Connecting in Times of Social Distancing

From the beginning, the path of yoga has taken me to new places, it has allowed me to get to know brilliant people and to connect to a supportive community.

These days many yogis, like so many others, are being asked to wander on the ‘digital’ path. Covid-19 has crashed into our society and turned our everyday life upside down. The virus is challenging each one of us to stay at home and to prove our solidarity by practising social distancing. Taking care and supporting one another now means to keep physical distance while finding ways to stay connected.

Using video conferencing tools has become the answer for many of us. As trainer and facilitator for digital education and collaboration in virtual teams, working online is part of my daily business. Yet, moving my yoga classes to Zoom was a new experience for me.

After having taught the first few live online sessions, I can now say that I am overwhelmed and touched by the many positive reactions.

‘Life-saving’ was the wording in one of the feedbacks I have received for Yoga@Home. And I absolutely agree. Having shifted our yoga classes to the digital space is life-saving in many ways. Here is why I think so:

1) Connecting to our communities
These online sessions allow us to connect to the people we know and to others we haven’t met before. Seeing 30 or more people, each one at home on their mat, coming together on Zoom, creates a sense of solidarity in times of social distancing.

2) Create structures and routines
Furthermore, being creative and finding ways to adapt our routines to the complexity and uncertainty of the situation, allows us to build new structures within which we then can move again with focus. Our yoga practice can be part of such a structure.

3) Calm & clarity in times of change
An important, life-saving aspect, of course, is the physical and mental dimension of yoga. Confronted with these new challenges, our body reacts with tension and our mind with anxiety. It is essential we know about the tools we can use to find some release and at the same time face these sudden changes in our lives with a calm, centred and clear response.

4) Supporting yoga teachers and studios
Last but not least, the possibility to take yoga classes online, can hopefully help yoga teachers and studios to financially bridge the time until we all can move our mats back to the studios we love.

Again, the path of yoga has lead me to a new place -
a digital space for the people of our community. The world as we know it is strongly shaken and we have to adapt our routines to build new and supportive structures. Being creative so that we can continue doing what we love doing is indeed ‘life-saving’ in times like these.

From all the travels I have made, I have returned enriched by experiences and encounters. What is it that we will learn from the time we are in together now?