Why it's so hard to leave

the story of a studio that was never just a studio — and the journey that built it.

2019 — The cancelled appointment that changed everything

Yeah, I was filling up a freshly opened slot in my agenda with a Pole Dancing class, cause Why not? I was given a sugestion and a phone number and I called. The woman who picked up the phone was the woman who put me in front of a pole for the first time in Feb 2019 and showed me something i didn't have a word for yet. i didn't know then that i was falling in love with something that would completely redirect my life.

and then, somewhere along the way, i was so involved that i started teaching in her studio. Soon after in my own living room in Labrador. just the two of us, two poles, and whatever i had figured out so far.

that was the beginning. i didn't know it at the time. it just felt like sharing something i loved.

"my living room was my studio. my couch pushed to the side, the windows open. that's where it all started."

2020 — the beautiful apartment's

i found an apartment with a living room big enough to hold the dream properly. six months lease. mirrors going up, poles installed, music playing at hours that probably annoyed the neighbours.

Then another one, bigger, prettier, longer contract and mirros already installed. felt like it meant to be.

it felt like something real was forming. i could see it — women coming in nervous, leaving different. that thing happening that i still don't fully have words for. the moment someone realizes their body can do something they never believed possible.

i was so full of it. the teaching, the space, the sense that this was exactly what i was supposed to be doing.

and then i was asked to leave - for the first time a cold email,

a short notice,

what followed was one of the messiest years of my life.

On top of being asked to leave, we had to move to tweed heads. visa conditions. a period where everything felt like it was collapsing at once and i genuinely did not know if any of this was going to work out.

No one of my students would be able to drive from Biggera Waters to Tweed heads to keep having classes.

I didnt know if the visa would be approved in the end.

I would need to start it all over again.

so many uncertainties.

i wanted to give up. i'm not going to pretend i didn't. there was a version of this story where i packed everything, moved to tweed heads and went back to be a housekeeper again. It was easier.

But i didnt want to abandon what i have just found to be my purpose in life. I didnt want ease.

thats when I found Matt, a guy that said we could negotiate the lenght of the lease to meet my needs and instability. an angel

25 upton street. bundall. november 2021.

i said yes before i could talk myself out of it.

"25 upton street. bundall. november 2021. became the begining of a dream "

november 2021 — 25 upton street

this place became my home in ways i never planned and will never fully be able to explain.

not just the studio. literally my home. that little room in the back sheltered me for almost a year after my divorce. when all the students had left and i locked the door and sat on the floor in the dark — this space held that too. not just the classes and the showcases and the music. the falling apart and the getting back up.

every morning i woke up and taught. even when everything outside those walls was hard. because teaching was always what made the day worth living. always.

i watched friendships form inside these walls. i watched women walk in hunched and walk out differently — shoulders back, eyes open, something shifted. i've heard stories i will carry in my heart for the rest of my life.

it was never just a fitness class. it was never just a hobby. for so many of us, it was the place we came to remember who we were.

2026 — the last 12 weeks

so why is it so hard to leave?

because this place is not made of walls and mirrors and poles. it's made of every woman who walked through that door not knowing she was about to change. it's made of the version of me that decided to sleep in there and face all the consequences of my personal life choices and even when thinking of giving up still showed up to teach the next morning. it's made of tears cried after class, breakthroughs no one saw coming, the kind of laughter that bounces off high ceilings and stays there.

i know that what comes next is bigger. i know we are already becoming something new. a new space is coming — studio amazona — and i can't wait to build it with every one of you.

but this chapter deserves to be felt on the way out. not rushed. not minimized. felt.

we have 12 weeks left inside these walls. and i intend to make every single one of them count.

until august 2026

"it was never just a studio. it was my home. and it was filled with so much love."

— bruna · studio bruna pole dance · bundall, gold coast