A pink building, with navy awnings and red trim sits on the corner of South and Beebee Streets in San Luis Obispo, its rosy exterior sets it apart from the greige and white buildings it borders. It’s a gym, and despite four other gyms located just blocks away, Kismet Fitness has a distinctly unique quality — no boys allowed.
On one Friday morning, the atmosphere inside Kismet was more like a sleepover than a workout class. People chatted as they set up their mats and grabbed water. Crochet window coverings obscured the street and transformed the sunbeams into patterns of light across the floor. A disco ball and pink lights illuminated the room all to a soundtrack with the likes of Doechii, Chappell Roan and Bikini Kill.
Kismet Fitness is a gym specifically designed for women and nonbinary people in San Luis Obispo. Opened by Brittany Pomfret in February of this year, the gym was born from her extensive background in women-focused fitness.
Kismet, which means destiny or fate, is exactly how Pomfret would describe the space she finds herself in now.
“This was such kismet that these women and these people were brought into my life,” Pomfret said. “So it really felt like this movement and this community is really meant to be, and I’m so lucky to just be part of it.”
Exercises for women by women
Pomfret continues to utilize her background in exercise science in all the classes she teaches, around six a week, Monday to Saturday. Class focuses change throughout the week, with bigger shifts occurring every three or so months. Kismet’s fitness programming is designed so a patron can take a class daily, or once a week, and not over or underwork themselves.
“We do that by offering so many different modalities together,” Pomfret said. “So you’re hitting Pilates, you’re hitting cardio, you’re hitting strength training, functional training, mobility and stretch… and then the next day, maybe more of two elements that we didn’t have and just kind of flowing so that you have a full total body experience.”
Pomfret says that the main purpose of classes at Kismet are to ensure your body works better when you need it to, like going for walks or getting up off the floor and that it continues to work as you age.
Pomfret also strives to challenge fatphobia through anti-punishment and low impact movement, built for women at all stages of life.
“It’s a way to be able to take back your body for yourself and also prioritize your mental health, and physical health without prioritizing the male gaze as the end goal,” Pomfret said.
‘A space that sparks joy’: Crafting the studio
For Pomfret, a big part of prioritizing physical health is having a space in which you feel comfortable to do so. At Kismet, Pomfret hopes to create that comfortability through the atmosphere at the gym.
“I realized aesthetically, what something looks like changes the way you feel and then changes the way you move,” Pomfret said. “So if we can be in a space that sparks joy and you feel like you’re having fun when you’re in it, that’ll change the way that you move when you’re in it.”
All the crochet in the space is made by Pomfret. And the rest of the decorative elements, she calls a passion project.
Little touches, like a rainbow clock, a ‘Pink Pony Club’ Chappell Roan fan and a disco cowgirl hat add to the girly energy of the space that feels more like walking through your friend’s apartment rather than a gym.
Pomfret said she chose to paint the building pink because the color exemplifies the spirit of Kismet, a place brimming with energy and life for women, nonbinary people and the queer community.
“To have a little burst of joy felt like an important part, bringing a little color back into the community,” Pomfret said.
‘Beaten down by the patriarchy’: Nurturing an anti-punishment culture
Christina Azruei, who has been working out with Pomfret for 16 years, says her favorite thing about being a part of Kismet is the community. Working out with friends creates a social environment that is absent from working out solo. What can be daunting and boring alone turns into a social club under the roof of Kismet Fitness.
Another benefit for Azruei is getting to work out in a space that feels safe.
“I don’t feel like I have to come in and worry about someone talking to me when I don’t feel like being talked to, or someone staring at me and making me feel uncomfortable,” Azruei said. “I’ve never worked out in spaces that have not just been for women and nonbinary folks. And so I just hear and know that those spaces have been uncomfortable for women often.”
It’s not just the moves or the decorations that separate Kismet from coed gyms. Because of the environment that the Pomfrets have fostered, patrons have the freedom to be vulnerable and work out without fear of judgement, making it “sacred” by providing safety and softness, Pomfret said.
Pomfret has seen first hand just how transformative feeling comfortable in the gym can be for women and nonbinary people. Growing up at a time at the height of fatphobia and punishment-centered workouts, Pomfret believes having a space like Kismet is important.
“I’m a woman that grew up in the 2000s and have just been beaten down by the patriarchy, so being able to give back to women has been really powerful for me,” Pomfret said.
The journey to Kismet
Before opening Kismet, Pomfret and her husband Dave owned Equilibrium, another gym focused on fitness for women and nonbinary people. The gym, which was located in the Marigold shopping center in SLO, historically catered towards women.
It opened in 1999 under the name Cory Everson’s Aerobic and Fitness for Women. Before the Pomfrets took it over in 2006 naming the gym Equilibrium, it was called The Studio, which is where Pomfret first developed an interest in fitness teaching.
While at Cal Poly pursuing a degree in psychology and working towards a career as a therapist, Pomfret began taking kinesiology and exercise science classes all while teaching classes at The Studio, receiving fitness certifications and doing personal training.
“I just loved the way my body felt when I did it, I had way less anxiety, and that was really new for me,” Pomfret said. “And then also, I made all these friends, and it was just a really cool community.”
Pomfret was initially hesitant to go full time with the work she was doing at The Studio, but she knew that becoming a therapist was not her path. Pomfret continued with her work in fitness, studying postpartum and prenatal fitness and developing her own workout classes for women.
After a hip reconstruction surgery in 2013 that resulted from improper mechanics in ballet and dance classes, Pomfret began to study physical therapy — specifically learning the right ways to move to prevent injury. From this came a central tenant in Pomfret’s classes: movement rooted in exercise science.
“If your instructor can’t tell you why you’re doing a movement, then you shouldn’t be doing that movement because that’s not safe,” Pomfret said.
Through her studies, she realized some movements that benefit male anatomy do not have the same benefits for women. Pomfret strives to utilize movement that caters to these differences.
“Men’s bodies move differently, their pelvises move differently. The way that a wider pelvis reacts to a squat is different,” she said. “A lot of exercise science has traditionally, just like all medicine, been built around men. So these are exercises that are built for women.”
Equilibrium closed in 2023 after the Pomfrets were not given an opportunity to renew their lease.
Equilibrium grew to 70 classes a week and 40 people on staff and the space had become a safe haven for queer people, Muslim women and fem-identifying individuals that craved the safety the gym offered.
Pomfret wasn’t ready to part with the community they built for the past 17 years.
“I knew I wanted to continue teaching,” Pomfret said. “There was a massive community of women and nonbinary people that I had brought together, and I didn’t want to give that up.”
Pomfret went on to create Kismet in an effort to continue what the couple had built at Equilibrium.
Initially, the gym shared a space with the Nexus SLO dance studio within SLO Public Market. At first, Pomfret was unsure if the community she had built would return, but they proved her wrong.
“We were there for a month, there was a huge turnout, and it was incredible,” Pomfret said.
READ MORE: Nexus SLO: A fractured dance community, brought together under one roof
After a month in the studio space she shared with Nexus, Pomfret faced issues with a competing gym that was operating within SLO Public Market. This led the her to look for a new home for Kismet, which she soon found on the corner of South and Beebee.
Not yet its iconic pink, the building had internal fire damage which required extensive renovations, essentially a rebuild from the ground up. Regardless, the space was promising and would allow for Pomfret to have full creative control of decor and ambiance.
The couple purchased the property and began renovations. In the meantime, not wanting to abandon the community that had followed from Equilibrium to Kismet, Pomfret found a temporary home for the community at the Creekside Business Center on Broad Street.
“We were in a conference room with a disco ball and all of the studio lights, and it looked insane but it was so fun,” Pomfret said. “Meg the Stallion would start pumping at 4:30 in the afternoon, but it was great… I was still able to keep everyone together and still have a space.”
Now, nearing their 11th month in their new remodeled space, Kismet is thriving, and the community is stronger than ever.
When women and nonbinary people leave a class at Kismet, Pomfret hopes they walk out feeling not only proud of themselves but connected to the community at the gym too.
“I want them to feel proud of themselves, proud and joyful,” Pomfret said. “But also it’s okay if you’re not joyful, it’s okay to cry in here and be sad and be whatever feeling you have just showing up, be proud that you showed up.”
Update: This article was updated to fix a grammatical error.