Today I want to share with you a little bit about how Coronavirus affected my professional life. A dance and fitness professional "fighting" this crisis.
It was Wednesday (11 of March) and things started to take a different turn and I was just hearing Coronavirus everywhere. I heard about it before, but I said "it's far away that's not gonna affect us". Little that I knew, as I don't normally watch the news (I don't even own a TV). By Saturday everything changed. I saw panic increasing among people, supermarkets assaulted, and one by one all businesses and state institutions closing, except the places that provide food, health and safety. By 14 of March it was a complete lock down in Spain...I couldn't believe it...It seemed surreal.
I have a funny way of ignoring the reality and thinking about something positive instead, because if I was thinking that I'm going to be more than 2 weeks inside the house with no work I would have had a panic and anxiety attack. So instead I woke up that Sunday and decided to do a Live stretching session on Facebook and Instagram.
Let me tell you how I used to work before the quarantine. I used to wake up at 6 and get ready for the day. So by 7:30 I had a personal training session everyday, except Sunday that was my only day off. I used to get home by 10 p.m. (almost everyday), because I was working in 3 gyms, a cultural center and an association. I was working around 10 hours a day (a crazy schedule because there were a lot of breaks in between) surrounded by people. I was seeing/working with approx. 300 people/week. I'm an extrovert with a great desire for movement and dancing, so you can imagine this quarantine is attacking everything I love the most.
So let me get back to that Sunday...15 of march. When I realised we're gonna stay inside for a month or more, I just went with my hunch and started 2 live session on Facebook and Instagram: one in the morning (9 Spain time) for fitness training and one in the afternoon (18:30) for dancing (zumba classes mostly and in the weekend dance classes).
For the first week I just went on with this initial momentum without thinking too much, but, as time went by, people wanted more from me. So I started a private group in which I was teaching my students pretty much the same clases I was teaching in gyms. Just so you know I don't teach zumba classes only. I also do full body workouts (focusing now more on body-weight training as I try to adapt to the people that follow me that have no equipment at home), Pilates, HIIT training, low pressure fitness, and specific stretching sessions. I managed to do my one on one sessions online and I might even create personalised training for small groups (max 4 people).
Even more, I realised I can move parts of my activity online entirely so I created my own Patreon account and this week I will launch my first program ever. I'm sooo far away out of my comfort zone.
All this time I was afraid to expose myself online. NEVER done a live session. NEVER done an online course. But as "holy" Nike says: "Just do it". And I did It. I jumped into the unknown just thinking about helping others while I was helping myself to cope with this crisis.
All in all I was overwhelmed by the response and I'm starting to realise that every crisis hides an opportunity.
Stay safe!