And then there was House...

When most people think of exercise these days, the first thing that comes to mind is gyms, treadmills, spin classes and bootcamps. Its a pity really because way long before there were ever any of these things in existence, people were moving and I might add they were moving quite more.

I like to think about movement and exercise out of this "controled enviroment" context. I mean I am not knocking folks for doing these types of exercise...movement in any form is good in my book. But personally I get bored with running in place with a fan and tv screen in my face.

I prefer to take my workouts outside and hang off of objects or jump over things...it's not that I'm totally a daredevil, I just want to use my body to the max.

And to this day, one of my favorite forms of cardio, which my mom inspired in me from a very young age is Dance. My mom would always tell me "I'm doing my exercise, I'm dancing to Hector (Lavoe)", and sure enough that made total sense to me. I am a big dancer, not saying I'm the most skilled but man when a beat with some drums and bass starts pumping my heart is singing and my feet are moving.

I ofcourse love salsa, bomba y plena, hip hop, merengue, but the music that has always been my love, being the nuyorican that I am is House Music.

House Music was born in Chicago, largely influenced by Disco, Salsa, Soul and Jazz, it is no wonder that it was largely a Black and Latino thing of the early to mid 80s. The first big venue that it became popular in was Chicago's "The Warehouse", which is where the genres name derives from. When it came to New York, it evolved well past its years and eventually starting entering the mainstream.

Its a foot work based dance, and even though there have been some "moves" designed by different folks over the years, for the most part there is no wrong way to dance to House, as long as you stay on rythm of course lol. I can walk into a spot playing house and just move for hours without a care in the world, burning calories for days haha.

So if you ask me what my prefered cardio is, best believe its dancing to some House. And there is nothing better than NYC in the summer to find some dope ass house parties. Come join me sometime!

"You may be black, you may be white; you may be Jew or Gentile. It don't make a difference in our... HOUSE."

Anniversary and Website Launch Cookout

It first started by sitting down and building about our health and how our bodies felt. A couple of us had been working out regularly and seeing great results, feeling good about our bodies and looking for new ways to take our health to the next level. These conversations usually took place after a great workout or during a nice healthy meal. Our circle was composed of not only health conscious individuals but we were all also part of the social justice movement, working daily on issues around workers' rights, fighting against racism, sexism homophobia and xenophobia, involved in the anti-war/imperialism movement and struggles to bring about healthcare reform. It only seemed natural for us to start talking about health issues on the grand scale and how we could facilitate a movement through the avenue of fitness and healthy living to better our conditions. This is how Revolutionary Fitness was founded.

It has been a year since we at Revolutionary Fitness began our mission to spread the idea and practice of healthy living in the communities that have felt the brunt of poor health conditions here in New York City. We first began with simply hosting an outdoor fitness class at St. Nicholas Park in Harlem on Thursday nights, where we invited friends and people from the neighborhood to participate in. After which we would all chip in a couple of bucks to purchase some fresh produce and put together some healthy plant-based nutrition meals for everyone to grub on. It became apparent early on that many people were receptive to these classes and the need in the underdeveloped communities of NYC for this type of work was very high in demand.

We then began to expand and started hosting classes in other neighborhoods throughout the city. Since then we have held donation based fitness classes in Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, Central Park, Crown Heights, East New York, Bushwick, Astoria, Lower East Side, El Barrio, Woodside, Coney Island, Fordham Road and even Brighton Beach. We began expanding our staff to meet the rise in demand, sharing our vision of movement with all those we encountered. Many participants have been empowered to begin leading RevFit classes of their own, and many fitness professionals have worked with our vision using RevFit as an avenue to do donation based work in addition to their fitness businesses. We have also had the opportunity to build with many organizations about our work, been on Pacifica radio, and shared our newsletter with all our supporters via social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

In our second year we have many new and exciting things on the horizon. We will continue to provide donation based general fitness classes on a regular basis. Our new Spring Schedule which we recently put out can be found here in this issue of our newsletter. We will be going on a speaking tour over the next few months throughout the Northeast, spreading the vision of Revolutionary Fitness to other regions. We have developed an Apprentice Trainer Program and High School Internship Program. Our new fully functioning website will provide nutritional and fitness information as well as a vehicle to encourage activism and organizing around food and social justice issues. We will be hosting cookouts, bike tours, beach parties, fitness competitions, and other group activities promoting movement and community. We will be developing specialty classes such as, self-defense, pre-post natal health, kettle bells, advanced yoga, stability training, dance and the more people who we meet the more possibilities we can come up with in order to continue promoting movement. Most importantly we will be leading public health campaigns to bring attention and action to some of the many poor conditions our people have been forced to live in.

Join us on Saturday, June 18th as we celebrate our one year anniversary at the Revolutionary Fitness Cookout. We will be hosting the Celebration Cookout at Thomas Jefferson Recreational Park on 114th street and 1st avenue. We will have great food to grub on, live DJs throughout the day, fitness games and activities for the entire family to enjoy, babysitting for those parents who need a break to do some warrior poses with us, handball, basketball, and just casual conversations with folks from all walks of life.

Revolutionary Fitness was founded to facilitate movement in our communities, not just with our bodies in terms of exercising and eating well but also in our effort to better the conditions of our communities. Come out and celebrate with us, we appreciate everyone's continued support in this important work. As always come check out some of our activities and Let's Move Together!