Beyond Fitness: How Women-Only Studios Are Changing Lives

“I created this studio as a sanctuary for women — to break away from chaos, focus on themselves, and build strength to face life’s challenges with resilience and grace.”

When I first moved to Dubai, everything felt unfamiliar. I’d left my corporate career, was helping run my husband’s marketing agency, working through Eastern hours, and adjusting to an entirely new life rhythm. My family was far away — my mom in Canada — and I hadn’t realized how much I missed that simple reassurance of a hug that tells you it’s all going to be okay, or even being able to meet up for a coffee.

I craved a sense of self again. So I signed up for Pilates classes. At first I begged a friend to join me, unwilling to walk in as a beginner alone. It became our Wednesday night ritual, a pocket of calm I began to look forward to. Somewhere between the deliberate movements and learning to isolate tiny muscles, something shifted. If I could take control of my body with such precision, maybe I could take control of everything else too.

Pilates became more than exercise — it was a quiet reminder that I was still in there, beneath all the noise of new roles and expectations. But while I loved the studio I attended, many of my friends didn’t feel the same. Their worries stayed with me: classes that weren’t always accommodating with modifications, phones filming without consent, and days when male instructors would cover, erasing the sense of privacy and girl time they needed.

I knew what this practice had given me — strength inside and out, a renewed confidence, a glimpse of myself again — and I wanted other women to feel it too. I trained as an instructor, began teaching in my garage, and eventually opened a studio space designed to be exactly what I had been searching for: a place that felt like home.

Two years later, that vision has become a living, breathing community. A space where women feel so safe that they cry mid-session — not out of difficulty, but out of release. I’ll never forget one woman, newly married, who seemed to have it all figured out. In the middle of class she broke down, whispering through tears, “It’s just so much.” And it struck me — no matter how composed we seem, we all need somewhere to put the weight down for a while.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but even the design of our studio was guided by instinct — the crystal chandelier, the carved mirrors, the warm tones — all echoes of my mother’s home. Clients often comment on how cozy and safe it feels, as though they’re stepping into a space that already knows them.

And the impact goes far beyond physical fitness. We’ve welcomed new mothers learning to feel at home in their bodies again. Women in recovery or remission rebuilding strength in privacy. Clients discovering they can do movements they once doubted — and carrying that belief into other parts of their lives.

When we marked our second anniversary, we celebrated more than a milestone. We celebrated women who had grown with us — launching jewelry brands, starting businesses from their kitchens, even writing the children’s book they’d always dreamed of. These are not small achievements; they are the ripples of a deeper transformation.

Because when women have a space to truly meet themselves again, they leave changed — more grounded, more certain, more willing to take up space in every part of their lives. And that strength radiates outward, touching families, friendships, workplaces, and communities.

This is the quiet power of women-only studios. They’re not simply rooms for exercise; they’re sanctuaries where women remember who they are. And when that happens, they don’t just change their own lives — they change the world around them.

// Vaneezeh Hassan