PMA Resources for COVID-19

Welcome. Today my guest is Joanne Grasser and we're going to be talking about the [inaudible] method Alliance since specifically Joanne is the founder and co-owner of 10 cell strength studio and Barrington yoga loft located Northwest of Chicago which has been for a PLA this teacher for over 18 years and became a PMA CPT which is now NCPT in 2009 she began her service to the Palazzi method Alliance in 2009 first of all, she started off as volunteering at the conference and then John beat Joe and became a nonvoting member of the board in 2013 she was elected to the board in 2015 and in 2019 she was elected president and she's now in her first year as president of the board of the Caladrius method Alliance and just in full declaration of any conflicts I serve under her under that board as the treasurer of the place method Alliance. So we know each other pretty well and it's a real pleasure to have you on this webinar today. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. And our focus is all about what the plot is, method Alliance is up to and all the things that they're doing to help our community. We got to chat for about 30 minutes and then have questions after that. Um, I wish we had the answers to everything that we will do the best we can.

We can only tell you the things we know. So, Joanne, where are you? You told me, I know you're in Chicago, but tell us about where you are. So I'm about 35 miles Northwest of downtown Chicago in a suburb of horsey suburb called Barrington. So, um, know, fairly spread out. Population wise, most people are on some kind of the acreage. Although I live in a townhouse community, I'm surrounding a Lake, but, um, we're pretty close here, but for the most part, most of Barrington is fairly spread out. [inaudible] cool. And in your community, have you seen, do you know people who have the Corona virus? Is it impacted where you are yet? I don't personally know. Um, there's been a few cases somewhat locally. Um, I do have some statistics, um, on Illinois though that I came prepared with. So kind of please show your balance if you'd like. Yeah. So, um, just generally speaking, uh, Illinois has a 113 million residents, which is 30 million more than Germany, ignore twice the size of Italy.

But those are kind of interesting facts. Um, we actually are known for having the best healthcare system in the U S um, a lot of things wrong with Illinois, but we actually have the best healthcare system here. We are home to Abbott labs, Baxter and Medline, which are three huge companies. Um, the hospital down the street from me is part of a huge network. Um, and they started drive up, drive through testing March 26th, which was fairly early in the U S so here are the stats for today. As of today, [inaudible] 1970 5,000 people have been tested. 13,500 are positive. There's been 387 deaths, but only half of 1% of people in Illinois have fantastic.

So you kind of have to look at both sides of the equation. It's obviously devastating. Um, but we have to look at the numbers that they've been able to test and I know that's a a universal problem. Yeah, so, and I think I would have to say that people are being fairly compliant. I think we have about 80 to 90% compliance with the stay at home order. No, that's good. That's good. I'm just kidding. I'm going to launch a quick poll here to see whether or not people know folks that have the Corona virus.

So fortunately nobody thank you that nobody has it that's on this webinar. But about a third of the folks on here, I have a friend who has it. It's about half, don't know anybody. And the other half is either a friend or a friend of a friend. [inaudible] it's pretty real. It is. It is.

Can you tell me a little bit about the studio that you have? Sure. I'm in a fairly upscale shopping center located, did about a mile from the center of my town of Barrington. I've been there, we're in our eighth year. It's a big studio, about 5,000 square feet. So when all this first started happening, before we got our shelter in place order, I started spreading my equipment out and limiting the people coming in. And I think I had my reformers set set up 10 feet apart at one point.

So we finally got our shelter and place order on the 21st. So since then I've been shuttered. Um, I go into, you know, deal with payroll or things like that, but I've really not been to my studio for, for any length of time since our shelter in place order. So I have [inaudible] there, uh, apparatus we will be having mad after all this virtual classes though, now that we've been teaching, um, I have indoor cycling class in a small studio. I have a full yoga studio on the upstairs level, so I'm about 5,500 square feet. So I have a pretty big, yeah, it is. One of the things I thought was particularly novel, you were telling me that your husband was good enough to deliver your Claudia's equipment to your clients. So you have a equipment rental business. At the most?

Yes. Yeah. When we got our stay at home order, we had about 24 hours to react. And so I contacted, um, private clients that I thought would be interested in having equipment in their home to be able to continue their sessions. And we spent all day on the 21st delivering equipment. Um, we also have fitness classes, so I delivered all that equipment. Mice, Julio is fairly empty right now of equipment. Oh, looks like I moved out pretty much and even spin bikes, although we're not holding virtual on those, but we loaned those out to people is to use for their own exercise. That's very cool. So switching to polarities, methadone ions, um, tell me how are the staff of the PMA, uh, what's happened down in Miami? Well, I'm Elizabeth Anderson, the executive director made a very proactive decision I think in deciding to have all of the employees work from home. Um, and she did that starting March 16th.

So the governor of Florida didn't do any kind of stay at home order until April 1st so that was a couple of weeks sort of preemptive on her part, which was great. Um, Miami Dade where the office is located, aided, closed, all the beaches, parks and restaurants about a week after, um, Elizabeth and her staff had gone home for, so their, their area kind of shut down. But as far as the state of Florida, it wasn't until April 1st the staff is continuing to work. I mean all of them, they're all knock on wood staying healthy and they have daily staff meetings and are just really going on about the business of kind of keeping the organization running. And I think, and we'll get into this a little more later, really doing a great job at supporting our community. Thank you. That's good news. Or they're still fingers crossed, they stay healthy and that applies to everybody. You know, our thoughts are with you. How has the BMA shifted its focus now that this pandemic is all over the world? So as an organization of PMA has always been very mission driven and member focused and that mission hasn't changed, but our focus has broadened to the greater [inaudible] community. So, um, I think, or we're trying to take a step back and make the services and the things, resources that we offer available to the entire community versus to our membership. So that's kind of been the main shift.

Okay. What are the steps that, what are the initiatives that the PMA has done so far? Well, the biggest initiative is creating a resource hub, a coven 19 resource hub, which is okay, accessible to everybody. It's not, again, it's not just for the membership. So if you go to the [inaudible] method lines.org website, it's, I believe the second tab up there, you can't miss it and it will take you to this terrific hub that has all kinds of things listed on it. So it has blog topics, for example, things most recent one that was, uh, log on cyber attacks, the cares act, which is the federal aid, which we've all been talking about. Resources for independent contractors, action steps for negotiating with landlords and other expenses. Um, how to keep your staff and clients engaged, ways for glottis, teachers do to stay productive at home. I mean there's a lot of resources there.

There's also things that the public can download. So helpful tips during live streaming sessions, how to set up live streaming, um, how to do zoom. There's been a lot out on that. It's a lot of us are using that and there's even some templates available. They just uploaded another template for virtual gift cards. So if it's something you're still running in your business, I want to offer something to your clients that they can support your business maybe to buy these gift cards. Yeah.

Then there's also announcements from the staff then are on this hub. So one of the biggest decisions that's come down the pike is we've dropped our membership dues by 30% through the end of may. Um, which is a really big deal. I mean we realize people are under financial strain right now and we want to do everything with Ken to support them. No, I mean with time we have to keep our organization running. So, um, a lot of the discussion went back and forth on that. But this is through [inaudible] do the end of may. So what that represents is if you're not certify your diet NCPT then membership was 135 a month. It's now 95 a month.

I'm sorry, not a month per year. Thank you. And then if you are a certificant it was 99, it's now 70 a year. [inaudible] okay. So yeah, I really encourage folks, you know, support the PMA. If you are able to, and you know, the PMA is there as a resource for everybody, a GM and put the links into the chat here and we, we'll put the links below the video once it's up on our website so that people can click on those and see them. There's a lot of really, really good articles there. They're in depth, they're helpful. Um, I encourage people to check it out. The plottings method, the, the website is open to the public obviously, but there are things on the website that are for members only that are non members are locked out of well giving more access now. So that's been one of the big changes, um, is really to try to become [inaudible] have our vision become more community based versus member-based. Yeah, I think at times like this, you know, we're all in this together, we're all really, really keen to try and support the whole community.

Um, just before we started here, Joanne and I were looking at some consumer trends and one of the things in there is actually people's spending on wellness, uh, increased to that first week, you know, consumer spending. So there's a lot of interest in wellness and there's, one of my trainers said, you know, if people say they don't have the time now when they shut up at home and never got to have the time, it's not that they don't have the time, they just don't have the detail, you know, the desire do it. So there was an opportunity for people like ourselves that are in the kind of the wellness health industry, um, to really provide a great service to a lot of people. Agreed. Um, one of the things I liked on the PMA website was there was a little video there about how to set up to do video from home so that you can do from home live teaching, which we're all having to do or, you know, I never would have thought in a million years I would've been in this position. You know, we do our, our monthly board meetings on zoom and that to me is a challenge.

And now I'm no live streaming sessions and sending recordings to clients and you know, it's a brave new world out there, I guess. So are you enjoying it? Um, I am. I'm finally, I feel like I'm somewhat hitting my stride now. I have to say the first week was, was just pure adrenaline and terror. Um, obviously worry about coven 19, but I mean terror just from a standpoint of not really know what I know I was what I was doing with getting this all the technology set up. So, um, it was, it was a hurdle. And you know, Jessica, who's, I'm listening to the webinar right now, she and I spent, um, basically four days getting our virtual classes set up and that's a process we probably would have spent four to six months doing if setting up a virtual studio had been something in my business plan. So yeah, all of us have just scrambled. This is a different world, you know, you know, we clean clothes on our office on the 11th of March or a little bit. California is a little bit ahead of a lot of other States and it just amazes me all the things that we've had to change in the last month. And uh, you know, okay.

I certainly don't have a clear idea of when we'll be back in the office doing back to businesses normal. Maybe it'll never be the same. Who knows? What are the additional plans that the PMA have to provide resources to the community? [inaudible] well, we're, we're in the process of a lot of things and so I can't really speak to specifics. Um, but we're looking at hoping to provide some industry reports and surveys to really assess community needs. I mean, this hub that exists now is terrific and we're, we're sort of using our, our own conversation and resources to figure out what to put out there, but we really want to hear from the community about what, what they need and what they would like to have from us. So we're really looking to get input from that. Um, you know, we really want to maintain, we really want to be the trusted resource for learning about industry best practices and be able to carry that forward for our industry even through times like this. So how would you, if somebody on this webinar has something they'd love the, to provide some resources on, how should they contact the PMA?

Well, what I would actually like to do is invite you to email me. It's Joanne G, apply these method alliance.org and I will then get that request or suggestion to the proper person. You know, there's staff members that do specific things. And I know right now that the staff is really kind of under the gun with everything going on with unraveling the conference. Um, so if you could send it to me, I'll get it to the right person so it doesn't just sit in somebody's inbox and not get taken care of. She has put a Joanne's email address in the chat there. So just please reach out to a copy of the NT or somewhere safe and, and uh, if you'd have things you need help with. That's, that's really what the PMA is about.

Trying to help everybody in our broader community. Uh, tell me about the decision to cancel the conference in Tacoma this year. You know, I have to say it came after a lot of discussion. Uh, it was very heartbreaking for the organization to come to that conclusion, but we really felt that it was the best course of action. You know, one would think, well, it's November. What if things have opened up by the summer and we're all back to our studios. The problem is is that we've come through this, these months of hardship, financial, emotional hardship, and we felt it wasn't fair to ask our community [inaudible] still have that buy in of going to the conference. We kind of wanted to let people off the hook as it were. Um, you know, it was a tough decision. Last year's conference was incredible. Um, there was definitely a lot of interest in with most of the people I spoke with about coming this year to the conference. So, um, it was, it was a tough decision, but I think it was the right decision.

Yeah, I was looking forward to going up to Tacoma and I always enjoy the conference. Where will it be in 2021? Um, it's going to be in Palm desert and we're going to try to take the program that was meant for this year and kind of transfer it there. You know, there's a little bit of logistical issue with that. Making sure that we have the space for everything that was going to be programmed. But um, I know the staff is going to work their magic and Melinda wonder who's a conference organizer is just super, but that's, they're already at work on trying to do that and know it's been terrific that we've reached out to the presenters and the sponsors and everyone that was going to be involved and everybody has given their support that they want to be involved in 2021 which is really great. Yeah, I'm excited about it. You know, for us in Los Angeles, it's always great when it's in Palm Springs. It's so close.

It's so easy to get to and the weather that time of the year can be magical. So, uh, I hope to see everybody, I hope everybody is, the whole community is back to normal and we'll be able to meet and celebrate parties in the desert in 2021 the other thing I enjoy doing is going out to Coachella and of course Coachella I think would have been this weekend, this coming weekend, but I did notice that they were promoting couch Chella so you could watch it on YouTube on Friday on your couch and there's a retrospective of the last 20 years and I know that's got nothing to do with holidays anyway. Okay, that's awesome. Public service message Coachella. Yeah. So please, you know, stay in, stay informed of all the items that the Pilates method Alliance team are publishing on the website is a really good resource. And if you have suggestions of additional things, please email Joann and if you've lost your Ann's email then email me and I'll put on my PMA board member hat and I will pass them on to Joanne and I'm John at parties any time told come. So please, please, please.

Couple of other things. Do you have any general advice? We'll get to the questions in a second, but do you have general advice about for [inaudible] professionals in this time, but how to, how to make the most of this terrible crisis that we're in? Well, I, I kind of have some generic advice for not just [inaudible] people, but for everybody's fun in part that first, I think it's important to give ourselves time to think. Yeah. Um, otherwise all we're doing is responding and reacting. I talked about [inaudible] that first week out of my studio when I had just started launching the virtual stuff and it was, it was terror stricken. That was that responding constantly close. All levels were high. It was awful.

I feel like now I've actually hit a little bit of a stride where I can kind of take a step back, give myself some time to think and process and whatever that looks like. It's not always a positive thing. That's, you know, some days it's lonely, it's scary, it's sad, it's depressing. I don't know what my future holds, et cetera. But it's important to feel all of that and to allow yourself that time and not just push it aside and dive into the process of trying to keep our businesses going. So we have to ha, we have to create space for ourselves and that safe space. So that's, that's the first thing. Um, secondly, I really think it's our personal responsibility to at this time as Pilates professionals invest in ourselves. And I don't mean financially invest, I mean emotionally connections. Um, stay connected with people, whether that's taking a class online with somebody that you respect, whether that's offering a class, whether it's just having a conversation, a zoom session with a friend, coffee or wine or whatever, depending on the time of day. So it's important to invest in ourselves at this time, but it's also key that we invest in our profession.

And we that also by staying connected, by continuing to seek out educational opportunities which are out there and vast, especially in the virtual world by staying in social media conversations. I think there's a lot of very meaningful conversations going on in all of the plots forums. I check in every morning with all of them. And I've had a lot of back and forth conversations. It's been really great. Um, and then most importantly, or not, most importantly, but very important too, is to stay in contact with our clients. I would probably say we have a third of our clients who are participating in our virtual classes now, which is wonderful, but the two thirds out there are still in need of something from us, so they may not be ready to take that step into, you know, jumping into a virtual world. But, um, I tried to reach out via either email or phone calls and if had some really great conversations with folks. And then finally I would say, don't lose sight of the bigger picture. Someday we will be on the other side of this.

And it would be a shame to just sort of crawl into a hole and pull the covers over our head and let everything fall away. So we have to keep fighting for her what brought us here in the first place. Yeah. Um, I really think we need polarities more than normal. Yeah. For everybody. That's been stuck in their homes for the, you know, under this stay at home order. We need to get out and move. And I did my private policies yesterday with my teacher and she was really self conscious about, I don't know how much to charge you John. I took, you're still got the same girls, you'd have the same skills.

We may not be in the room together, but please charge me the same amount. And it was much more her hesitation to ask me to pay for the normal price for a private. Um, so I encourage everybody here, your, your skills and your worth is just the same as it was before the virus. So even if you're delivering it through the internet, please charge the same. You owe that money to yourself. You owe it to your family that you're supporting.

So on a humorous note today, I told one of my virtual clients, I was doing a private session with her and I said, you know, it's going to be interesting getting back in the studio. I have a feeling I'm going to be crawling around on the floor watching my clients move because that's kind of been my view. You know, they don't have giant screens, so it's up close. So it's, it's really a bird's eye view of your posture and, and ways I don't normally look at them. I mean sometimes I'll crouch down next to a client if we're working on something specific, but I don't spend the entire hour at their level on the equipment. So, um, it's, it's been, it's an interesting process. Cool. Well thank you for that advice. You know, some of the things that I'm doing within [inaudible] anytime as I'm, I'm really trying to stay connected with the employees and the company and so we have a daily cup of tea with John. We use zoom and it's just a hangout.

We talk about whatever's interesting that day. Um, you know, yesterday's conversation is there's a new feature on your phone browser and so you can type in say tiger or lion. And on my iPhone, it comes up at the top of the results is like a virtual tiger and it's like a three D thing so I can like interact with it. It's all virtual anyway. So kind of things like that. Just try and connect with people, stay in touch with your friends. There's a lot of lonely people out there that need your support, not just your clients but just your, your, your friends, family and all those connections. I kicked you around for that advice. I love the fact that your home studio has all that equipment in your, you know, you're really fortunate to have all that, that opportunity to move at home.

Yeah. Pretty spacious lower level. So I've been very fortunate. Okay. Yeah. That, that much space in Los Angeles with a make. You're a billionaire. So. Alright, I'm going to switch over and begin to go through the questions and please Admiral things to the questions. Um, but let me start off with Andromeda's question. So her question is info on how best delighter home virtual studio. Um, should I have a go at answering that Joanne?

We spent a long time talking about like you're the expert. I don't think we're the expert. And in this time in trauma that people aren't expecting it to be perfectly lit. Like it's like it's Hollywood, you know, like it's a film set. And so you know, the, the first thing and, um, would be, you know, people are a lot more tolerant of the fact that it's not perfect. And out of the two things, whether not you want to light it or whether you want the sound, sound is always the most important thing.

And so do your best to get a really good way of being able to hear. A lot of people if they have a reasonably quiet home can just put that laptop somewhere and teacher. And I think for most people, they're not demonstrating every, really just focused on talking to the client and telling the client how to do things. Um, so, but that would be, um, kind of my advice. Then when it comes to lighting, I'm going to ask chair who's on the chat here. Thank you Julia, for everything you do for us Manning these chats. But if you could put in a link to a ring light, the relatively inexpensive last time I checked, they were still available on um, on Amazon and we're still getting to live it. So maybe she can put a couple of links there. They're not super expensive. You can run them off the USB on your laptop and uh, they make you look so much better. So I'm just warning you, this is curious even coming on here.

So if you could switch your camera on carrier when you're ready. I'm going to ask you the question about this. Hi. Just so everybody knows, this is totally unrehearsed, isn't it curious? I wasn't expecting you to be on the call. I wasn't expecting you to be here. But if you're there, I go to jump in and grab you here. So the question here was from Patty to renew your PMA, N C P T is every two years you need live C CCS, will online courses be accepted for the full 16 CC when used during this time?

Yes. Yes. We just voted on that. So that's a very simple answer and the answer is yes. So hopefully that helps Patty and I'm, I'm excited about that. And thank you Karissa. That's great. Um, to see if there's any other questions which relate to Korea. Here I'm going to answer, ask the cure, ask the question about are people applying for payroll, payroll protection program loans through the SBA and when we've had other, um, discussions about that, the answer has been yes, a lot of people are applying for them.

Try and do you want to share your experience with this? Yes. So, um, I'm fortunate to have as a good client, a personal banker. He's not my personal banker enough. I don't have enough wealth. He's on a completely different level, but he's been in, he started out giving me a lot of great information, kind of [inaudible] information and I was not able to get from my bank because they were overwhelmed with requests. So, um, I got started in the process pretty early. Um, uploaded my application Friday night, um, got in a message email from my [inaudible] bank or the next morning that [inaudible] my application got there, but not my uploads, which I had put in. So they're having all kinds of issues with the software. I mean it's just the systems are overwhelmed.

So finally got all the information in, but um, I have not heard a thing, it's just been crickets and that was on Friday. So you know, there was all these promises of, of hearing right away and the banks were going to be able to get us the money right away. And so I just think things keep changing, you know, the, the information that's coming from the government terms of how these programs are supposed to be rolled out and managed keep changing for the banks. So they're hesitant I think to reach out to us, their clientele, um, with any sort of information. So I know the application went through for the SBA application went through four different versions and the quote final version, you, the boxes weren't formatted, you couldn't actually type Oh long enough answering there, disappeared off the page. So then they had to re upload yet, you know, version four B had it formatted. So it was pretty crazy. No, yeah. In my own experience for plot is anytime, as we also applied on Friday, our bank is bank of America. And um, you, the, the process, the forms and the guidance that the government is giving has changed nearly every day. So when we go back to the bank of America to look at it, we find that what we submitted before is no longer valid because the government has changed the rules. So it is definitely a pretty chaotic process. If I could just jump in briefly, I think bank of America's ahead of all of the banks and um, if anyone on the call is like me, uh, I'm very reluctant to take out a loan for anything anytime, but I strongly suggest those of you in the United States do look into this, do take advantage of it because it's, um, it's, it's in your favor and then if you do get the loan to put it in a separate account so that you don't touch it unless you absolutely need it. That's great prize. Thank you Karissa.

When the loan is forgivable, which is, that's the most, I think, yeah, the important thing about it [inaudible] so if you actually take that money and use it on payroll and 25% of it can be used for rent and utilities. So that separate account is, makes perfect sense cause it doesn't get muddled then with anything else. You might get payment at Lyft, but it's, you have an eight week period if you're given the loan to use that money for those things and then it's forgiven. So it's free money [inaudible] as close as you can get to it. But yeah, I agree. Agree with a curious site. You make sure you have really good records that you've kept it separate. You've used it for the uses that are required. Um, Carrie is telling me that she can only be on for a few more minutes.

Is there any questions around the NCP [inaudible] parts of the PMA? Uh, right now if you want to put those in the chats, then curious here. Thank you Carrie for being here. Really appreciate it. Um, that's trying to answer those. Christine whole us, uh, put some observations about chase Chase's, you know, um, she's a single employee in her organization and she's working through her own process there. Okay. Mmm. Hopefully we answered your questions about lighting Andromeda. If we didn't, then please put another question in. Uh, so there's lots of questions there. Uh, there's a question here from Andromeda again about have we as the PMA thought about doing a virtual conference this year?

You know, I think we talked about it. Um, we can't do a virtual conference an entire conference, but we're certainly looking at some potential options of offering some virtual things from the conference. Maybe things we can pull out. So, um, maybe an opportunity to do a panel, um, things like that. So those, all, those are kind of the things that are in the [inaudible] Mark's right now that we're looking at doing, but it's certainly up for discussion. And so I wouldn't say it's a, it would be an entire conference, but I think there'll be some opportunities for some education, virtual education. What are your plans for [inaudible] day, which is I think May 2nd this year. It's rushing up on us. It is May 2nd and that's going to be 100% virtual. Um, and please stay tuned for some pretty pretty exciting things we're doing with that. So that's just in the process of being rolled out now too in a lot of the things we've had to kind of pivot 180 degrees from where we were going. So it takes a little bit of time to build up the resources, but that'll certainly be coming out very, very soon. But yeah, it'll be a [inaudible] it will be happening and it's going to be all virtual and I think it'll be great.

So there's also opportunities for everybody that's on this webinar to join in and participate and promote parties around the world. I have a question here from Julian Hessel. She's a CSCC provider. I think all of us on the call now, all my live seminars are canceled for 2020 can I shift to teaching virtual online CC courses with the same content? This is a good one. Uh, um, if you don't mind please, because the CCS are, are under the certification program. Um, so if, uh, participants take the CEC live, um, during the course of the CEC and they're, they're actually present, um, it is considered, um, it's just as if they were in the room. Um, if it's a prerecorded, uh, continuing education program, it you have to go through a separate, uh, application process. So that would be considered a different type of event.

So right now we have participants who have not been able to join us from Dubai, from India, from South America, and they're participating in continuing education, um, virtually. And they're, they're right there, right there with us on the screen. And so it's considered, it's considered a CEC for them. Hopefully that answered the question then. Um, there's a question here from Susan around, if you're not a studio owner, you're just a teacher, what are the U S government programs that can help support them? Okay. First of all, not just a teacher. You're a teacher. It was my face. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Susan.

I didn't teach her not a studio anyway. So, um, yes, there are definitely programs. So actually that PPP program, so payroll protection program is rolling out this Friday, four individuals that end up in uh, independent contractors to apply for it as well. So that program is open to teachers that are not studio owners. So I would absolutely look into those programs and go, if you haven't already been there, go to the PMA resource hub. Um, there's information on the different programs and kind of who they are set up for. So there's a lot of good there. Yeah. So the company's launched last Friday and for uh, independent contractors, it's going to look alive this Friday. Um, is that the right timing Joanne? Did I get that right for both of them?

It's called the pay payroll protection program. It's just that opening dates with slightly different, so yes, the same program is there to support you, Susan, and I'm assuming you're in the U S to do that and the PPP is, is part of the cares act. So there are some other things available out there underneath that. So I would tell people the best advise people, the best thing you can do is really read what it's about. And there's some really good graphics that explain Blaine, you know, columns with what, what's covered and who's covered by each program. So, um, I would definitely look into that and some of these programs a little bit different state to state.

And Susan also the question around health insurance, um, and again, that that is so different. But for many people, the affordable care act does provide that safety net to apply for health insurance through. Um, I hope that helps answer your question, Susan. And if it doesn't, please pop in another one. I will try and do our best to answer that. Um, this is from DeAnn Deanna. I was in the process of applying to take the exam. How will I be able to take the exam in our current circumstances?

Perhaps carrier can help on that one. Well, I don't know if I'm allowed to, uh, to share this, but at the risk of and sharing insider information, um, we're in the process of Ray. I hope he doesn't strike me down. Um, we're in the process of, um, looking into having an online exam. So this would be something that you could take, um, in your home. So I don't know if, if we can go through with it. Um, but it would be very exciting if we can. Um, there are lots of things that we need to look into. Lots of considerations. There are some testing centers that are still open. Um, we are, uh, allowing a grace period and extended grace period for those who can't get to a testing center at this point. So all of that, um, the specifics of that will be communicated through the program.

Thank you. Kara. I hope Ryan doesn't strike you down as well. That'd be tactical. We won't tell him about this webinar opposed by ellipsis. Um, Janessa asks, does Lockton insurance cover both recorded and live sessions? They do. Um, and there's a recommendation that you update your language in your liability waiver to include the virtual sessions. But yes, I have insurance who locked in and I checked into it and yes, it is covered. And that the other thing Jess said, Janessa is that there is a link to Lockton on the PMA website and I believe that, uh, that also provides great resources and cheer. If you could put that into the chat, that would probably help Janessa as well.

Uh, this is from Risto in Estonia. How low a recess, a low way away. Um, greetings back to you. Which format would you recommend to follow if you're doing online group classes, teacher talking and showing exercises, teacher talking and only watching clients. I think as I asked her on what she feels, but it's a little bit depending on what you're doing, a group class or whether or not you're teaching somebody private.

So perhaps you could answer it for group and then answer it for private. Right. So certainly the private is using is aye. I personally have been using words, I don't, sometimes I'll demonstrate some of, of more complicated, um, just to give them a reminder. Um, these are all people I've worked with before and I know the exercises that I'm teaching, but sometimes I'll, you know, the rowing series, for example, I'm a reformer, but a group class, I really sort of do both. Um, and it's a lot of jumping up and down, um, talking through an exercise and maybe doing a rep or two and then sitting up and watching what my participants are doing and helping with killing, um, and you know, telling them what I want them to focus on or what they need, what needs to be corrected or changed or what not. So it's a, it's a really interesting process and it was quite a learning curve in the beginning. Again, kind of finding my stride with it now. But it's, um, it's interesting. Do you want to answer that? Do you have a opinion?

Um, I think it's very difficult to teach students, uh, audio Lee both. Most students are either visual or tactile learners or a combination of the two. And so, um, it's to, to use your voice alone is, um, you know, you use the musicality of your voice, just sort of carry the movement. Um, so that, that gets into more of the feeling place of moving. Um, so I, I find it, you know, I, I can, uh, talk a client through if I've worked with him before, but if I don't have a lot of, uh, or they don't have a lot of experience working with me, it becomes more difficult. So, um, I've had the benefit of having in the, in the beginning of this, a teacher from across the room demonstrating or, um, I'll also demonstrate, I'll got back and forth, but it, you know, it, it becomes a little cumbersome unless you have a screen, um, position so that they can see you and you can see them, which, which we've just set up in our studio. So, um, ideally it's a combination of demonstrating and talking them through it. I think just the audio teaching, um, is, is limited. Uh, just answer for my carry. Do you have to leave us now?

Thank you so much. Thank you, Carrie. I carry a, just for my own personal view here is when I do a private, I really enjoy the corrections that my instructor tells me. So she has sat watching me through her laptop, what she might have taught and really enjoy the, the feeling of that she's there and correcting me and helping me and giving me guidance. When I take a group class I expect to be able to look at the screen and just kind of see what's going on. Cause sometimes you know that you were all, sometimes visual is kicked, somebody was saying a second ago. Visual learners or sometimes or audio. What I kind of like to be able to look like what is going on here?

What did she mean by that? So I think it's, to me it's more if you're doing a group class, I would encourage you to demonstrate or have somebody with you demonstrating because I've also seen the teacher and then they have a body there. Yeah. Some presumes that like their wife or daughter or something. Um, so that they can be doing it a lie. So you can see and you can get that correction. Do you have anything else to add Joanna on that cause a great question by the way. No. And you know, I really, I agree with put curious said, but I think [inaudible], you know, necessity is the mother of invention.

So I find, I've been learning how to teach effectively using my words. So, um, much more so than when I was in my studio just because that's what I have to do. So at this point, so I think, I think it's doable. It's not ideal, but we're working with what we have. So I encourage you to do it and feel your way through it and don't be afraid. My clients have been nothing but grateful with everything we've done, even our missteps. So yeah, no, I think everybody's recognized that we're all in this together and we're just human. We do the best we can and try and learn from things.

As a followup question about Lockton, is the rate slightly higher if you're doing online or recorded classes as well as just in studio classes for the insurance? No, I have there, I mean I got my insurance through the PMA and I contacted my broker who contacted Lockton and there was no, no additional rate. There was no additional money requested for it. Just a suggested little bit of a change to my liability waiver, a tweak. Oh and we did that actually online. I sent it out, I emailed people and asked my clients to just agree to it and I have those in a little file on my email so they didn't have to mail it back to me. It wasn't, it wasn't paper exchange.

It was just all done online and they said that was adequate. Lockton did. And if people want to use things like um, DocuSign for, you know, if your waiver has changed a little bit from when you were in person in the studio, you can use DocuSign. I'm trying to think of the other ones. Is it Adobe signature? These are not particularly expensive services where you can electronically sign and you can make sure you have the waivers because the waiver you need is going to be a little bit different if you're teaching virtually to the other person. Um, there is also a PMA resource that has a draft kind of waiver that you can take the language that they have there and use that for your own document.

So again, check out the PMA website and all of the covert 19 resources there. Uh, Andromeda has a question for distance list learning listed on the PMA website for prerecorded content. It wants a date to post. Um, sorry, I drop it. I don't quite understand your question. Can you just clarify that a little bit and I'll do my best to so that with Joanne's hell, uh, there's a lot of resources on the, on the PMA and so the NCPT website, which shows all of the online classes, uh, without sounding too commercial, there's, there's also things on the plug is anytime website where you can, um, take online classes. I didn't need to be, Oh, that's fine. They're loud. Push away.

Uh, I think the answer drama did to your question that if you want to create a new listing, there's two categories within the NCPT website. There are live classes which occur on a specific date and you do need to have the date that you do that. If you want to record a workshop and then sell it at a later date, it's a slightly different application process. So I think that there are two places where you apply there. Um, so when parties anytime records a workshop and then publishes it, we apply in a different way say than Julian Hassell who does live workshops typically and how she applies. It's a different process. So I'm hoping that answers your question a trauma to, and again, if it doesn't email Joann and she'll make sure that the right person gets there.

This one is from Deanna. Does Lockton insurance offers studio insurance as well as individual insurance? Um, they do offer studio insurance, yes. And is there a link on the PMA website for that? There is, yeah. It's not a, there's not a discounted rate for studios.

It's discounted for individuals. But you do have the contact information for studio insurance. So I think that we've answered all the questions that there is there any additional ones. Otherwise we will finish in a couple of seconds here. Um, if you have another question, please add it to the Q and A's. Um, otherwise, what are your final closing thoughts here? And I'll share mine off to you. I have a couple of pieces of advice I've heard during these various conversations.

Well, obviously today's session was talking about the PMA and, and all the resources things and I, I really urge you, whether you're a member or involved at all with the PMA to just go to their website and see what they have available. There's a lot of really terrific resources that don't require anything from you. It's just kind of their gift to the community and we're going to continue to, to have all of those resources and build on them as well. Um, and the other thing is, you know, if you have questions about the PMA and things you want to talk about it without contacting the organization, um, feel free to email me. I'd be happy to have a conversation with you about it. But I, I wish everybody good health and safe and I hope we all get back at our studios soon and back to, you know, our, our way of life. Cool. Thank you Joanne. So Matt, my big piece of advice is charged the same as you two for an in person class as you do for an online classes.

Your bills are exactly the same as they were before. Your value is the same and the fact that you're delivering at the different way don't change your prices. So that is my piece of advice cause I really want to see everybody financially survive this, this process. Um, it seems like governments all over the world are offering some kind of financial systems both to independent teachers and also to, uh, businesses, [inaudible] businesses. And each of these programs is a little bit complicated, a little bit confusing what they're doing. Um, as you can probably tell from my accent, I have a lot of friends, so the United Kingdom, although I've lived in a parent of Niti 30 years and uh, you know, it's just a matter of working at work with your bank, your financial advisor, whoever it is, your accountant that helps them. And certainly just talking about the U S the pay world payroll protection program are poised to independent contractors as much as it does to studio owners. And it's as close as I've ever seen to free money.

It is a bit of a pain putting the documents together, but it's really, really worth trying to get those things. Gladys, his day is coming up soon. I saw a question pop up in the Q and A's there and what is polarity is anytime do it. It's a secret but I mean soon we're going to be celebrating Colossi it's just like the rest of the world. Um, we're also, we did a dance party last Friday just so that we normally have a dance party at the polarities Metro Alliance conference and we have a great time. We did it online. It was our first attempt to do it. We had a few technical issues, but there were people there for three hours from all over the world dancing.

We're going to be doing more of those things. Just celebrating movement and Plata is, is about allowing us to enjoy our bodies and do things. And we have more webinars coming up. You can go to [inaudible] dot com slash live and you can see what we're doing. Um, we're going to be, and so live streaming on Friday this week from Tokyo's hearing what's going on in Japan. So that's excited.

Next week we'll be there from Madrid and we're also going to be talking an expert on how to keep your polarity studio clean once we're all back in the studio, which I hope is very soon. Thank you, Joanne. Thank you everybody. We'll see you next time and enjoy and it's a privilege to be here with everybody. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Bye bye.