Reopening our studio classes (and continuing online!)

The UK Government has said that indoor exercise facilities can reopen in England towards the end of this month. So I’m really happy that I’ll be able to see some of your lovely faces in person again when I restart our Tuesday evening classes on Tuesday 4 August. I’m only going to restart on Tuesdays first to see how we go and have agreed with our venue owners that we will restart Thursdays in mid-September. But, if Tuesdays prove popular, we’ve always got the option of starting again on Thursdays a bit sooner than that!

I know some of you will have questions about coming back to class so here is everything I think you might want to know. I’ll keep updating this blog post as government restrictions change. Please have a read to check that you are happy to attend class with the below precautions in place. If you have a question that isn’t covered here, please just send me a message and ask. And if, for whatever reason, you’re sticking to online for a while there’s info about those classes below too 🙂

What precautions will the studio owners be taking?

Here is what the venue owners have assured me they will be doing:

• Cleaning and sanitising the premises throughout the day and deep cleaning every night

• Sanitising all touchpoints (eg door handles, taps, loos etc) regularly

• Placing hand sanitisers and anti-bacterial wipes throughout the building

• Putting electric HEPA and plasma air purifiers in the waiting area and studio

• Putting up signage around the building to ensure people are aware of the guidelines regarding hygiene

• Social distancing in the studios and throughout the building

• Spacing out bookings to allow time for cleaning in between users.

What precautions will Olivia be taking?

On top of the list above, I’ll be:

• Taking your temperature with a contactless forehead thermometer before letting you join class

• Wearing this antiviral face covering as I greet you and take your temperatures

• Wearing this face shield visor during class (so you’re protected but hopefully can also still hear my instructions!)

• Reducing the number of people in class by more than 50%

• Exceeding the current social distancing guidelines of 1+ metres space between students

• Asking you to bring your own mats to either lay on top of ours or to put down where indicated so that everyone is only practising on their own mat

• Wiping down touchpoints in the studio with this antiviral cleaner before and after each class

• Putting out extra hand sanitiser in the studio and asking you to use it as you enter

• Washing my hands thoroughly before and after each class.

What do I (a student) need to do?

• Please don’t come to class if you feel at all unwell

• Book your class in advance (and please cancel if you can’t make it so someone else can take your place!)

• Bring your own mat

• Try to arrive ready for class so you don’t need to get changed, minimising your need to use our bathrooms

• Bring as little stuff with you as you can so the studio stays as clear and as clean as possible

• Not be put off by having your temperature taken or being asked to use hand sanitiser

• If you are coming for a 6:30pm class, please arrive a little early to allow time to get everyone in safely

• If you are coming for a 7:45pm class, please arrive after 7:35pm so the class before you has time to leave

• Please don’t be offended if your temperature shows as 38 degrees or higher and I don’t let you into class. To be certain of getting in you can always check your own temperature beforehand!

• Be aware that I’ll need to hold the contactless thermometer 1-3 cm away from your forehead to get a reading (but will be wearing a face shield with anti-viral coating as I do that)

• Remember that we just have one staircase to our front door, so you may need to wait a few seconds for it to clear if someone is using it as you arrive or leave

• I won’t ask you to wear a mask but you’re very welcome to. Please bring one with you if you want to wear one

• Know that our 7:45pm class is normally quieter than the 6:30pm, so consider coming later if you’d like to practice with fewer than 6 people

• Expect that the studio might be a little cooler than normal since there’ll be far fewer people and we’ll be using the ventilation system more to bring in fresh air (so perhaps bring socks and a top for savasana)

• Make sure that you have a current mobile number and email address in your Mindbody account in case I need to contact you about another student in a class you attended testing positive

• And lastly, expect that these new systems may have a couple of teething problems as we all get used to them (so please be patient!).

Will the online classes be continuing?

Yes! I’ve really loved being able to keep up with you all during lockdown. Thank you so much for joining me. I know for some of you making it into London for class doesn’t work at the moment (perhaps class is at the wrong time, or even in the wrong country for some of you 😂) so I’ll definitely be keeping up with online.

As I’ve explained above, I’ll be restarting Tuesday classes at our studio soon meaning the Tuesday evening online class will disappear from the schedule. But I’m undecided about whether to restart Thursday evenings in the studio or just keep them online, and will make that decision in a month or so depending on what the demand has been for online vs in-person classes. So to start with I’ll be running online classes on Monday evening, Wednesday morning and evening, Thursday evening and Saturday morning.

Our Friday evening online class isn’t that popular… totally understandable now the pubs are open again!… so I’m going to cut that regular class and instead use the timeslot for one-off fundraising classes for the Runnymede Trust. The fundraisers can be on anything you like - relaxing yin to handstands or anything in between - so if you have any requests just let me know. I’d also love to know if any other times would work for you for online classes, especially on weekdays (morning and evening) if your working patterns change. The best thing about online is that I can shift things around to suit you all!

I’m really looking forward to seeing you all - either in person or in your zoom squares - again soon 💜

Anti-racism and commitments for my yoga business

I haven’t posted anything on this blog or my social media ever since I became aware of the murder of George Floyd and have been reading about anti-racism. To be honest I haven’t known what to say – I’m quite a private person and always intended my online presence to only be about yoga. But in the time I’ve been quiet I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking (and sharing content I support, believe in, or simply like on my Instagram stories. To those people that already noticed the change in my stories content and have unfollowed me because of it: SEE YA 👋🏻).

In the time I’ve been quiet I’ve learnt a few key things:

• I used to think the term ‘white supremacy’ only related to right-wing extremists. Now I realise how wrong that was

• That it’s not enough to not be racist. In a society that is so unbalanced, I need to be actively anti-racist

• Following on from that, keeping these thoughts to myself isn’t just about being a private person any more – it amounts to passive support of the status quo

• That as a liberation practice this work falls well within the remit of the traditional philosophical roots of yoga.

One thing I keep thinking is that I can’t imagine how jarring it must have been for Black social media users when other Black people were killed by the police and people like me just carried on posting their normal stuff as if it wasn’t happening. I’m so sorry.

I also wondered what all the businesses who posted their black squares on #blackouttuesday were actually going to DO to change. So as well as continuing with my reading list and doing this work in my personal life, here are the things I commit to doing in future to try and improve my yoga business:

• Speak to my students to find out what it is like to attend my classes as a Black person or person of colour and consider how I can make them more inclusive

• Run regular fundraising classes to support the Runnymede Trust

• Learn more about cultural appropriation and the role it has played in modern yoga, and to adjust my teaching accordingly

• Do more training with BIPOC teachers, having realised on reflection that most of my training has been with white men

• Keep supporting the businesses I love that are owned by Black people and search for more to support (and if you're not sure why that is important, try watching Trigger Warning with Killer Mike on Netflix).

I'm sure I'll make mistakes with this work and apologise wholeheartedly for those in advance. Any advice, thoughts or comments are very welcome. Let's be better 💜

Transitions: kicking up into handstand

There’s more than one way to get into a handstand. This post covers the way most people try first: kicking up, and shows some of the errors I see students make most often. We made this our class focus recently: rather than getting into a handstand and trying to hold it for as long as possible, focusing instead on how to improve the transition into the pose.

In the first clip you can see that both of my legs are bent. The plus points for this method is that it gets your feet off the floor, and you can see I start the motion with my top leg low (which allows me to get a bit of momentum going). But it feels a bit out of control, so doesn’t give a steady foundation to build upon to try and get a little closer to the pose.

For me, kicking up works best when I keep my top leg straight (so it swings up like a pendulum) and only bend my bottom leg (so the bottom leg acts like a spring). Compare how this first video looks - in particular what my top leg looks like, and how fast/ slow I’m moving - to the last video in this post.

In the next clip I've corrected my mistake of bending my top knee, but am now showing two more errors. One is that I get my top leg as high as I can, then try and kick up from there. If your top leg is already as high as possible you don’t give yourself any room to swing it.

Towards the end of this clip I’m also starting with my bottom foot flat on the floor. If you consider that your bottom leg is meant to act like a spring here to help you kick up, having the sole of your standing foot flat on the floor means that you’re taking out the springing potential that you could be creating from your ankle (and only really springing from your knee).

Compare how this looks - in particular how much my top leg moves, and how I use my bottom foot - to the last video in this post.

In this last video I’m still not trying to get all the way into a handstand, I’m just practising my kick up transition. I’ve corrected the errors from the last two videos. The things I’m focusing on here are:

• Keeping my arms completely straight and actively pushing the floor away from me

• Gripping with my fingertips

• Coming on to the tiptoes of my standing foot, and bending my bottom knee and ankle a lot at the start of their springing action

• Not swinging my bottom leg away from my hands as I spring, and instead thinking of springing straight up towards the ceiling

• Keeping my top leg straight and bringing it low at the bottom of the spring so I can swing it higher at the top of the spring

• Keeping my front side core muscles a little switched on (like I’m trying to cinch in my lower ribs and belly a bit

• Moving slowly and not flailing my legs around!

Have you been trying to kick up as shown in either of the first two videos here? If so, how does it feel to try it like I am in the third video? Comment below or send us a message with any questions!