Fawnia Mondey Covers Wellness Voice Magazine

Our founder is on the cover. Wellness Voice Magazine’s Special Edition 2026 features Fawnia Mondey in a four-page “Rockstar Profile” titled “Redefining Pole Fitness as a Sport, Art Form, and Community.”

We could not be prouder. The profile, written by Wellness Voice & ValiantCEO publisher Jerome Knyszewski, tells the story our students hear pieces of every week: a young woman in early-1990s Canada who went looking for a pole dancing instructor and found an industry built entirely on trial and error.

“There wasn’t a school. People laughed when I asked where I could take lessons. They told me you just got up there and figured it out.” — Fawnia Mondey, Wellness Voice Magazine

Rather than accept that, she changed it. “I started teaching as soon as I learned my first move, because nobody should have to go through what I went through,” she tells the magazine. That decision became the world’s first instructional pole dancing video in 1998, seven DVDs, the Pole Dance Instructor Certification (PDIC), and eventually Pole Fitness Studio here in Las Vegas.

Inside the Feature

The article follows Fawnia’s thirty-plus years of building pole fitness into a recognized discipline: producing Pole Expo, which grew into one of the largest international gatherings for the pole and aerial community with roughly 3,000 attendees from more than 50 countries; serving on the International Pole Sports Federation’s Olympic committee in 2012; and working with major fitness events including the Arnold Sports Festival, where pole fitness joined the program as an official sport in 2014.

The driving idea behind all of it is remarkably simple. “If people are learning something challenging, they deserve someone willing to teach them,” she says in the piece — the philosophy that still shapes every beginner-friendly class on our schedule today.

More Than a Workout

Some of our favorite parts of the profile are about the studio itself: a place where beginners, experienced athletes, older adults, and men are all encouraged to participate, where a birthday party can become a personal turning point, and where confidence is developed as deliberately as physical strength.

“The truth is you become stronger because you start.”

The feature also highlights the community side of the studio — including the fundraising events we organize for Windy’s Ranch & Rescue, a volunteer-run animal sanctuary in Overton, Nevada — and the studio’s recent inclusion in 111 Places in Las Vegas That You Must Not Miss.

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going,” Fawnia says in the closing lines — words permanently tattooed on her arm. “If we keep building strong foundations, supporting each other, and helping more people discover what’s possible, the future will take care of itself.”

Read the Full Feature

Read the complete Wellness Voice Magazine profile of Fawnia Mondey here, and find more studio coverage on our press page.

Cover and feature photography by Melissa Reese Photography, hair by Wendy Ryan, makeup by Samiha Glam.

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