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peckhampeculiar · 5 years

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Twerking nine to five

PECKHAM’S KELECHNEKOFF STUDIO OFFERS FITNESS CLASSES RANGING FROM POLE-DANCING TO TWERKING TO YOGA. We meet its inspirational founder – the personal trainer, actress and Peckham resident Kelechi Okafor

WORDS JUMOKÉ FASHOLA PHOTO DILESH SOLANKI

I don’t think you could find anyone prouder to be a south Londoner than Kelechi Okafor. Born in Nigeria, she arrived to join her mother in Peckham at the age of five and the area has been her home ever since.

Describing herself as a ride or die Peckhamite, she not only lives locally, but has also established her Kelechnekoff fitness studio here.

Kelechi is a fierce, fun and fabulous woman, with boundless energy, who sees her remit as one of reclaiming the narrative about what it means to be a strong black female in the age of social media.

Her studio, based in the Sojourner Truth Centre on Sumner Road, offers everything from yoga to pole-dancing to twerking. Why twerking?

“One of the things I wanted from having a space like this,” she says, “is to allow women across the board to be tender and engage fully with their bodies.

“Because society has hyper-sexualised the female body so much, and the black female body specifically, there are women who just want to be as far away from that narrative as possible, not understanding that our power lies in the sexuality and sensuality of being a woman. That’s what I want us to take back.”

As an actor, director and personal trainer who specialises in twerk and pole-dance fitness, it’s been a challenging road to get to where she is today – from the homelessness she experienced as a teenager to supporting her mother and brothers, to depression, therapy, having to integrate into a new family when she first arrived in the UK, childhood sexual abuse and a lot more.

She has survived and is very open about her personal journey to date, particularly on social media. No topic is off limits – black issues, police brutality, mental health, her own recent miscarriage.

She has amassed a following of almost 35,000 people on Twitter, with a further 12,400 followers on Instagram. Where did her fascination with social media start?

“It was probably around 2013, when the shift started happening and I just felt that we had something here that allowed us to communicate with everybody, worldwide,” she says.

“I’ve always been a writer, and when Twitter came along I just took to it, because I thought, ‘This is a space where I can say what I’m thinking and I can put it out there as a form of microblogging.’

“I joined it when hardly anyone else was on there and I remember when the influx of celebrities started joining us. I thought, ‘There goes the neighbourhood, they are going to ruin everything!” she laughs.

“But it has changed and I’ve changed with it, as I saw how it allowed us to have our own voice separate from the narrative that we were getting from the media.

“I feel that this is where the power is. It’s an opportunity for me, Kelechi, to give you an alternative narrative to what you’d normally get from the mainstream.”

But in being so outspoken across her social media platforms, has there been a cost? “Yes, there has been, but I think that for anything that matters to you, there is always a sacrifice,” she says.

“Occasionally I will go online and there will be someone calling me a black b**** or a black this. Sometimes I save the tweets. Perhaps one day I’ll take it to court and then they’ll have to show up and explain that email or tweet they sent. But it hasn’t really got there.

“I did have horse manure sent to me in the first small studio I opened in Clapton, though,” she remembers ruefully.

“I had been speaking that weekend about the appropriation of black culture by mainstream pop artists.

“I was pointing out that when it’s ‘appropriation’, there’s always someone with more power who benefits from it financially. If it was ‘appreciation’, the person who has less of the power should be benefiting from it but they’re not.

“I was explaining that and someone got extremely upset with something I said, because soon after, I got horse manure posted to me anonymously.

“Although,” she laughs, “it didn’t even offend me because it was so well packaged and 100 per cent organic.”

What was the response to that experience from her social media followers?

“I have a lot of black female followers who care about my safety and care about my wellbeing. So, someone wrote an article for BuzzFeed about it, which basically helped promote my studio.

“Many people, men and women, sent me flowers and books of poetry including one by Maya Angelou. I just received so much love.”

Whatever the challenges she has faced in life, keeping fit has always been her way of working through issues.

“I’ve always been active and into sports”, she says. “Growing up, I played football and netball. It was stuff I didn’t have to try hard at, it was just a skill that I had.

“I had wanted to be head girl at school but my teacher thought I was too boisterous for that, so she said I could be sports captain instead.”

Her love of sport comes not just from her innate ability, but also from the discipline that it requires.

“When I was in secondary school I joined the air cadets. All I’ve ever yearned for, after not seeing it in the family home, is discipline. I like routine and structure.

“I think we were in year eight when we had a talk from the air cadets. And I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s it, I’m becoming an air cadet.’”

True to form she worked hard at it and for her, “the psychological part of the training gave me a break from being the one who did everything at home and having to be in control of everyone. I wanted and needed that break.”

Alongside fitness, her other passion is acting. It was a choice of career that her mother was dead set against.

“I can understand why,” she muses. “If you’re losing your home and don’t have a regular job, what you want for your children is a steady job. You want to know that they will never suffer or want for anything. Mum was like, ‘Just be a lawyer, you are such a great orator’.”

As a compromise, Kelechi found a course that would allow her to study both drama and law at Liverpool Hope University.

“I’d never been to Liverpool before,” she says, “but that’s the only place which was offering that degree.”

Coming back to London, she started working at a call centre and found it soul destroying.

“I remember going through London Bridge one day and just thinking, ‘There has to be something I can do where I’m not at the mercy of this corporation’. And I just thought, ‘I’ll become a personal trainer’. Fitness was the thing I loved most after acting.

“I saved up my money from my job, paid for a distance learning course and then I did lots of work experience in different gyms.”

Her business took off straightaway, courtesy of her followers on social media.

“When I did qualify, there were already women on Twitter and Instagram who were like, ‘Just come and train me’.

“So I went into that and that’s when I started to see the kind of freedom and flexibility that I could have access to without being at the mercy of big corporations.”

Her personal background means that she has a real desire to see women embrace who they truly are, not just physically but also emotionally and spiritually.

“What I really want for women to understand, especially when it comes to our bodies, is that we only have this one body,” she says.

“When I start training people, I want them to understand that there’s nothing I can do that’s going to make them more beautiful.

“I can get you slimmer if that’s what you really want. I can get you more toned, but none of these things are actually going to make you more beautiful, because it’s not really based on what you look like.

“[It’s about] getting my clients to understand that to me, personal training is 80 per cent psychological and emotional, and 20 per cent physical.

“You didn’t come to me because you care about your fitness, not really. There’s something else that’s happening there. What is that thing?

“If we talk about that ‘thing’, then the fitness doesn’t feel so bad. I’ve had women and men break down into tears when we’ve been having a session because I will say things like, ‘I just feel today that you’re holding a lot in’.

“I can feel it and then they let that out. And that’s what they needed. Then they feel safer because they know that I will spot it if they’re holding a lot that day and we taper the session to create space for them.”

She’s irritated by men who try to dominate in gyms. “I’ve had it myself when I’ll be training at the gym and a guy who clearly knows nothing about fitness comes up to me, just because I’m a woman, and says, ‘So when you’re doing this you really want to do it like this.’

“Wait, you’re telling me, the actual professional, how to do it?! And then they often have the temerity to say, ‘Don’t grow too much muscle though, because you don’t want to look like a man.’”

She dislikes the way Christmas and the new year are promoted to us commercially.

“It’s interesting to me how around Christmas time, the focus in adverts is on massive turkeys, chocolates etcetera, pushing a form of gluttony on us.

“Then as soon as January hits, it’s ‘You, disgusting fatty, get to the gym, get fit’, and I just think that we have to pull ourselves out of that. We are being sold one thing while being beaten with another. What does that do to your self esteem? We never know where we stand because companies were just telling us five minutes ago to eat all of the food!”

What’s on offer at her own gym is a way, according to her, of connecting women to the “divine feminine” through dance.

“With the twerking classes at the studio I wanted to celebrate my African-ness while still paying homage to the ways in which it has changed and how it’s now become linked with hip hop culture,” she says.

Also available at the Kelechnekoff studio are very popular classes in pole-dancing and also yoga, which she is particularly keen to make accessible to all, especially those on lower incomes.

She hopes in 2019 to include a few more aerial disciplines, such as aerial hoops and also Wing Chun defence classes. Primarily though, whether it’s a twerk hen party or a pole-dancing class, her dream is that the studio continues to be a fun place that celebrates all women.

On a personal level as we approach the new year, she’s living by her own mantra: “Don’t stop striving for that thing that makes your heart warm. You deserve it. You can achieve it.”

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freedom-shamrock · 6 years

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All I Want for Solstice is You

Happy solstice to all and to all some tasty wassail. also on AO3

Adrien smiled, warmed by the energy of the holiday market wrapping around him. He caught a whiff of cinnamon as he passed one stall, and he closed his eyes, thinking of cider and Mari's apple tarts. The squeals of children caught his ears, still sensitive though he no longer donned a magical suit to protect the city on a regular basis.

He adjusted his course to head for the ice rink. He leaned on the boards and looked around. He saw Marinette on the other side of the rink, hunched over, her fluffy pink mittens fully enveloping the tiny hands of the stocky little boy she was helping glide across the scuffed sheet of ice. Ivan's son looked so much like their long-time friend, though he was clearly quicker to smile. A toothy grin was plastered over his face as his little legs frantically shuffled in an ineffective effort to go faster.

"Adrien," a deep voice said, just as a hand came down on his shoulder. "We didn't think you were going to make it."

Though he'd topped out at six two, Adrien had to look up to meet Ivan's gray eyes. "Sorry I'm late," he apologized. "The board was being pig-headed and stupid." He'd actually had to haul out a slideshow to push the point.

Ivan rolled his eyes. "Ugh. Stuffy businessmen. Don't know how you stand working with them."

Adrien shrugged. "Fortunately it's only a quarterly pain in the ass, and then I can go back to ignoring the company again." When his father had been sentenced to prison for his side gig as a magical terrorist, Adrien found himself saddled with company he had no interest in. Much of his father's financial wealth went into a fund for restitution to those who had suffered at the hands Hawk Moth's akuma. Going from supermodel to son of a super villain had been quite the trip, and Adrien was keen to distance himself from his emotionally cold father. At Alya and Nino's suggestion, he'd embraced his role as Gabriel's primary stockholder, forcing the company to change its name to Agreste and donate heavily to emergency and mental health services in Paris.

"I'm surprised you're not on the ice," Adrien said.

Ivan let out a little huff. "Mylène doesn't let me do open skates anymore."

Adrien raised one eyebrow, sensing a story.

Ivan shrugged. "I sometimes forget I'm not playing hockey, and I terrify people."

"Ivan, do you go knocking down grandmothers and children?" Adrien demanded, grinning.

"Hardly," Ivan said. "I have much better control of myself on ice than that. I just look like I'm going to mow them over when I cruise by at my usual speed."

"Hello beautiful," Marinette called as she approached their side of the rink. Her cheeks were pink with cold and her whole being radiated with happiness.

"You stole my line," Adrien protested, pouting a little. "You always steal my line."

Marinette shrugged, entirely unrepentant. "Can't fault me for speaking the truth." She looked at Ivan. "Michel's getting pretty tired. We were thinking it might be time for cocoa."

The little boy giggled, stomping his skates on the ice.

Adrien grinned down at him. "Do you like cocoa, too Michel?" He reached out and lightly ruffled the hat, clearly a Marinette creation, on his head.

Michel nodded. "She said we can have marshmallooooos."

Marinette glanced at Ivan. "Mylène went to take off her skates so she'd be ready to help us. You guys stay right there, and we'll grab you before we head over to the vendor."

Adrien leaned over the barrier to press his warm lips to her cool cheek. "Sounds purrfect, mi'love." He and Ivan watched for a moment as Marinette pushed off the ice, taking the little boy toward the exit.

"Michel is going through a really shy phase," Ivan noted idly. "But I swear you and Mari have kid magic. He's happy being alone with her, and he talked to you." He shook his head. "That's impressive, dude."

Unsure what to say, Adrien just shrugged. Marinette was the lucky one. And while he'd spent time with kids as Chat Noir doing holiday and fundraiser things, he had no real experience caring for them.

"When are you guys thinking of having your own?" Ivan asked.

"Our own?" Adrien asked, confused. As realization hit him, he felt like snow had been dumped down the back of his coat, and a heavy dread settled into his stomach. Him and Mari have kids? Was that the expectation? Did she want that? They'd never discussed it, and he had a sudden fear that this was something important to her. He had no idea how to be a father; his own had been an abusive asshole.

A huge hand gently patted his shoulder. "Adrien? Are you okay?"

Adrien shook his head. "Uh. Sorry. Uh."

Ivan's eyebrows bunched as he looked at his friend in concern. "You need to sit down or anything?" he asked. "You looked like you were having a panic attack or something."

"It was something, all right," Adrien agreed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on the light rumble of Plagg purring in his shirt pocket, right over his heart. "I'll be okay. I just… maybe need a minute."

Ivan wrapped an arm around Adrien's shoulders. "Come on. We'll go find you a seat, and I'll text the ladies so they don't freak out."

Adrien pulled the strap of his small gym bag over his shoulder. "I'm going to hit the dojo a little early tonight," he said, offering the love of his life a small smile when she looked up from her sketchbook. She was so talented.

She held his eyes for a moment before setting aside her pencil and getting up. "Are you okay?" she asked, her face pinched with concern.

He quickly nodded, then looked away as he realized he should have played stupid or acted surprised. His fast response was a tell she'd figured out before they'd shared identities.

One of her hands came up to rest on his cheek. "Hey," she said softly. "Look at me, Kitty."

With a sigh, he met her eyes again. Why did his eyes feel so dry all of a sudden?

"It's okay if you're not all right, you know," she said. "And I'm here if you want to talk about it."

He nodded. "My head's kind of a mess right now."

Her thumb caressed his cheek. "I know this time of year is hard for you, but I thought it was going a little better this year."

"It has," he agreed. His memories of fun and joy at Christmas were so old and faded, like a photo left on display too long. The more recent string of holidays spent alone in his father's mansion had apparently conditioned him to avoid and resent the trimmings so pervasive in December. "I guess the… uh, awfulness kind of snuck up on me." It definitely didn't help that his revelation about their future and his current aversion to having children coincided with his usually gloomy season.

"Can I do anything for you?" She tilted her head in the way he found so adorable.

"Not yet." He needed to figure out how he felt before he could bring it up.

"Are you ready to tell me what's wrong?" Tom asked, settling himself across from Adrien, coffee and mini custard and fruit pavlova between them.

Adrien glanced up at the big man who'd been a steady source of support since Adrien first showed up at their house in the middle of the night. It had been months before discovering Hawkmoth's identity but only a few weeks after Ladybug let the cat out of the bag. He returned his gaze to his mug, wrapping his chilly fingers around it.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" Tom asked.

Adrien nodded. This was going to suck. Tom probably wanted grandkids. Why would he want his daughter saddled with a broken man terrified of having children? He heard the soft clink of Tom's mug on the table, then a groan of his chair as the big man got up. Adrien rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hands.

"I'm worried about you, son," Tom said gently, sitting down next to Adrien.

Adrien sucked in a sharp gasp. His own father didn't address him with such love or kindness.

"I don't think this is just your usual holiday glooms, is it?"

Adrien shook his head, his throat too tight to speak.

"Whatever it is, it's eating you up, Adrien." Tom's voice continued to be soft and concerned. "It's not healthy. We're all worried." His hand settled lightly on Adrien's head, but instead of touseling it with a tease, as he normally would, he offered a hesitant caress. "And whatever it is, we'll work through it, okay?"

Adrien nodded.

"Can you try to talk to me about it, then?" Tom suggested. "You've told me I'm a good listener."

Closing his eyes, Adrien focused on relaxing his throat. "I don't want Mari to hate me," he blurted. "Or you and Sabine."

There was a moment of surprised silence before Tom responded. "Have you done something that makes you think we'll feel this way?"

Adrien shook his head. "No, but…"

"But?" Tom encouraged.

"I don't want kids," Adrien finally forced out. "I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for that." He shook his head. "I know I'm not my father, but… I don't know anything about raising kids. I'm terrified that I'd fuck it all up. That I'd hurt them." Instead of being chastised and ordered out of the house as he expected, he found himself wrapped in a warm hug.

"Oh, Adrien." Tom sighed. "None of us could hate you for feeling this way."

"B-but I want to be with Mari," he mumbled, pressing his face into Tom's blue sweater. "I've been thinking about p-proposing."

"And that would be lovely," Tom assured him, rubbing his back.

"But she probably wants kids," Adrien countered. "She's so good with them. And I can't promise her that."

Tom held him, his patience seemingly endless. Once Adrien's breathing was regular again, he asked, "Have you talked to her about this?"

Adrien straightened up and shook his head. "I'm a coward. I'm afraid that conversation will be the beginning of the end for us."

Tom let out a little laugh. "Chat Noir is no coward."

"What?" Adrien looked up startled and vaguely fearful.

"We've known for years, son." Shaking his head, Tom smiled. "Between the dumpster fire you call "father" and the conditions you put up with Chat Noir, it's clear you're not a coward. You're too hard on yourself." He patted Adrien's shoulder. "Talk to my daughter about this. She's a very understanding little bug." He winked before turning serious again. "How long has it been since you left therapy?"

Adrien shrugged. "Couple years." After the nightmares stopped and he was able to let go of the guilt by association that he felt, he'd figured he was done.

Tom rubbed his chin contemplatively. "Maybe it's time to revisit that."

"You think they'll be able to help me want to have kids?" Adrien asked, surprised, but willing to give it a try.

Tom shook his head. "No. That's only something that will change with time, if at all. I think this all just highlights that maybe you still have some healing to do."

"Oh." Adrien took a deep breath. "You're probably right."

Tom gestured to the mini pavlova, heaped with custard and Adrien's favorite fruit. "Now eat up. We have an hour before we head back to your place."

"You're coming too?" Adrien asked. These coffee visits with Marinette's father started shortly after he moved in with her family, and they'd kept them up through university and three apartments. Normally Adrien headed back home alone.

"Sabine's over there, scheming with my daughter, if I'm any judge," Tom said happily. "We're going to go out to dinner, so I may as well head back with you."

Later, as he and Tom approached the door, he was assailed by the scent of cloves and apples. "Mmmmm. I wonder if Mari's experimenting."

"Probably," Tom agreed.

Adrien opened the door to find the apartment lit with candles, evergreen swatches festooning the walls, and a clove and ribbon bedecked lemon hanging off center in the doorway.

"Happy solstice, Adrien!" Sabine said, rushing forward to give him a hug.

"Oh, hey dude, Tom," Nino called. "Blessed be." His greeting was accompanied by finger guns.

"Ah… what?"

"It's a solstice gathering," Tom said, clipping him on the shoulder.

Marinette appeared then and took his hand drawing him through the apartment and to their bedroom. In passing the balcony, he noticed that someone had put out a copper fire bowl and it currently held a log adorned with cranberries. Their bedroom was lit with candles, and it was quiet once the door was shut.

"Hi," Marinette said, sounding uncertain. "Is this okay?"

He stared at her for a moment. "I'm just a little confused."

She smiled sheepishly. "You've been so down, Kitty. We've all seen it. And we know we can't fix the past, but we all want to help." She shrugged. "I thought maybe if we made our own traditions, something completely new and different, it would be a good start." She reached up to run her fingers through his hair over his ear.

"I love you," he said, giving her a small smile. "You're amazing."

"So are you."

"Can I tell you what's been freaking me out?" he asked. Maybe this wasn't the right time, but her father was right. She deserved to know.

She nodded. "I'd like that."

He took a deep breath, comforted by the weight of Plagg suddenly settling in between his collar and his neck. "You're amazing with kids Mari. And… people have started to ask me when we're going to have our own." He watched her vibrant eyes go wide. "And… I'm not sure I'm ever going to be ready for kids. The very idea terrifies me." He swallowed. "And…" A finger lightly covered his lips.

"Can I interrupt for a teeny moment?" she asked. "If you have more to say, I want to hear it, but… I think I have something relevant to add here."

He nodded.

"I have thought about having a family with you," she admitted. "You're the only person I would consider that with. But it's… not a deal breaker. I'm fine with us not having kids. I'm fine with revisiting the topic someday if you want to. But really, all I want is you."

He pulled her into a hug, burying his face in her neck. "Thank you."

"Love you," she replied.

When they stepped back from each other, he could feel the difference in his smile. "Okay, so what's this solstice thing we have going on?"

She giggled. "It's just our family, the family we've chosen, having a nice candle-lit evening together. Mama and I made wassail and treats."

"And this is our new tradition?" he asked. It was a nice idea.

"I hope so."

"I like it."

She beamed at him. "I have one more thing I want to do before we go back out there." She walked over to her dresser and rummaged around for a moment. He heard a dull snap and then she came back to him with something closed in her hand. "I was going to do this in January, but…" She tilted her head from side to side. "I think now is better."

"I don't know what you're doing, but you're adorable." He kissed her on the nose.

"Do you really believe I love you?"

"Yes," he said with a chuckle. "Though sometimes I wonder why."

She beeped his nose lightly with her index finger. "Do you believe that you're really important to me, and that I can be happy with just you?"

He nodded. That was still too new and too tender for him to joke about.

"Can I prove it?" she asked, her eyes wide and hopeful. Without looking away she raised his right hand to kiss the ring he wore. She let go and took his left hand. "Adrien, will you marry me?" She gently placed a metal band on his palm. "Will you be my best friend and dearest love forever?"

He stared at her for a moment, completely stunned. Then he looked at the ring in his hand, silver with two small stones, blue and green, embedded side by side. "Wha… Really?"

"Really," she insisted, plucking the ring and holding it up.

Grinning so big his face hurt, he held out his hand, fingers splayed. "Yes. Very yes. All the yes."

She giggled while she pushed the ring on. "Now come on." She grabbed his hand. "I want to show everyone what I got for solstice."

#Miraculous Ladybug #fanfic #my writing #solstice #holiday #Adrienette

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