Pole Passion, Prehab & Pickles - Meet Mischka
Strong, dynamic and determined, our jaws have been dropping ever since Mischka first stepped out onto the stage. With her ability to make a static pole look like it’s spinning, her dreamy dance flows, incredible lines and dedication to character, Mischka is the magical potion of strength and flexibility pole dancers could only dream of creating.
Some of Mischka’s titles include:
1st place Miss Pole Dance Australia 2020 - watch Mischka’s EPIC show here!
'Best Trickster' award Australian Pole Championships 2019 - click here to watch this performance!
Sponsors Choice award Australian Pole Championships 2018 - click here to watch!
2nd Runner Up Victorian Pole Championships 2018
2nd Runner Up Pole Championship Series 2018
1st Runner Up Miss Pole Dance Victoria 2017 and 2019
Finalist Miss Pole Dance Australia 2016, 2017 - watch Mischka’s 2016 performance here!
1st Runner Up Vortex Melbourne 2017
As she rules the stage with fierce performances, this queen is a powerhouse of positivity in the studio. Mischka is a passionate teacher, coach and mentor, forever learning so that she can educate and deliver the very best classes to her students.
Mischka sat down with me to chat about her life as an instructor and coach, as well as her passion for pole prehab and injury prevention. We also ball drop into Mischka’s competition life, how this self-proclaimed ‘always the bridesmaid’ made her comeback to the comp scene from a serious back injury, leading her to finally catching the bouquet, and landing the title of Miss Pole Dance Australia.
From the pool, to the pole
Growing up, Mischka was quite the Sporty Spice, dabbling in everything from netball, swimming, triathlons and even a quick stint in ballroom dancing with her brother (which didn’t work out too well, given the exchange of whispered swearing). Once terrified of water, Mischka started swimming at 8 years old, eventually becoming a squad swimmer in high school and training Olympic distance triathlons just after finishing high school.
“I have some really embarrassing photos of little Mischka in a swimming cap and old set of speedo bathers – they're great!” she laughs.
Mischka took a break from serious triathlon training around the age of 20-21, as she became sick from pushing her body too hard. She returned to train Olympic distances, at which point her coach suggested starting the half Iron-man distance.
Mischka reflects, “I was like I don’t really have a life, it’s just training, sleeping, eating and repeat. Which probably isn’t so different to right now,” she says with a laugh. “But at that age you’re young, you want to go out and party and dance, and I felt like I hadn’t really experienced enough of my life doing all of the stupid things that young people do.” It was at this point Mischka started to pull out of her training sessions. “I don’t think my mum was very happy about it but eventually you’ve got to do things for yourself, and I think that I found that I was doing all of that sport to please my mum and please my coach, so I lost myself a little bit – I wasn’t doing it for me anymore.”
Mischka had also started to form a toxic relationship with food and her physique. “I distinctly remember at one point I was the same height as I am now and probably like 53kgs,” she tells me with disbelief. “Now I’m a good 70kgs! But I remember back then thinking ‘oh you’re a bit overweight, you’re a bit chunky’. It’s a sport where I think as a kid it’s good to be slim and trim because you’re carrying less weight and you can get through your jog and your swim and all these things faster, but it wasn’t good for my head – not for me.”
Mischka stopped triathlon training altogether at 23. “I actually think triathlons are a really stupid sport now because why would you put three things in one? It’s so silly!”
It was at this point in her life, that the universe introduced Misch to pole dancing. She went along to watch her best friend Jess at a performance night, thinking that pole was kind of cool. “We did a strip/lap dance workshop together, had a bit of a laugh, and then I was like ‘oh I’ll try some classes’ and it went from there!” says Misch. “I finally got to do a class and it was mixed emotions. Like oh this is weird – I'm not sexy at all! It was just hard!” she says bursting into a laugh. “I think I almost gave up after doing kitten kicks because they hurt so much!”
Soon Mischka had worked her way through to an advanced level and was booking private lessons. “I learned all of the content with these girls in privates and then I’d go off and practice in my own time because I was pretty good at religiously practising what I needed to practice. All of the years of swimming and running – I'm good at just getting in and getting the shit done!” she tells me with a smile.
Proof of this was the crazy commitment Mischka put into achieving the Phoenix – her first ‘big girl poler’ trick. "I was like I’m just going to go in and I’m going to get this thing and I think I did it 52 times in one session. I got it! But I lost all my skin [on my wrist],” she laughs.
Pole has really helped Mischka overcome some negative thoughts and habits which lingered from her triathlon training. These days she has ditched the scales and would rather focus on what her body can do – not how it looks and how it compares to others.
"Pole for me is healthier for my head, because my body functions best when I’m eating correctly, when I’m recovering correctly, and so that means I need to be at a weight that works for me and at a certain level of recovery, to actually get what I want from pole,” Mischka explains. “I know some people will still have that sort of comparison, because it’s definitely a world where you can compare yourself to other people’s bodies. You’re seeing all these people in the studio and everyone’s looking super fit, and if you’re not feeling so fly that day, you look around going wow I’m a potato,” she says laughing. “But overall, I think it’s less damaging than triathlons or athletics was for me.”
Crashing onto the Comp Scene
Having been a young competitor in other sports, Mischka took like a duck to water when it came to competitive pole dancing. Or so she would think. Like many other Pole Divas, she first entered the comp scene via the studios’ inhouse competition, Unleashed. Yet for Misch, it was less graceful swan and more dodgy duckling in the first few performances. She awkwardly missed landing a trick one year, and fell off the pole in another, sending culpable glares at the pole.
"I got up and kept going and I very much remember in my head everyone cheering and I was like I don’t need your pity claps!” Mischka says bursting into a laugh. “That was mortifying because when you’re in Unleashed, that’s a big competition! You’re getting up there and you’re putting yourself out there. Obviously, it’s not exactly the same as a Miss Pole, but at the time that was really nerve-wracking.”
Mischka was also quite a shy performer, which is so hard to believe if you have watched some of her recent shows! “I wouldn’t make eye contact with people because I would get out there and I would just freeze. I could do the ‘thing’ but I couldn’t look at anyone, so I would just look straight down.”
As there wasn’t much of an amateur comp scene, Mischka competed at Rising Stars, Victorian Pole Championships and eventually found her way to the Australian Pole Championships and the Miss Pole Dance competition. “I did my first Miss Pole which I shouldn’t have done – I wasn't ready for it! I think I had a pair of Target fairy wings stuck to my back – it was horrible!” laughs Mischka. “But also, I don’t care because alright maybe there’s an embarrassing film or two of me out there on the big stage, but that’s how I learnt and that’s how I grew.”
Part of growing was learning to welcome feedback – something she disliked exposing herself to. “I think coming from a triathlon background and spending years trying to please the wrong people, I had a bit of a fear of reading back feedback and criticism. I would expect that what I was going to read would be terrible so I didn’t want to read it. It took me the longest time to even just watch back my own routines, for me to critique it myself let alone hear from other people because I was scared of it. That was a really big learning experience for me!”
So how did Mischka manage to evolve from being a shy performer to serving up showstopping looks at the audience, rather than the floor? "I think my first real big breakthrough with being able to understand if you don’t commit that’s when you lose an audience, was probably the school girl routine, where the music was taking me over,” Mischka tells me. “That to me was the most disgusting facial expressions but if I didn’t do that, the audience wouldn’t have understood. I had to get them involved with facial expression, with really throwing a character out there and immersing myself, which also made me feel like less of a dickhead – because it’s the character, not me! So that really helped me a lot.”
Mischka compares herself to a hibernating bear during comp season and she likes to get a good 10 hour sleep as consistently as possible for better recovery. While Mischka says she can be a little “twitchy” during comp season, her reliable partner is always there to chuck some food her way when she gets a little grizzly - something she is very grateful for! Depending on when in the year the competition is, the preparation for a show usually starts 6-8 weeks out.
“If it’s the first one of the season, you’ve probably got to start a little bit earlier because that shit’s going to hurt!” Misch laughs. “I find comp training is different every time because if you’re in a season, normally you’re fit from a comp before you lead into another comp. But the first one of the season is always horrendous! Getting past the ‘hump’ - when you’re trying to put everything together and you legitimately feel like you’re going to die. It hurts!”
Triathlon training as a kid did provide Mischka with a great mental fortitude when it comes to training and challenging her body. However, as she discovered last year, her body does have its limits…
From Little Miss Injured to Little Miss Pole Dance Australia
In 2018, not long after competing at Miss Pole Dance VIC and APC, Mischka’s lower back gave out and she had to pull out of Miss Pole Dance Australia, with her future as a professional pole dancer suddenly becoming uncertain. She had 2 stress fractures in her lower back and a lot of associated nerve pain around the area which, even after she had healed, was ongoing. The injury didn’t just happen one day attempting a trick, it was more of a repetitive strain which progressively became worse over time.
“I was training a back-flip thing pretty consistently at the time for APC, but I feel like it was just because I hinge through my back a lot and my thoracic spine wasn’t giving me any extension assistance,” Misch explains. When the doctors did her scan, they stumbled upon an old stress fracture, suggesting it could have been from Mischka’s early days as a runner, which blew her mind!
It was Mischka's extremely high tolerance to pain which allowed her to keep pole dancing and competing for so long, unaware of the new stress fracture. She went to see Simone Muscat (aka The Pole Physio), and her back was so incredibly inflamed it was difficult to diagnose at first. After resting for 8 weeks, the doctors gave Mischka the all clear to start teaching again, which was sooner than expected. Due to her existing knowledge in exercise rehabilitation, they knew Misch understood her limits and she was able to get help from students in class who would demo the tricks. It was also at this time that Mischka started her rehab with Simone, beginning with basic strengthening.
“Very basic considering what I’d come out of, but I felt everything oh my god!” Misch tells me laughing. “I started my rehab pretty soon – if you’ve got the right guidance, you’re fine. I remember when I was allowed to start extending my spine again, we started with just laying my tummy and propping myself up onto my elbows, and I started crying.” Mischka recalls, “I was like well fuck! I’m propped up on my elbows, and I’m trying to get back to where I was, and it feels like shit. That was a really emotional session and was really scary, but it also was like ‘well that’s okay you’ve gotta start somewhere!”
Mischka started her rehab focusing on becoming mobile again – not even considering the possibility of competing again in that year. Misch discussed it with Simone, and decided to jump back into the comp circuit 9 months later, starting with VPC in June 2019.
"When I actually competed again it was just like a lot of emotion. I know I came back expecting a lot from myself. Comps make you very vulnerable and I remember coming out of that and just feeling really disappointed with myself, I don’t know why in particular,” she says. “I kept working with Sim the whole way through and by the time I got into Miss Pole VIC, I felt really strong.”
Mischka placed 2nd at Miss Pole Dance VIC in 2019, gaining her entry into Miss Pole Dance Australia. She never imagined, especially after what had been an epic roller-coaster of a year, that she would walk away with the crown. So what was going through Mischka's mind as they announced her as being the new Miss Pole Dance Australia?
“I’ve never won a pole comp prior to that! So it’s very normal for me to be side of stage just to see what happens,” she says laughing. “That was fucking absurd and crazy! I think back to that right now and it’s like a really nice, nervous feeling.” In between announcing each place, Misch was having a chat with the other competitors and didn’t hear her name called as everyone backstage went wild!
“They were like IT’S YOU! And I was like nah I’ll walk out there and it’s going to be one of those embarrassing moments where it’s like no not you it’s the other one,” Mischka says bursting into a laugh. It took some coaxing from Ladean (manager extraordinaire of heels & props) on the drive home for Misch to accept she had won. “That was a really odd feeling because I did not believe. On the way home I’m like do you think they fucked up? They might have fucked up? It took me a little while to accept that maybe I did a good job!”
It was more than a good job – Mischka’s show left goosebumps and a thirst for more! The perfect balance of character, dance, strength and flexibility, Mischka’s winning Miss Pole show was amazing, bringing her fellow Diva’s to tears of pride! While winning MPDA was the icing on top of the cake, Misch was just happy she was able to enjoy the cake again, so to speak.
"I wasn’t doing my rehab and prehab to win this thing, I was doing it so I could be functional, so I could still have a job and so I could move without pain,” Mischka explains. “So all the things leading up to it weren't for winning...I just wanted to make sure that I was really proud of what I did, particularly after such a roller-coaster of a year prior to. I was really proud of myself...and the main focus was just being functional again which was really nice!”
Teaching all the Things
Mischka started instructing at Pole Divas in 2012, and has loved teaching ever since. “I love Elite Static because I can throw my body around and do all the momentum-based stuff. I love my advanced static girls as well – I love all of the things that I teach!” Mischka says. “I really enjoy oozing through Russian Flow and then teaching people how to appreciate and value their bodies with pole prehab and how to move properly.”
Even though she proudly wear the Miss Pole Dance Australia crown, Mischka understands all too well the highs and lows of the pole journey.
“I know I say enjoy your pole journey and people are like shut up,” she tells me laughing. “Because that’s not what people want to hear when they’re not getting a thing that they’ve been working on for so long. But it’s just a journey, and what’s at the end? There’s always going to be new, bigger tricks. I think if you look at it more as an experience for you to learn and for you to understand how your body can move, and focus on that more so, you’ll just see these other tricks come into place. But if you focus on just this trick that you’re not getting, then you can get into this negative hole in your head because you’re not getting that trick. You’re not focusing on what your body’s developing and learning on the journey as well.”
Mischka continues, “I see a lot of students who will do a thing once or twice and go ‘ah can’t do it’. And I’m like 52 times man!” she says referring back to her epic Phoenix training session. “I’m not saying you should do it 52 times – that was stupid – but 52 times! I’ll say to some of my students try it 5 times before you walk away from it, in that session at the very least. It’s going to take more than 2 attempts for those neural pathways to develop a little bit more and for your body to go ‘oh I understand what I need to do here!’”
Mischka has been teaching mostly online this year, thanks to old mate coronavirus. However, this has opened her eyes to just how important her job is.
“It’s taught me quite a few things, like obviously you’ve got to be more precise with your teaching,” Mischka begins. “But also right now, this is people’s escape from real life. I was saying to Dee [her boyfriend] the other day, everyone wishes that they still had that teacher in primary school or high school that you really loved – that you really liked to bounce your ideas off and that you wanted to put your homework into,” she says. “Like people want and need that support, especially right now. So my job isn’t a joke, which I joke about sometimes. But it’s made me realise what we do is still really important because it’s an outlet for people, which right now is so important.”
Passion for Pole Prehab
Pole prehab is one of the areas Mischka is most enthusiastic about. Ironically, it took a stress fracture in her back for Misch to stress how it important it is within her own training and classes.
“You know how it takes a big slap in the face for you to really appreciate something?! It probably actually took the back injury and recovering from that for me to really integrate all that stuff into pole a lot more,” she explains. Mischka’s past-career in rehabilitation was more focused on the neural side of things – working with people who had experienced strokes, spinal cord injuries and brain damage, which is very different to the musculoskeletal area of rehab.
“I think it really took this injury to take my knowledge out of that neuro side of things, and put it into this. It took that to make me go ‘oh yeah this is something that is so important for pole, or applicable to pole and my students could really benefit from this’,” Misch tells me.
Image: Vertigo Photography
Pole prehab is about laying the proper foundations in technique and strength, so that when it comes to learning a trick, you are less likely to injury yourself as the groundwork has already been done. For a lot of people, pole dancing is a new way of movement and the industry is so welcoming of polers from any background, it can be easy to forget that some students have never had ANY experience with exercise, movement and the risk of an injury. So is pole really for everyone?
“I think it’s for everyone, but also – it's not for everyone in the respect that, it is for everyone if everyone is going to go ‘okay I need to take my time progressing with this. I need to lay down the proper foundations’,” says Mischka. “That's not for everybody. Because not everyone wants to do that because this is a world of instant gratification. I think it is for everybody as long as you’re laying down the correct foundations and that’s hard because it is also a world of comparison! If you’re seeing your mate over there who stayed fit her entire life and maybe came from a calisthenics background...of course you want that! The difference is her background compared to yours. It’s hard in that respect and I’ve got a lot of students like that. But you can’t live in a world of comparison because everyone is completely different – and that’s okay!”
Should pole dancers be taking their pole prehab conditioning seriously if they wish to reach their trick goals sooner?
“Oh my god yes! I actually value it so much, but I understand for people it’s that boring shit that they don’t want to do!” laughs Mischka. "It’s so important because if you want to be able to do these movements, and not laying down the foundations, there’s going to be an injury at some point – something's going to go. And on top of that, a lot of the movement is also just life applicable! If you want to be really strong with your pole movement, a lot of that is working on the posterior chain, which when we’re sitting down is never active. I find it’s never just ‘oh we’re doing pole specific movement’ but it’s also going to help with feeling good in general life!” She continues, “I understand it’s hard for girls to see that because it’s not a handspring, it’s not a sexy dance, but I wish that every student could see the value of it without having to go through a severe injury.”
Naked Darts & Assistant Coach Buddy
As Mischka’s life is brimming with pole training, private lessons and online classes, she tells me she enjoys doing the little things to switch off from it all and unwind.
“I’m lucky that I have a partner that I just like spending my time with and we're just big stupid people together!” she laughs. “I feel really at ease when I’m just sitting and chilling with him. Whether I’m reading a book, or watching Lord of the Rings again or playing naked darts in the backyard or whatever it is we’re doing!” says Misch. Naked darts?! And we thought her wild pole tricks were dangerous!
Mischka's half Polish heritage also shines through, as she tells me she loves vodka and a good jar of pickles. "Man I love me a good pickle! Great on a cheese platter,” she chuckles. “Otherwise I’ll just get me a good dill pickle, and nom away on its own for a little afternoon snack!”
If you have taken online classes with Mischka, you would have been introduced to Coach Buddy – her gorgeous cat furrrrever stealing the limelight and taking a seat right in front of the camera. I was curious – if Coach Buddy could talk, what would he say to the students?
“I feel like Coach Buddy is pretty harsh!” laughs Mischka. “I feel like he’s a little bit Russian. He’d definitely be like [in a Russian accent] ‘do again! AGAIN!’ and if someone did really well, he’d be like ‘good’ - but that’s it. He wouldn’t be super praising; he wouldn’t be super loving. I reckon he’d be really hardcore, Russian, scary coach!”
Mischka’s positive energy will transform anyone into a happy little poler after just one class with her. Australia can proudly say we finally ‘put a ring on it’ when she became our reigning Miss Pole Dance Australia - a title which Mischka truly deserves. From falling off the pole back in the day, Mischka has landed in our hearts today as the dedicated, down to earth, dazzling pole dancer we aspire to be.
If you would like to book a class or private with Mischka, you can contact her via email on mischkapole@outlook.com or message her on Instagram at @mischkapoledancer. Mischka also has a range of downloadable tutorials available on her website – just visit www.mischkapoledancer.com for the goods!
How amazing is Mischka’s pole journey?! Leave a comment below if you loved this interview!
