Melanie received her dual degrees at the University of California at Berkeley in English and Statistics. It was there that she took her first jazz dance class and instantly fell in love. Her training is based in jazz dance with ballet and hip hop technique. After graduating, she joined a competitive partner aerials salsa team in San Francisco, The Latin Symbolics, where she went on to train and compete with her dance partner for 7 years. After retiring from salsa, Melanie was on the hunt for another extreme fitness regime to apply herself to. That is when she discovered pole dance and fitness, and only after a year, she began teaching. Melanie understands that there is no one-size-fits-all way of learning, and enjoys finding new ways of making pole accessible and achievable to everyone. Her students love her hands-on and tailored teaching style and her positive attitude that makes learning pole so fun!