The Kettlebell Joy Community Lift UP!
The Community Lift UP! is a way for kettlebell lifting to manifest change in our community, whether locally here in the Salem-Keizer area, across Oregon, or globally.
Culture and Community
As a part of the fitness industrial complex, kettlebell culture features the same traits of institutionalized oppression as its parent, but to an even greater extent. When it comes to celebrating hierarchical authoritarianism and male supremacy, it doesn’t get much more obvious than kettlebell culture. Kettlebells themselves lack these traits. They’re just weights. It is their champions, who capitalize on the industry trend, that have created the pervasive culture of the kettlebell: militaristic, authoritarian, ableist, and male-centric.
We can change this. We can play, experience joy, and embrace vulnerability while learning how to use kettlebells and kettlebell training to create a sense of belonging and community. We can use kettlebell training either directly or indirectly to serve truly marginalized groups, rather than to further authoritarian causes.
The Community Lift UP! acknowledges the individual bodily experiences of those in our community, instead of erasing those experience by cleaving to the ideologies of oppression that pervade all of our American institutions, including fitness.
Each event will focus on raising awareness and funds with a marginalized group:
BIPOC
Unhoused
LGBTQ+
People with Disabilities
Victims of Domestic Violence
The Community Lift UP! for Keizer Pride
The inaugural Community Lift UP! will be held at Salem Kettlebell Training on Sunday, May 1st, 2022 at 9:00 am.
Funds raised go directly to Keizer Pride, and you can purchase event shirts through Freckled Bee, Co. in Salem. Click here to sign up! We are excited for you to join the Kettlebell Joy community!