Photograph by Martha Williams
Just after seven on a Thursday morning, Khetanya Henderson demonstrates a plank position in a room ringed with candles. Her guiding cues are unhurried, even as the students’ cores begin to burn. When they drop down to rest on studio-provided pink yoga mats, Henderson offers encouragement to each person by name. Outside on Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard, traffic builds as the sun rises.
KKRU Pilates Studio & Wellness opened its doors in September 2025, steps from West End fixtures Portrait Coffee and The Wren’s Nest. KKRU, which stands for “Keep Reaching Up,” is the neighborhood’s first Pilates studio. For founder Henderson, choosing the West End is a homecoming. “My community is here. My childhood home is around the corner,” she says. “My role here is to make wellness accessible in every way I can.”
Henderson discovered Pilates as a supplement to her professional dance training. She taught Pilates classes in Los Angeles before moving back home in 2021. In 2022, Grant Park became the backdrop for her Pilates in the Park series, a nonprofit offering free outdoor classes from March to October.
But Henderson didn’t seriously consider opening the studio until 2025. Between the popularity of Pilates in the Park—with classes averaging 75 students—and increasing demand from online clients, she longed for one space to call home. “I decided to open a studio because it became challenging to offer different classes in different spaces,” she says. “I felt it deep in my gut that it was time to expand to the next level.”
The search came to an end when a client shared that space had become available for lease on Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard. Previously a physical therapy office, it had room for a main studio as well as private suites, and Henderson says the location drew her in. “It was across the street from Tassili’s Raw Reality Cafe and Portrait Coffee,” she says. “These businesses represent the old and new West End. The sense of pride I felt when I walked in was my sign.”
Henderson and a team of instructors run a full schedule of Pilates, yoga, sculpt, and sound-healing classes ($28 each). She has also offered $5 introductory sessions during which new clients can get acquainted with the intimidating-looking equipment, which includes the reformer, a carriage bed that moves with spring resistance, and the tower, a vertical frame that provides support during exercise.
Such discounted introductions are a rarity in the pricey world of boutique fitness, but being different is KKRU’s selling point. As Pilates gains traction, die-hard practitioners have gone viral for arguing that it’s a high-intensity experience not meant for everyone. Henderson disagrees.
“Anything that isn’t work is just noise,” she says. “I wanted those classes to be low stakes. I want people to feel like they don’t have to wear a matching set. Those who make it seem like there’s one way to do Pilates push away the people who don’t see themselves reflected, and I want to help them fall in love with it.”
KKRU’s community programs—such as classes for Spelman-Morehouse homecoming attendees—do just that. In Henderson’s eyes, KKRU isn’t “upgrading” an already rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Instead, the studio exists within it, so residents don’t have to cross town or fit a mold for wellness.
“I want everyone to be aware that wellness is next door to them,” says Henderson. “So many people tell me they didn’t realize we were down the street. We want to become the neighborhood studio, a place where anyone can be themselves and walk out stronger.”
This article appears in our March 2026 issue.
