Today we’d like to introduce you to Kimberly Brown-Mason.
Hi Kimberly , so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My story has always been about resilience, service, and finding purpose after life forces you to reinvent yourself. I am a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, disabled veteran, former federal civil rights executive, wife, mother, and entrepreneur. I spent much of my adult life serving—first in uniform and later in federal leadership, eventually rising from a GS-7 intern to a GS-15 executive-level leader.
Along the way, I survived experiences that profoundly changed me, including military sexual trauma, PTSD, professional adversity, and later a head-on collision that left me dealing with concussion and TBI-related symptoms. By 2023, my health had reached a point where I entered disability retirement. After spending decades building a career and earning my PhD in Organizational Leadership, suddenly I was home trying to figure out who I was without the titles, uniform, and work that had defined so much of my life.
Then Pilates found me.
What began as something to help me move, reconnect with myself, and simply have a reason to get out of bed became a new purpose. I became a certified Pilates instructor and initially pursued a franchise opportunity, but eventually realized my vision was bigger than what could live inside someone else’s structure.
That realization became Pilates My Way, built around a simple belief: Your Strength. Your Movement. Your Way. Our mission is Redefining Pilates through innovation and community—core strength, control, and confidence, designed your way.
I also founded the Move Forward Pilates Foundation, a nonprofit that creates opportunities for disabled veterans to experience Pilates and provides pathways for veterans interested in becoming instructors.
Building an independent business as a Black woman, disabled veteran, and first-time boutique fitness studio owner has brought its own challenges. When the franchise and I parted ways, financing and business relationships that had already been established changed almost overnight, and I essentially had to begin again. But starting over gave me something more valuable: the freedom to build the vision the way I believed it needed to be built.
Today, I’m building more than a Pilates studio. I’m building a community and a legacy from experiences that once made me wonder whether I would ever feel useful again.
I often say that I didn’t find the reformer because I wanted to become an instructor. I found it when I was trying to find myself again. Somehow, a machine called a reformer ended up helping me reform my life.
And that journey is still being written.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth would definitely not be the word I would use.
One of my greatest challenges came when the franchise I initially planned to open and I parted ways. By that point, I had financing lined up, a broker, real-estate support, training, and what appeared to be a clear path forward. Then almost overnight, the infrastructure around me disappeared. The bank canceled my loan, the broker canceled my contract, and I essentially had to start over.
That experience taught me something important about entrepreneurship: sometimes people are willing to bet on the established brand before they are willing to bet on the person behind the business.
As a Black woman entrepreneur, disabled veteran, and independent founder entering an industry where I did not fit the traditional image of ownership, I encountered unanswered calls, delayed responses, difficulty securing commercial space, and moments when I questioned whether I was being taken as seriously as I had been when I was attached to a franchise name. There were days I cried after calls and nights I stayed awake wondering whether I had made the biggest mistake of my life.
But the struggle also forced me to get very clear about why I was doing this. My vision could not fully live inside someone else’s structure. I wanted the freedom to build Pilates My Way around our mission of redefining Pilates through innovation and community, while also creating room for the Move Forward Pilates Foundation to serve disabled veterans.
Financing became another hurdle. Instead of waiting for another institution to decide whether my independent vision was worthy of funding, my husband and I looked at what we had built over the years and ultimately chose to leverage our own resources and equity to move forward.
Finding the right location brought another lesson. I spent months searching, negotiating, dealing with brokers, and almost settling for a location simply because I was exhausted from hearing “no” or waiting for answers. Then a completely unrelated request for a contractor’s information led me to the person I jokingly call “Mr. Opportunity”—and ultimately to the landlord and space that gave Pilates My Way a home.
So no, it has not been a smooth road. But every closed door forced me to become a stronger businesswoman. I stopped looking for someone else to validate the vision and started trusting the education, leadership experience, military discipline, business experience, and resilience I already had.
The biggest lesson has been that sometimes starting over isn’t actually starting over. Sometimes you are starting again with everything the first journey taught you.
We’ve been impressed with Pilates My Way, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Pilates My Way is more than a Pilates studio—it is the business I needed when I was trying to find my way back to myself.
We are an independent, Black-owned and 100% disabled veteran-owned reformer Pilates studio in the Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania area. Our philosophy is captured in our tagline: Your Strength. Your Movement. Your Way.
What sets us apart is that we coach the person in front of us, not an idealized version of who we think a Pilates client should be. Our clients range from people stepping onto a reformer for the first time to experienced practitioners, and in age from their teens into their 80s. There are no mirrors in our studio because I never wanted Pilates My Way to become a place where people spent 50 minutes judging their bodies. I wanted them concentrating on what their bodies could do.
Our signature approach is PMW Slow Burn™—slow, intentional, form-focused movement with contemporary programming grounded in Pilates principles. We emphasize core strength, control, confidence and quality of movement rather than simply moving faster. Our classes include Foundations, Flow, Cardio, Mobility/Restore and focused upper-, lower- and full-body formats. We also offer private and duet instruction for clients who want or need a more individualized experience.
Community is just as important to us as movement. We have created programs such as Real Men Do Pilates™ to challenge the idea that Pilates is only for women, along with educational workshops, wellness events and community partnerships that allow people to experience Pilates in ways that feel welcoming rather than intimidating.
One of the things I am proudest of, however, is what exists alongside the business. I founded the Move Forward Pilates Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit serving disabled veterans through Pilates opportunities and pathways into instructor training. As a disabled veteran myself, that mission is deeply personal. I know what it means to lose pieces of your identity after service and to need a way forward.
I’m also proud that Pilates My Way is independent. I initially planned to open a franchise, but when that relationship ended, I had a choice: abandon the dream or build the studio I actually believed should exist. I chose to build.
That independence allows us to innovate, listen to our community and create programming around real people rather than forcing everyone into a predetermined model.
We coach to the person.
Ultimately, I want people to know that Pilates My Way isn’t about having the “right” body, being the most flexible person in the room, or already knowing Pilates. It is about walking through our doors exactly as you are and discovering what strength can look like for you.
Because sometimes movement changes your body.
And sometimes it changes your life.
What matters most to you?
Purpose, family, and leaving something behind that matters.
For most of my life, I measured myself by what I could accomplish. Rank. Degrees. Promotions. Titles. I became a Lieutenant Colonel, earned an MBA and a PhD, and rose from a GS-7 intern to a GS-15 federal leader. I knew how to achieve.
What life had to teach me was that accomplishment and purpose are not the same thing.
After surviving trauma, losing careers I thought I would have forever, struggling with my health, and having to reinvent myself more than once, what matters to me now is whether what I am doing makes a difference in someone else’s life.
My family matters. I want my children and grandchildren to see that life can knock you completely off the path you planned and you can still create another one. I want them to inherit more than anything I can leave them financially. I want them to inherit an example of resilience, faith, work ethic, service, and the courage to begin again.
People matter. I know what it feels like to walk into a room and wonder whether you belong. I know what it feels like to have an invisible disability that other people cannot see or understand. I know what it feels like to lose your sense of purpose and question what you have left to contribute. That is why creating spaces where people feel seen, respected and capable matters so deeply to me.
Service matters. I wore a uniform for years, but I have learned that you don’t have to wear one to serve. Pilates My Way and the Move Forward Pilates Foundation are simply the newest chapters of a life that has always been centered around service.
And finally, legacy matters.
I don’t need my legacy to be that Dr. Kimberly Brown-Mason had a successful Pilates studio. I want it to be that I took some of the most painful experiences of my life and refused to waste them. I used what hurt me to create something that could help somebody else.
If my children see that, if a veteran finds purpose again, if someone who has never felt comfortable in a fitness space finally feels like they belong, or if another woman looks at my journey and decides she isn’t too old, too hurt, too different, or too late to start again—then everything I went through meant something.
That is what matters to me.
Pricing:
- Our intro offer 8 classes for $120 to get clients familiar with our studio, instructors and our equipment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pilatesmyway.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pilates.my.way?stkn=dGN1MXAxcHNsNmcw&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1DnEWyC2Fm/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lt-colonel-ret-kim-brown-mason-phd-mba-05b99170?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_ios
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/pilates-my-way-fredericksburg
