If you have been living under a rock, or are smart enough not to be on facebook, you may not know that fb keeps track of everything you do, every picture, every post; and then they show them to you every day to remind you of how good things used to be. Or, how bad, depending on the year. Mostly, it's a nice reminder, an "oh yeah, remember when we..." Which is helpful for old folk.
Today a picture came up from a few years ago of my long held Tuesday morning class. For over 20 years, I have taught Mon/Weds 445pm, and Tues/used to be Thurs 1030am. The classes fluctuate based on the season, but I have been blessed with a fairly large loyal base of wonderful students. Not so much anymore. Thanks Covid.
I was staring down this picture this morning, who are these 17 yogis? Where did they go? Why don't they love me anymore? (yes, even at 61 years old I still have moments of teenage angst.) Sadly, some of the yogis in the picture have passed. A few still come to online classes... a very few.
Originally, when the pandemic caused us to have to close the studio and go online, we had big classes. In fact, my mon/weds classes were bigger than we could've done in the studio-- one Monday I had 30 people in class online. It was crazy. I got emotional at the end of class... this was right at the beginning of all the fear and uncertainty over our health and wellbeing, personally and for the studio. I was happy to be able to keep all these people together, Imagine was such a wonderful community.
Unfortunately, after 2.5 years of trying desperately to get back in studio, or at least do a little of both, our classes have dwindled to numbers I haven't seen since the very early days. It's heartbreaking. The teachers don't want to come in. The students don't want to come in. When we start to all feel safe enough to come in, another variant hits. I have teachers and students who say they will never come back. Just as I had many, many students who said they would never do online yoga.
We lost 2/3 of our students when we had to close the studio. 2/3! We have been operating at 1/3 capacity for 2 years, but recently, it has dwindled to a number I don't even want to discuss. There has been a couple saving graces: Aerial yoga cannot be done online, and had a fairly thriving community until recently. I have a teacher who wanted to donate her time so she has been offering low cost yoga and has a nice following. These 2 things have been the only reason to even keep a studio. That and the hope it would get better.
I keep telling myself, hey, we've had a good run. We did amazing things, started from nothing, just me on a church floor with 1 or 2 students who would rather go to Glory Days for happy hour to a fully thriving yoga & wellness studio where hundreds (thousands?) have found solace. We kept going even when many, many studio had to close. We did some really great missions, and learned so much about ourselves and grew up on the way.
So, where do we go from here? I'm not embarrassed to say I have no idea. The variables are as plentiful as the variants. It's clear things will never be as they were. Sometimes I think I just need to go back to just me on the floor of my garage. Then I think about the dog hair.... ugh. Would it make a difference if I was there full time? Doubtful, even coming back once a month only brings 1 or 2 into the studio, esp. if a new variant has hit. Yoga as we know it is just an unknown. Interestingly, my Reiki clients have never stopped coming. As soon as we could re-open somewhat, my people came in. June 2020 they started and never stopped. But I could do Reiki at my home, and save a large amount of overhead. Ugh.
Right now, I am trying to keep getting the word out, advertising, re doing the website, recording all my workshops, even saving some classes to see if that is the way of the future as one of my teachers keeps telling me. Personally, I think an online community is more difficult to keep cohesive, especially over zoom where the loudest voice wins, but hey, all we can do is all we can do, right?
What do y'all think? Will there ever come a need for yoga studios in the future? Or have we just made it too daggone easy to stay home? How do we keep students motivated when they know they can just ask for a recording and do the class later... even though many have revealed they never actually do? It's a puzzling challenge... but I have always loved a puzzle.
Can I get a hint?
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