Two floors, six hundred and forty members, and no sales talk
Opened in 2016. The ladies floor came in 2018 and it changed the whole club.
Why we built a second floor
Kuri opened in 2016 on one floor with fourteen members and a secondhand set of plates.
For the first two years about one member in eleven was a woman, and we spent a long time telling ourselves that was simply how it was here. It was not. When we asked, the answers were completely consistent: the hours did not work, there was nowhere to change properly, there was no privacy from the street or the stairs, and there was no woman to ask a question of.
So in 2018 we took the third floor, screened it, gave it its own entrance and its own changing room, and put ladies only hours on the timetable twice a day rather than once a week. We hired two women trainers before we opened it, because a ladies floor with a man on the desk is not a ladies floor.
Forty three per cent of our members are women now. It is the single best decision this club has made and it was not a marketing idea, it was a matter of asking and then doing the whole thing rather than half of it.
The rest of what we do is unremarkable and deliberate: coach beginners properly, keep the classes bookable, charge by the month, and never sell anybody a year.
The trainers and the desk
Ali Sameeh
Opened the club in 2016 with fourteen members. Still takes the beginners programme himself about half the time.
Shifana Ahmed
Runs the ladies floor, the ladies classes and the women only beginners intakes. Hired in 2018, two months before the floor opened.
Ibrahim Nishan
Works with members returning from injury, always to their own physiotherapist's plan. Also the one who will tell you that you do not need a...
Fathimath Zeba
Registrations, freezes, company schemes and the class timetable. During ladies hours the desk is hers, and only hers.
Exactly how the ladies sessions work
When are the ladies only hours?
Nine until twelve and three until six, every day, and nine until eleven on Friday.
Those are ladies only hours on a separate floor rather than a shared floor with a curtain. Six hours a day, every day, which is the point: a slot once a week is not something anybody can build a routine on.
Is there really no man on the floor?
Correct. During ladies hours there is no man on the floor, at the desk or in the stairwell. The trainers on duty are women and so is the person who checks you in.
The floor has its own entrance, its own changing room and a prayer space. The only exception would be an emergency, and in eight years that has happened once.
What equipment is on the ladies floor?
A full set. Free weights, racks, machines, cardio and a studio for the ladies classes.
It is not a small room with three treadmills, which is what a ladies section usually turns out to be. If you have been disappointed by that elsewhere, come and look at this floor before you decide.
Are the classes and personal training available too?
Yes. Eight of the twenty three weekly classes are on the ladies floor with women instructors, and two of our four trainers are women who work during the ladies hours.
There is a women only beginners intake every six weeks. Prices are identical to everything else in the club.
Come and look around
Majeedhee Magu, Male. Open from six in the morning until eleven at night.