A Yoga Studio's Transition During COVID
Jessica Blanchard owns Balance Yoga & Wellness in New Orleans, LA. I asked Jessica to recount those first few days when New Orleans was just getting hit by COVID. Those days when we were making national headlines for the rate of both new infections and the rate of death. As a wellness and fitness studio, Jessica had to think through what a respiratory disease would do to her students.
BY: Jessica Blanchard, Owner/Operator Balance Yoga & Wellness
The Path to Shutdown
Like you, I never imagined how quickly and radically our world could change.
In early February, a friend casually mentioned an employee of hers going on a cruise, she said “don't’ come back with the coronavirus.” At that point I had barely heard of the novel coronavirus.. I’m not a big consumer of media.
March 1: Remote Recognition
Each year Sudhir Tiwari visits New Orleans to teach a weekend workshop at Balance Yoga & Wellness. I didn’t think this year would be any different. Based in Canada, Sudhir travels around the world teaching breathing and yoga workshops. The week before the workshop, Sudhir asked me about the coronavirus in New Orleans.
For the first time I thought, “what if the virus came here, we’d have to cancel the workshop?” This would be a big loss to our Teacher Training. At that point we had no cases and no government guidance about the virus. I reassured Sudhir that COVID-19 hadn’t hit New Orleans.
I started to see the possibility of things changing in New Orleans. Yoga studios have lots of surfaces and objects that people touch -- props, door handles, community mats. I started to research disinfectants.I ordered a bunch of hand sanitizer online and purchased alcohol and spray bottles to make 70% alcohol spray for disinfecting.
March 5: Cleaning Rollout
I rolled out a new set of cleaning procedures. We started wiping down all frequently touched surfaces like door handles. I put signs up about mandatory cleaning of all props with 70% alcohol spray. I also put signs up asking students to wash hands when entering and leaving the yoga studio.
March 7-8: Last Workshop
Sudhir traveled to New Orleans to teach (this would be his last travel for months). He’d taught in China in January, and was familiar with coronavirus and the Chinese response.Coming to the USA he was questioned heavily on his travel to China. Note: Sudhir had been at home for four weeks since his China trip.
As I learned more about the virus, I cancelled classes that are prop heavy. Thinking we need to minimize contacts between people.
We stopped all hands-on adjustments.
March 14th
A friend from Austria, who owns a yoga studio sent me a long and thoughtful email about shutting down. He urged me to close down the studio, due to asymptomatic spread. The possibility started to morph into a very real step.
I confronted many fears of not being able to reopen, financial stress, employing the yoga teachers.
“Shut down your studio immediately, not next week or tomorrow, but today, now! It's the only chance we have of reducing the spread of this virus, or more people will die. We, as yoga studio owners, cannot be so irresponsible. What is happening in America right now is just the beginning. Here in Europe we are already two weeks ahead. And here all hell is breaking loose. In Italy, our neighbouring country, which in turn is 10 days ahead of Austria in the development of the virus, everything has collapsed. People are dying in hospitals because there is not enough equipment. The doctors have to decide who to let die and who to take care of, because there is not enough equipment to treat the sick, not enough health staff, not enough doctors not enough of everything.” ~Horst Reinneberger, owner Pure Yoga Vienna (www.pureyoga.at)
After receiving Horst’s email, I started to confront my own fears. Deep down I knew the right thing was to close. But this was stepping into a huge unknown. How would we pay our bills? How would the teachers survive? Would students ever come back?
Balance Yoga has been my labor of love for 12 years. But I knew the answer. Uncertainty is difficult. I thought about my core values of improving our community’s health. Putting people at risk wasn’t part of those values, even if we are offering a valuable tool.
March 15: Closing House
The final push was a conversation with one of our teachers, Tracey Duncan about how we could do online yoga. I’d used zoom in the past for coaching, so I decided to take the leap.
Balance was closed to all in-person classes. We asked students to keep memberships if they could so we could continue to employ our teachers.
March 16
We tested online classes at the studio. Smart phones, laptops and zoom made online much easier than it had been. AJ tried an online class from his home Students registered from all over the country. Online classes worked, and teachers could teach from their homes.
March 17 onward
We continued to add classes. The feedback from the classes has been great. Yoga offers some support to our community in this strange time. While students enjoy the convenience of practicing from home, many miss in-person interactions. We are grateful to be able to support our community with yoga and stress relief through this pandemic.
Fast Forward
Two months later, I’m grappling with big questions about reopening. How will we feel safe practicing together? How can I ensure that we don’t spread COVID-19 through the studio?
Yoga studios will look different post COVID. We don’t have a complete answer yet.
This week I practiced an entire yoga class in a mask. It was better than I expected.
For now, stay tuned, stay home a lot, and wear your mask.