Today we’d like to introduce you to Luis Castro.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started the group back around May of 2015 however, I was introduced to calisthenics back late in 2013. Back then I was big into weight lifting and I would visit my local gym daily. I enjoyed the routine but I didn’t feel it was challenging me physically or mentally as much. One day scrolling through workout videos on Youtube I came across a video titled “HANNIBAL FOR KING”. The video blew my mind, it was a video of a guy in street park doing some pretty amazing things with his body, very gymnastic-like.
I never looked at gymnastic movements as something at my reach because it seems so elite. It seems like something you would have to dedicate a whole life too. After watching this “regular guy” in some local park it all seemed a bit more obtainable. So I started trying to learn the human flag first, probably of the more advanced movements in body weight training. I stuck to it By the time I achieved it I was pretty obsessed with body weight training. I started looking at videos from Barstarzz, Bar Brothers and Frank Medrano for more inspiration.
Around early 2015 I was full on dedicated to freestyle calisthenics. I considered opening up a gym focused more on using your body weight to train and learning more of the dynamic and static movements in calisthenics. The only issue was I knew no one who shared the same goal or passion for this type of training. I knew I would have to start from the ground up and building a team would obviously be the first steps in order to create an awareness and demand in my area for calisthenics. I remember putting a post on Facebook about starting a group and I got nothing.
So looking for local parks and trying to find others seemed more effective. One day walking through White Rock Lake I came across a fitness park and it just seems like the perfect place to start. It was there that I later meet a couple other guys working out and I pitched them the idea of starting a group and they were completely aboard. We started meeting Sunday mornings, started reaching out to others by word of mouth and social media. A couple months later we put a name together and I created a logo and Instagram page to make it official.
Our team started to grow and so did our bond. We started to create cool content and sharing it to invite and inspire others to come out. We started looking for areas to set up and city events to be part of to get more exposure.
Everyone started to contribute to the team in so many ways. Through the process Jorge Delgado and Christian “Bossk” Holle became close friends and partners to continue growing Dallasthenics and brainstorming more effective and productive ways to get the team involved with the city. As of now, we have partnered up with For the Love of the Lake, Dallas ISD, Dallas Parks and Recs and Dallas Police Department to find ways we can help with events, clean ups and more. We have been part of city events such as EarthDay, Trinity Wind Festival, All out Trinity. school charity event and even host our own event the I Move DFW Movement Jam.
I try and practice good morals and values in my life. For the most part of life a positive life, I’m in a good mood 90% of the time, lol. I like to lead by example and I am a firm believer in treating others like I like to be treated. Staying humble, having empathy and helping others is important to me. Some way or another that has become the foundation that our team is made of. It went from a fitness group to a community to now a family, and it continues to grow every day. The team has played a great factor in my life within the last three years and it trickles-down into my wife and daughters also. We’ve had some amazing moments today and we will continue to have more. I can’t wait to see how we impact our city in the future.
A bit more about the Dallasthenics Team
Dallas is extremely new to this movement, therefore, you don’t hear or see many people who know about this type of training. However, in cities like Los Angeles, Miami and New York the movement is beginning to trend and many are starting to add it to their daily workout routines. You can look up teams such as Barstarzz who started in NY, BarBrothers from Europe and World Calisthenics Organization have helped mold, grow and put on mainstream the calisthenic movement. This type of training is spreading rapidly and Dallas is now starting to catch on along with Austin and Houston.
What makes calisthenics so great?
You can practically do these exercises anywhere, at any time. It makes you think outside the box or “gym” in this case. There is no age or level that keeps you from training calisthenics. All it takes is being mentally prepared, other than that the world is your gym. I tell everyone that comes out if you’re not mentally prepared getting a membership at a gym is a waste of time and money. Learning calisthenics can build the mindset, the discipline and the motivation you need to get your money’s worth at a gym. It’s a great foundation to have for any other type of training you want to pursuit.
The Dallasthenics team has created a bond like I am yet to see. People are intimidated to show up to one our meets because of what they see on our social media. However, when they make it out they see a whole different perspective of who we are. At our meets there are no egos, there are no standoff people, everyone is extremely eager to help and everyone is very approachable. We all are open to criticism and our only challenger is ourselves. Some come once, some stay for a while and some become part of the team, but everyone always tells me the same thing. The energy, the vibe there’s something about this group that makes it so welcoming I’ve never felt that anywhere else. That’s what I love the most and that is what makes us who we are.
As of right now, we have members from Germany, Chile, Colombia, Russian and Mexico who have recently moved to the US and they found us before they got here. So before they even moved here they knew they had a group to come too. We have guys from all over the DFW who come spend the day at White Rock Lake. The meet is free and all we ask is that you have fun. Dallasthenics is growing and hopefully, it’ll spread to communities around the DFW, we need more community fitness parks a lot of areas could benefit from this. I know there needs to be a demand for more accessible fitness parks and I believe our team can spark and help that demand growth. We aren’t your typical boot camp, gym or fitness class.
We are literally kids playing at the park, enjoying movement and each other’s company. There are many more great story’s about the team I could share but I wanted to reach out and give you a brief description of who we are, thank you for your time!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
To be honest growing the team and staying together hasn’t been a struggle. We’ve enjoyed every moment of it all the growth has came very organically and natural. We’ve been giving a lot of support from the city and welcomed to just about every event we’ve wanted to be a part of. There wasn’t a goal in mind when we first started so at first everything was just falling into place. Now that we get more offers to be a part of gatherings/events it’s becoming a bit of challenge to get situated correctly, to set up to make sure we are attentive to everyone who participates with us.
As move forward there are bigger and better things we hope to accomplish such as getting an actual calisthenics park built in Dallas and learning and figuring out how to execute these plans is a bit tricky at times. Figuring out how to balance my personal life, work and the team at the same time is probably the hardest part of all. Lastly, we don’t charge for our meets/training so coming up with a budget for some of our events can be a hard at times. However, that’s the least of it these last 3 years have flown by and so much has been accomplished, and if you’re not enjoying the process it’s not worth doing it at all. I’ve loved and enjoyed every single bit of it.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Dallasthenics story. Tell us more about the business.
We’ll first of all we are a community fitness group. We encourage our community to come out and use their local fitness parks to stay active, to work out. However, we show them a fun and challenging way to do it. GYM’s are great but sometimes you need to get away from all the extra distractions. We show grown-ups how to be a kid again, we show kids that adults too can have fun and most importantly we lead by example. We train people on the basics of body weight training. From there on everyone brings a bit of everything to the table. Freestyle calisthenics, acro yoga, pole fitness, b-boying, parkour and more. Best of all we do it all without much use of equipment.
What I’m most proud of is the relationships and bonds that have been created throughout the team. The values we bring and the company we share with one another. There are no egos in our circle and any and everyone is welcomed. No matter the age, level, or background everyone is treated the same.
Where can you find so much talent in different body movement disciplines in one place? Jam out for 3+ hours, get inspired, learn new things, make new friends and leave all your worries aside? Become part of an awesome group? And all for free! That is what sets us apart!
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
There’s something bigger than luck building this team. I am a big believer in the power of thought, the law of attraction. There are many things that have come together, that have connected, that have occurred that at this point I feel something bigger is driving this. Great story, the fact a guy in Germany found us on IG ended up moving to Dallas and renting a room from a lady who turned out to be the person who leads the organization that founded the very park we meet at 20+ years ago. This whole time she thought the park was a loss.
That’s not coincidental. the fact that Edward Checo founder and internationally known calisthenics team Barstarzz from New York surprisingly shows up at our meet one day. This was someone who highly inspired me and taught me so much through his videos. We now have became good friends. The fact that we have people that have recently moved to Dallas from so many different countries. We just about have someone from every continent of the world, lol. Just like these, there are so many more really cool stories that have come about through the process. So if we want to call it luck, we’ve been extremely lucky! =-)
Pricing:
- Only thing is our Merchandise this cost anywhere from $15 – $40
Contact Info:
- Address: 1001-1075 Emerald Isle Dr, Dallas, TX 75218
- Website: Dallasthenics.com (Needs Update)
- Phone: 972-339-8771
- Email: dallasthenics@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dallasthenics/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dallasthenics/?ref=bookmarks
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/dallasthenics-dallas?osq=Dallasthenics
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9vu8g47RWyhGdlYZ7YhUEw?view_as=subscriber
Image Credit:
Aly Fae , Hansen Khem
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
