Photo credit to @houseofbohn and @karinbohn.

In 2020, we’re full of intimidating phraseology that can feel vague and empty. 

When we’re talking about social justice, anti-racism, and radical body acceptance, we often encourage others to “do the work,” or, put the onus on ourselves to do “the work.” But what is “the work”? And how do we tackle these systematic problems and enact change within our own spaces and communities without really understanding how to tangibly make change?

CMMN GRND, a new fitness and social wellness collective in Vancouver, may be the perfect example of what doing “the work” really means. 

CMMN GRND is a multi-use hub offering their own unique yoga program (designed by Ash Belluz), spin, pilates, and signature speciality classes, with the goal of radical inclusion at the forefront. 

“I think having an understanding of my own personal feelings towards the fitness industry, as a very proud, queer, femme boy, there were a lot of fitness spaces I didn’t feel comfortable in due to the toxic masculinity of it. Our thought process was to make an inclusive space and we were trying to figure out how to do this without just providing lip service,” says co-founder Dylan Archambault. 

After a highly anticipated opening, CMMN GRND, co-founded by Archambault and his mom Cheryl Archambault, opened their doors on June 5. Their beautiful, detailed, Olympic Village space is inspired by mid-century modern design—brought to life by designer Karin Bohn. 

“We were very quickly called into a lot of things and had to [speed up our learning] to actually execute these processes correctly. That was the start of the process in creating a brand that lived and breathed equity as much as possible. We are so lucky to have so many team members who have come on who get this.” 

So, what has CMMN GRND done to contribute to the health and safety of their staff and students? Their work includes: creating a body and gender neutral space (including gender neutral branding, language, and bathrooms) and an ongoing commitment to decolonial education mandated trauma informed training for all yoga instructors. At the helm of management is Jessie Nelson. 

“Jessie is such a beautiful and pivotal part of our business. It’s incredible to have someone who is constantly wanting to be part of this work as our General Manager of Inclusive Operations and keeping that up in our space.”

CMMN GRND’s incredible lineup of staff and instructors include Shayla Oulette Stonechild, Pablo Madrigal, Ash Belluz, and Grace Club’s Maggie Anderson. All instructors go through equity, diversity, and inclusion training as well as trauma informed training. CMMN GRND has also partnered with India Dania, creator of The Wyld Method, and Julie Ness/ James Knipe, the creators of Reign MVMNT—offering signature classes that are exclusive to the space. 

“We put a huge amount of intention into creating a gender neutral and body neutral space. We have also put processes in place in terms of inclusion and equity that [we hope will invite the fitness industry to take more responsibility and action]. We put a lot of emphasis on continually educating members of our community in those areas, as well as anti-racism and decolonizing work,” adds Archambault. 

I myself have a strained relationship to fitness. After almost 15 years of classical ballet training, competitions, touring, and summer intensives abroad, my body broke down. As a curvy, used-to-be-fit-but-now-not-so-much person, fitness studios and classes can be extremely intimidating, lending to very daunting and, sometimes, embarrassing experiences. And, I’m a white, cis-gendered, able-bodied, “thin” person.

So, what if you, like me, have a complicated relationship to movement, but you’re also a person of colour? What if you’re trans? What if you’re disabled? This begs the question: how are traditional fitness studios accommodating all bodies? Often, they aren’t and the experience can be downright harmful. 

“So many social justice issues are tied to body autonomy. When we talk about decolonizing fitness, we are talking about how the slender perfect ideal is in (and) of itself a colonized idea. When we talk about the body in terms of being gender neutral, it is an act of allyship. Body neutrality and gender neutrality means you can feel all the things about your body – and these feelings don’t have to only be positive, because feelings aren’t linear and positive all the time – they are fluid and non-permanent,”  explains Archambault. 

“You can have all sorts of layers in the relationship you have with your body and still come move it.”

Accessibility is another impenetrable barrier when it comes to big-city boutique wellness. But CMMN GRND is working on that too. 

Their Classè Sospeso program (a play on words that stems from “suspended coffee” pronounced [kafˈfɛ ssoˈspeːso, -eːzo) is modeled after an Italian tradition that began in the working-class cafés of Naples, where someone who had experienced good luck would order a sospeso, paying the price of two coffees but receiving and consuming only one.

With CMMN GRND’s Classè Sospeso program, every time you buy a class package you can also donate the advance purchase of a single class or portion of a class to people who deserve access to movement but may not be in a position to afford it. One hundred per cent of the funds are used to make their classes more accessible to their community.

“I want to be transparent about the fact that accessibility can look a lot of different ways. Our space is in Olympic Village, Vancouver and we have intense rent to pay and we had to set our classes at a certain level. It is a boutique fitness studio and we put a lot of intention into these classes. But, we also recognize that is not accessible for some folks and so caffe sospeso is our way of widening that,” Archambault says. 

“Before we even put [the program] out, we had Instagram messages for people that wanted to donate or support. You can buy a class or a portion of a class for someone else and essentially the program is for people in need, with not many questions asked.”

Additionally, during their first two opening weekends, CMMN GRND held community classes to donate to Black Arts Vancouver and the Vancouver Trans Resiliency Fund. 

“One of the things I have taken away from the rise of the BLM movement is that we have to fuck up. We aren’t going to get it perfect. White folks are going to make mistakes. We have to acknowledge when we do, listen, and keep going,” says Archambault.

“We hope to learn from our community and constantly keep growing.”

CMMN GRND is now open, with the appropriate COVID-19 safety measures in place. Learn more about their selection of classes and book yours here.