Kelechi Okafor is a busy woman. Not only is she a widely recognised British actress, director, public speaker and writer, but in 2016 she opened her own pole fitness and twerk studio space in London.

Kelechnekoff Fitness was born out of the realisation that, at the time, there weren’t many fitness spaces with inclusivity at its core. “I feel like when you see that something needs to be done, then you kind of have to go in and just do it,” she tells me over Zoom noting that she has since seen the industry grow and become more diverse. “I've seen more black women teaching twerk and opening pole dance studios in the UK.”

On Kelechi's LinkedIn, she calls herself a "twerk and fitness guru,” which reflects the welcoming atmosphere she hopes to create in her studio. Her goal was to form an environment where everyone felt free to join and have fun regardless of their race, gender, class or sexual orientation. “The fitness/wellness world is predominately white which also brings with it certain social constructs such as ideas around thinness,” she explains.

When she first started the studio, her business was predominately just her teaching every class in a space her husband helped her create, but today she has an entire team of people helping her run her highly praised studio. 

How does your studio differ from places that offer similar classes?

I think first and foremost the space is different because it’s diverse. I care about how people feel, not how they look and that is what I wanted to bring forward. I also make sure to look at the origins of the dance forms.

Why did you start your fitness studio?

At the time, there weren't really any Black-owned pole-dance studios in London (or in the UK at large). If there were, they weren't very well known. A pole studio asked me to teach twerk. I’d been a personal trainer for a few years at that point so I agreed. Eventually, I decided to take the class around the UK. I reached out to a studio in Manchester and received a very rude response. The white women who emailed me back clearly felt threatened by the fact that I wanted to teach a more authentic version to what was mainstream at the time. I posted the interaction on Twitter which went viral in a way I wasn’t expecting. A lot of Black women were getting in touch suggesting that I open my own space. I didn’t even know where to begin. My partner suggested using the money we had saved for our wedding to open the space. That was in January 2016 and by August I'd opened my first studio.

What were the things you needed to do to get a physical space and get the word out there once it opened?

I started looking at places on Gumtree. I refrained from looking at large spaces or going through agents as that would’ve swallowed up all of my money. I eventually saw a small live/work space in an industrial estate in Clapton [in East London], which had been previously used for yoga. At the start, I taught all the classes to keep within my budget. Also, my partner is a builder, so he helped get the place in order. I didn't pay myself or him, and worked part-time as an administrative assistant. I used the money I did have to attract people to the studio and pay for the materials needed. Each pole was around £300, the flooring that I wanted was around £1000 and the mirrors £800. I worked everything around those essentials (plus three months' deposit) to stay on budget.

How do you balance being an actress and a businesswoman at the same time?

It gets easier over time because you streamline things. I don't have to worry about people coming to the studio because I use platforms such as ClassPass, [a membership program for fitness classes across multiple gyms and studios]. I also got some teachers onboard that I was confident would hold classes at a high level and with the right energy. We also now have incredible studio managers, who help me run the day to day aspects of the studio. All of this gives me the space to act, though from 2016 to 2019 I wasn’t able to do much because I had to focus on making sure the studio was running at a level that met my standards. But, I learnt that the best way to be able to do the things that I love is to delegate some of the work to people who love it as much as I do.

How do you find people who share the same ethos as you?

I met most of them back when I taught every single class myself. So most of the teachers I have, I taught them pole personally, so they understand how I want people to feel when attending a class. But, even if they've learnt pole elsewhere, if they've come to me, it’s because they appreciate the way in which I teach pole dance and twerking.

Kelechnekoff Fitness classes can be booked via ClassPass.