Use My Body For What?? – #1
We’ve just released out first exercise DVD, “The Sulaxmi Exercise Method.” It’s a bodyweight exercise program that has been a labor of love. First of all, thanks to all of you who have already purchased a copy!
We’ve gotten several questions asking about the name, “Sulaxmi,” why we use bodyweight exercises, and what prompted us to undertake this project in the first place. Over the next few emails I’m going to do my best to answer the questions. I’m going to first take on the issue of “why do this now?”
We started Brownstone Fitness because we are unreasonable people. We come from the nonprofit world – with some interesting corporate and government stops along the way. At the various nonprofits we worked in and ran, we believed we could make things better. I’m confident in saying we did some good things in our youth work. Bernadette hates when I say this but…
Google us!
Even now, in our work at Brownstone, we continue to work on issues of childhood obesity, anti-bullying, and education for under-served children around the world.
The better we got at what we did, the more we were forced away from the direct work with living, breathing human beings. We’re lovers by nature and the jobs we woke up to took us further away from honest human contact. Our last job required us to babysit a board made up of spoiled, wealthy, male investment bankers. We made our peace with that role until they asked us to sell out the kids we really did our work for. These angry, hurt, poor children scared these powerful men. They wanted us to “trade in” these teens for the smaller, cuter, more compliant model – children they could show off to their families and friends. They had crossed our line and we expressed our values with our mouths, our pens, and, finally, our feet.
Starting this new thing, a place where we could focus on the health and wellness of people at the physical, emotional, and spiritual levels, is a good place to be if you’re a lover.
We’ve been in business for less than a year. Like any new startup with a shoestring budget, we’ve had to put our heads down and do the work. Fourteen-hour days and no financial security were part of the price paid for the well we have started to dig and for the powerful people we had offended. Once we get to the level we are seeking, we hope to be a wellspring of information and hope for women and teens who know they’ve been lied to about what “the perfect body” is supposed to look like; who know that confusion and frustration do not have to be such constant companions; who want a body that is powerful, attractive, and functional; who want to be Strong, Sexy, and Serene.
We work with our clients from 6am until 9pm and we work seven days a week. Even with those hours, our reach constitutes a drop in the bucket. We wanted to get the word out. We wanted to serve more people. We wanted women (and men!) to have personal agency when they make decisions around their health. We wanted to create a program that was portable and could be done at home. The Sulaxmi Method is our initial effort in creating what we hope will become an international community that will support the health and well-being of women and girls.
In a later email, you’ll find out how the name “Sulaxmi” ties into that “international community” piece. The next one will address the focus on bodyweight training.
I look forward to speaking with you soon. Until then, tell your friends about the DVD, “Like” us on Facebook, and send any questions you might have on the DVD or the community we’re creating to me directly at [email protected]
P.S. Let us know if you,too,are also Ronin – masterless Samurai.
Page 1 of 2 | 
