 there should be 25 in Australia.

“It’s amazing being a CEO,” she says.

“I'm part of some amazing groups that I get to have breakfast with occasionally, and they're all CEOs and founders of businesses.

“I've never actually gone out to look for investors to be honest. When I started this, it was literally just me and I had some savings and I bought some portable poles. I was in Warrnambool and I said to my old karate instructor, ‘Can I rent your dojo on the weekend and move the mats and things and set up these portable poles?’, and my dad and my brother and my sister would come every Friday and help me set them up.

“I’d run classes over the weekend then pack it all up. That was the start of PhysiPole. I didn't go, ‘Oh I've got this great idea, I'm going to go find investors; it was a very organic growth.”

In that vein, all of Sellars’s franchisees are former students of hers, bar one. She says while she does feel there is organic growth, there’s also a snowballing as the more studios open, there seems to be an exponential interest from potential students. If only the banks would trust young entrepreneurs, says Sellars.

“Danielle, who owns the Werribee studio – she had to borrow everything to open the studio. Within two years she's gone from having all of this debt to paying that off and saving enough to open the new Yarraville studio next weekend.

“It's amazing because these women, who would otherwise never get a chance in business, I sit down with them and see the potential that they could be, that the banks don’t see. They just want to see figures and that's fine, we have all that, but they don't like young people being entrepreneurial. They’re not supportive.”

Self-belief is the answer, says Kristy Sellars.

“It's because I believe 150 per cent in what we're doing, and I know that it changes people's lives. There may only be 230 students a week here, but we make a dramatic impact on every single person's life.”