An Open Letter to the Yoga Community: Will Theresa Still be There?
Tonight marks the second evening in about a month, where I’ve received news of a beloved local yoga studio closing its doors as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic downturn. And these are just two communities to which I belonged, to whose mailing lists I subscribe, whose classes I attend/ed, and whose teachers I know and love. And they were thriving yoga studios. They may not be closed for good; their communities may rally and support, and change is not always bad or unwelcome.
And still. It feels like loss. It is loss. It may also be something gained, but it is ok to name it as loss.
Not long ago, Yoga Journal published an article by the author Peter Moore, in which he called out a free, streaming yoga service called “Yoga with Adriene.” She has a lot of subscribers, and she’s great. Moore lauded the yoga-lite experience, akin to a short tv show, he wrote: when his local studio was ready for him to be back, when his favorite teacher, Theresa (!), was ready, he’d be there. Until then, there was Adriene. Her 7 million subscribers, and her ad-endowed yoga. Free to the user at point of consumption.
All I could think was, will Theresa still be there when you’re ready to come back? I went straight to imagining Theresa’s daily life (influenced, no doubt, by what my daily life has looked like for the last three months, as an active yoga teacher in a thriving local studio, who also had a thriving private practice as of March 1, 2020). And I imagine her transitioning her teaching to livestream, negotiating with her studio to understand where and how this will happen, how she will be paid (if at all), and whether she can film from home (space and resources allowing, of course). I imagine the complexity of her relationship with any private clients that she normally sees 1-to-1, any additional side gigs and other forms of income, which form such a large part of a studio teacher’s life. I imagine her struggle to understand the liability she now assumes as a provider of an online service, to come to grips with the technologies involved in remote working and livestreaming, the negotiations she has with her partner or housemate, pet or children: negotiations for space, time, privacy, thinking-room. Applications for unemployment, partial-unemployment, EIDL-loans, PPP loans, grants, etcetera. I imagine the time Theresa’s actually teaching to be quite small, but I bet she’s teaching (I did not try to find her: full disclosure).
And I spare a thought for the less-experienced teacher: Theresa sounds very experienced. For the newly qualified teacher: adjusting to cueing, to teaching to a screen of small black boxes. And I spare a thought for the older teacher who came of age in her teaching before the internet, and who may no longer feel camera-ready, if she ever did. For the teacher who lives with body-image issues, or trauma, or any number of considerations in his or her life that mean teaching to a screen is not appropriate. Of course, this was not the format of her choosing when she went into her profession.
And I spare a thought for the Theresa’s studio owner, too. They are selling all their communal props, invested in and lovingly maintained for years. They are trying to figure out the tech, the finances, the law, the next right steps. They are checking air circulation systems, cleaning protocols, employee health.
None of these shifts or additional considerations were necessary for providers of online yoga, who were already established in the online ecosystem. Endowed by advertisers and media companies, supported by technology platforms and filming space, and protected through layers of liability protection and payment agreements, online teachers were ready. They had already swapped the face-to-face pleasures of studio teaching, of the daily interaction with students, for the larger on-line reach (Adriene), or had hybridized their teaching before the pandemic, as a way of acknowledging the value of their experience—some of the more well-known and respected national and international teachers, for example. This was their world already, and for the students, the students, who already practiced online, who never belonged to a local studio, their online teacher may be their teacher. Someone to grow with and learn from, to admire.
But when you swap an online teacher, offering free yoga, or an online service, offering unlimited yoga for the price of a drop-in class (I’m talking to you, Yoga Glo marketing…), we have to ask about the mindfulness of the choice. Will Theresa still be there? What happens when you, as a yoga student, need to be seen? To be heard? To be touched? I taught my regular Tuesday, adaptive class this past week and a student, isolated by the virus and deeply alone, appeared in her little black square. I could see her face. I could meet her need. I could say, I can see that this is getting to you. And that is because I know her. I know what her face looks like at ease, what her body looks like at peace. And she was comforted by being seen and known. This class is my favorite child….In another meeting, one woman caught us up on the coronavirus infections her two kids were successfully fighting. In a third, a member shared about the death of her adult son. This connection is possible in community; this support is available in community. Healing is available in community. It is created and fostered by loving studio owners, care-ful and educated teachers, present-mindedness, attention.
There are so many heartwarming stories of connection across huge platforms (this was actually part of Peter Moore’s point), and I myself share the wonder of the technologies that allow us to connect in this more isolated time, but more than ever, we need to ask: What are the consequences of my consumer choices? Am I acknowledging that I’m consuming yoga? Should yoga be ‘free’? What is the choice we make when we pledge our return to local teachers and also join unlimited memberships of streaming yoga libraries, curated by media and technology companies….When we are finally less-isolated, to what will we emerge? Will Theresa still be there?
