Contact Case: The Longterm Effects of Covid on Yoga
A profusion of online classes, hybrid sessions, long-distance trainings, workshops on Instagram, yoga studio closures… what is going on?
So much change in so little time (which is a construct…)
A little break between monthly newsletters to think about the yoga universe (here in Paris but everywhere in the world) that has changed a lot since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis.
A profusion of online classes, hybrid courses outdoors, distance trainings, workshops on Instagram, yoga studio closures… All of these changes have greatly benefitted students who rediscovered freedom of choice, of practices, of schedules, of prices, of teachers.
And certain teachers also took advantage by pivoting from teaching exclusively in studios to launch their own online platforms, or by becoming digital nomads and leaving their normal base of operations. For those instructors with engaged audiences, the pandemic-triggered transformation of the yoga landscape brought about a better quality of life and income.
How do we build and nourish a yoga community in the middle of this atomisation?
Is the model of the yoga studio with its freelance staff no longer sustainable? Without the Third Place of the studio, where can we experience collective effervescence and spontaneous social connection?
I am asking myself a lot of questions right now. Yogateau in a world that is more click-and-mortar than brick-and-mortar, what is it exactly? I don’t have an answer but I am fully enjoying cafés which were the first public meeting spaces where intellectuals, revolutionaries, artists could chat and together create a new world…