The Ping Center will offer female only fitness classes starting in the spring after being approached by women.
Women who didn’t feel comfortable working out at Ping will soon have a unique option.
Ping Center will offer female-only group fitness classes beginning in Spring Semester, said Wes Bonadio, assistant director of campus recreation and programs.
Ping staff members decided to add the classes after they were approached by a group of international and American women last year who objected to working out because it violated their religion.
“We’re providing an accommodation for a need so they can work out in a space that is conducive to them,” Bonadio said.
Ping has not finalized the schedule for the group fitness classes, but Bonadio said the female-only classes will most likely take place at one day and time every week with an instructor who can teach a variety of classes, including Zumba and cycling.
“We want to be able to have an instructor who’s going to be able to do a range of different class styles so that each week it will be a different style,” he said. “That way those students who might not be able to get to a bunch of different types of classes, we’ll be able to bring that to them.”
Rasha Alghamdi, a student from Saudi Arabia in OU’s Intensive English Program, was one of the women who approached Ping last year about creating the classes.
Women also approached OU’s Aquatic Center about having hours for female only swimming, but the group was told no, Alghamdi said.
The group wanted a space that would allow them to exercise without their “scarves,” Alghamdi said. Under certain practices of Islam, some women are not allowed to be around men in public without being covered.
Back in Saudi Arabia, Alghamdi said she would work out three to four times a week, but she hasn’t exercised while at she’s been at OU because she said it’s hard and awkward to exercise while wearing the scarf.
“It’s too hot to exercise with that,” she said. “I can’t exercise freely.”
Alghamdi said she appreciates that Ping has accommodated the group’s request and that there are plans to utilize the classes.
Bobbie Walker, a senator on Student Senate’s international affairs commission, reached out to Bonadio recently about implementing female-only classes not realizing another group had been working with the Ping staff already.
“I think it’s really important that their needs are met, even if it’s a small portion of students,” she said. “It’s good that Ping is catering to their needs.”
