Let’s go back to March 2020, I was running 5 studio classes per week in Hexham and had an average of 15 students per class, some classes up to 20. Vinyasa classes were full of electric energy and Hatha classes were full of positivity and had a real feeling of calm. 

For the first time since I started teaching Yoga, I finally felt everything was coming together. 

I was also about to start teaching my first beginner’s course in Hexham which was really exciting for me and a new avenue in my business.

Then…

1. COVID waded into our lives. 

2. March 23rd, lockdown happened.

3. Everyone's normal changed. 

4. Anxiety and doubt kicked in. 

How on earth am I going to teach online, my thought processes below:

• I live in a small flat, where exactly am I going to teach from?

• I have an old iPhone with a camera that doesn't work

• I need a camera

• Do I need a Britney headset as a mic?

• Is this safe?

• Do people talk back to me in a class and can we have a laugh still?

• Can positive energy travel via a camera?

• What platform do I use?

• I hope my booking system works for this

• Is £5.00 too much per class?

• If I have all of this time I should probably be teaching 20 classes a week

• Can they see and hear me ok?

• I hope my internet is good enough

• What happens if someone doesn’t get the link for the class?

The ramblings above only cover a small portion of what went through my mind on an hourly basis. I also had no one to consult on best practice which made me doubt every decision I was thinking of making.

Fast forward to June, I feel that is when I finally got into a new routine and most of the questions I had, I had answered myself through just DOING IT. Rather than sitting and worrying about the what-ifs, surely people would understand if things weren’t perfect at the beginning? And they did. 

Also, Yoga teachers of the world united. Blogs, Instagram and Facebook posts with what everyone was doing and that was unbelievably helpful. 

Now I teach a number of online and studio classes and that is just how things will be from now on, from a business perspective it is a fantastic new avenue of business and I never ever thought I’d be doing it. I also know from my students, that some of them prefer the online model instead now, so I am over the moon that it has managed to work for people. 

This is not a self-praise article; writing how proud I am of myself, even though I am but, what I wanted to get out there is that having to adapt and change how we do our jobs, not only in Yoga, has been very difficult but also shows how resilient and how adaptable we can be.

So from today, rather than being annoyed and disappointed with how things are these days, I am going to come back and read this and remember I managed to overcome a lot of the difficulties that have come with COVID. 

Hopefully, reading this may help you do the same. 

Love and light,

Emily x x x