Ask Cara Anything!

Thank you everybody for joining us. My guest today is Kara RESA. Carissa is a second generation Pilates teacher from the lineage of Kathy grant. And we did our first ever one of these webinars, the Pilates report together on Monday, March 23rd and I kind of think like, Oh my God, so much has changed in the last, what is that, six, seven weeks? Um, they decided that it was really important to us, Kara, to come back and share her experience during that time. So we did a poll and we got a lot of questions in and it was like, Oh my goodness, this is fantastic. It's so many, but it's a little bit overwhelming.

So what I've done with the questions is I've grouped them into eight categories and we're going to kind of try and do like the ones in each category. And if you don't see your particular question, some of them are kind of blended into a single question. You have to kind of lay out the same thing. So these are the eight categories. Let's see if I can do this. Eight categories, reopening the studio and all the things that going with that. Um, online parties, teaching skills, teaching outdoors, teaching in clients' homes, the equipment that you're recommending for home parties. How do we support the seniors in our community that used to come to our studios, pricing for online parties and marketing.

And we have enough questions here to probably feel like a day's worth of carer. And I work in, but I'm trying to condense it down into an hour and I just want to say welcome back for people who were here, welcome. And um, that, you know, this is not really about me knowing every, having the answers, but it's really just about us as a community, getting a chance to sort of sure. Thinking into some of these complicated questions, maybe not just in the middle of the night by ourselves. You know, I, I know I wake up pretty much every night going like, huh, what would I do if my 90 year old clients said they wanted to come in? And Colorado says they can't come in or you know, so again, not, I don't have the answers, but I think it's important for us to keep sort of, the more we talk, the more we're going to sort out. So, um, I just wanted to make that disclaimer in case people thought I had the answers. I don't, I wish I had the answers.

Yeah, exactly. Uh, we'll do our best to do what we're hearing, what we're sharing and it's just moving the conversation forward. I'm going to start off today with a little poll and just asking people, um, have you returned to the pot pot? Have you returned to your studio or do you plan to, so if you can see the poll, um, when do you expect to return to in-person polarities teaching and just kind of curious to see what folks have going on here. And I put in a few categories already back seven days, seven to 21.

And um, my kind of jokey one was, knows, um, let's see what we have here. So nobody's back yet. Few people hoping to be back this coming week. And then a few more, 20% within three weeks, uh, 30% within two months. And about half the people who took the poll said, who's knows. Yeah. I kind of, um, I kind of relate to that. Yeah. Uh, so Kara, when do you expect to reopen? You know, tell me what's happening in Denver and every region in the world has slightly different regulations here.

Yeah. So, uh, currently are, we're going into phase one, um, lifting of restrictions, meaning stay at home and now safer at home, which is in itself already complicated. Um, so if you want to not be safe, go somewhere. Um, um, but anyway, we, um, so things are starting to open this Friday. Um, there are limits to how many people can be, we still have six feet apart, no more than 10 gathering face mask have to be worn by all parties. Um, and there's pretty strict guidelines around service cleaning, et cetera. Um, so I am going to wait until after Memorial day, so I'm going to continue to stay closed and only doing online for another three weeks. Mmm. Primarily because I would like to see what happens once things get going.

Um, whether the numbers spike, whether we get to get shut down again, I don't really want to kind of take on the responsibility and the costs of like bringing myself into full operation again and then the cost of what it takes, but just in every way to like shut things down. So I'm okay. [inaudible] cautious and I also don't really know how to solve some of the issues around social distancing and face mask wearing and um, staggering peoples in and out. I need some time to really kind of look at the pros and cons of that and the best way to do it. Yeah. In Colorado, are you under the same regulations as, I don't know what the right term is, but the big box gyms, you know, the huge gems, are they regulating you in the same way, you know, as a boutique Plaza studio? Um, I, I don't really think so. I don't, I don't, there hasn't really been much in the way of a conversation about where Pilates to do is per se, um, fit in. Um, I would, you know, salons are opening, nail salons are opening, hair salons are opening. Mmm. And you know, but you have to be six feet apart, but you're going to cut somebody's hair.

So the whole everything is a little bit confusing. Um, but no, nobody said Pilate studios can't open until the big gyms open that I've heard of. And most of the Denver studios I know of are starting to open in the next week or so. So what, what can't open at this time in Denver? Restaurants, bars, uh, sports events, big events. Mmm. I think malls, um, you know, anything with like crowds. Um, and I think Jim's, my gym is not open. Um, nor do they communicate anything about refunds. So there's that also. Absolutely the same here. When you said, you know, cutting somebody's hair from six, six feet away, I had this image of these.

Yeah. Right, exactly. Um, and are there any, so if people were to come into a Pilates studio in Colorado, are they expected to wear a face mask? Ooh, rule in Colorado that you have to wear a face mask. It's starting, I think tomorrow, wherever you go. I don't know if it means when you're cycling and running, but everywhere else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it, it's everywhere in the world. I think there's going to be really different about this and unfortunately a lot of people talk about phase one, phase two, and your Colorado's phases are different. California's, which I'm sure are different to South Africa and all the other places. So yeah, it's very chaotic.

Do you think, yeah. You're presently doing online classes, believe some of those are filmed from your studio. So is that a little bit why, you know, will you be able to do online classes when the studio opens or are they going to interfere with each other? Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, probably not. Um, first of all, probably like the bandwidth, we'll probably get like used up, uh, like as it is, you know, there's people on the thing, on the internet thing, um, and we do have two rooms. So it may be the case that we could, you know, use the backroom from time to time if the bandwidth can handle it. Mmm. So yeah, it's something for me to really consider. Like we're going to have to keep our classes online regardless. So let's say I teach three classes a day and then I'm going to try and do a couple of privates in house. Like am I gonna come home, do a class, run back to the studio, but I'll make face mask.

She's a private ride back home, you know, it's complicated. Um, but our classes can't go live because we can't social distance in any way that it would make sense financially for us. We could, and we could have three people at a class, but that, that's, that's not going to pan out for us financially. One of the things I'm kind of curious about is, you know, with that six foot roll rule, which is two meters and a lot of times for the world, what's that impact going to have on the capacity of your studio? And I have a little poll on this question. Let's just see if I can, um, and what I was trying to get at with this poll, the kind of question I'm asking is if before the most people you could get in your studio at one time is maybe like 10 people, how many could you get in the new format? And I'm kinda thinking like there's a lot of studios which are kind of reformer studios where they have, I don't know, maybe 10 reformers and with social distancing, you know, maybe that goes down to, I don't know, five or six, you know, that that was the kind of question I was curious about. So most people, it's going to be somewhere around, my guess is the half, about 50% of the same capacity as before. Uh huh. That's pretty tricky, you know, because the margins aren't like you can have half as many people and still pay all the bills.

Yeah. It's super tricky. I mean, I think one of the things that many of us should be looking at is how are we successful on what we're currently doing online? Um, how can we keep that, you know, are there people who, who, um, are, are going to be more comfortable keeping that format and can we build up the, the volume by doing a certain amount, keeping a certain amount of virtual classes, virtual privates, and then getting the people who really refuse to work online. I mean, that's sort of our strategy. Like we're going to open it first only to the people who've not been successful or able or willing to join us online. And I'm going to try to keep everybody else online so I can get closer to a hundred percent capacity. And then as things change, try to move those people back into the studio. But most of our people who are working online are satisfied right now and say to me, I'd rather just stay like this, then run the risk of like crowding at the studio. Yeah. And then maybe I can help some of the more senior clients, senior citizen clients we have, which are a lot, and they're the ones who aren't on zoom with us because that's just out of their wheelhouse. So they can't get all the way down on the floor. Yeah.

Eat or they need the equipment. Yeah. The kind of irony in this is those are the people that are most at risk by leaving their homes. Right. And there are the people at most risk leaving their home and they're also the people most at risk to fall in your studio if you're not there to close enough to support them. Which is something a lot of my staff are worried about.

Like if they bring in some of these people, they say, well, I can't stay six feet from her. I'm close enough to catch her if she loses her balance. And I know some of the questions were, how do we teach Pilates without touching, you know, how do we teach Pilates without props? I don't know how to teach bodies without props. I'm just like, Oh my God, I love my balls and my yoga blocks and my straps. Everybody's been taking online with me knows that. So, um, how do we just use our voices and through a face mask, still create an environment that feels soothing on the central nervous system.

Yeah, I'm finding when I go out, I try and only go out about once a week to buy food. But when I go out, I'm trying to talk to the butcher or whoever it is. I don't understand me because I have a face mask on and I want to do this, I want to pull it. She says, you know, the piece, the whole purpose. Well the other thing I wanted to just sort of say to everybody, which is like just sort of a conundrum I'm having. Right? So I in the last couple of weeks have had social distancing, um, patio meals with friends. So I'm single so I'm here alone. Lots of people are like, Oh, we want to S you know, we want to make sure you're okay. Which I am. But yeah, both times two of the, two out of the three times we broke our social distancing.

Like we tried really hard to sit six feet apart at the picnic table. And then eventually by the end of the evening we were sitting much closer. Now we weren't hugging and kissing, but we passed things across the table. We didn't have on master gloves and, and we were all adults who were willing to take that risk in our friendships. I wonder how loose that we'll get in the studio and then the liabilities that are involved. They're so different than me and my friends and my patio.

So would after a few weeks I kind of be like, you know what, let's just use one yoga block. It's fine. Or you know, let me just get a little closer cause I can't, or I'm just going to touch your knee, but on your pants or you know, I could just, I just wonder if we can really stay with that type of, of social distancing and whether and how this is going to last a while. Mm. Um, yeah, I, I think it's going to last a real while. It is really a struggle. I seen yourself, you know, I had to say I was my birthday a couple of days ago, so I had a little birthday party in the park and by the time it had ended we were a lot less concerned about that whole six feet distance. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Don't bring the bottle of wine to the Pilates studio while you're teaching.

Cause that definitely confuses the social distancing. It does. It's, it is what's been happening with your teachers. How are they doing? Uh, yeah, the contractor. So I have one employee, Laura, and she has been by my side, uh, not physically, but uh, we are communicating all the time to have gotten everything into place that we have the loans, everything. Um, so she's also producing a lot on zoom for the studio. Um, I have about three contractors that are working pretty like couple who are up to their regular speed. I'm on zoom. I actually wrote, I wrote a subcontractor paycheck the other day for somebody and it was the biggest paycheck I ever wrote them. And I was like, how is this happening?

Which is filling her classes by getting on the internet by getting on Facebook and stuff. And people from her old studio in her other state that used to live in are coming in, her family are taking classes and her nieces and nephews. And so, um, so some of them are, and some of them are, have other things to attend to like children and um, spouses or you know, other jobs also. Um, but, but they are, um, they all seem to be doing well and I think a lot of them are now applying for unemployment for contractors. Yeah. Thank goodness that's available. Did, were you able to negotiate anything with your landlord? Yeah, I, well I got the PPP on the first round. Mmm. Yup.

That was great. Uh, I was, I was lucky to be at a small bank. I was also super aggressive and like up at the crack of Dawn, I was like, I'm getting this thing. Um, so I was, I, I, you're able to use a certain percentage of that right. For rent. So what I did is I, as soon as I got that I said to my landlord, I'm going to give you this chunk of money from the PPP that's for rent. Um, it doesn't cover that much of my rent for two months, but covers more than half of it actually. And he's forbearing everything else. And then I will speak to him depending on how much goes for some forgiveness.

Um, I told him that I will approach him about forgiveness and not just for parents, um, as we go down the pipes, but I want him to also see what he's able to get as a landholder, et cetera. But he's been loving. Fantastic. So I think the key takeaway there is keep the communication going on. Nobody likes surprises and I think it made such a difference in that I said I'm applying for the PPP, I'm in line for the PPP. I received the PPP, this $6,750 goes directly to you. I'm sending you the check today from the further PPP, so, so I wasn't dilly dallying with, Hey, I'm doing this also to support you. Yeah.

And I do stay in communication with him and I thank him a lot. Fantastic. I'm just going to another quick poll here. Just ask folks if they are teaching online asking this poll. So are you teaching online? Yes. No, not yet. And I think that when we ran the survey, however many weeks ago it was, I think it was maybe 25% it started doing it. Yeah, that's right. It was still pretty low.

I'm going to guess most everybody is at this point. It's just over 75% of teaching online and 10% not and 10% planning to do so. So fantastic. So I want to ask this question here. When you continue teaching online, when you opened your studio, you know Kara is talking about how she sees this kind of hybrid of doing a little bit of both and on this one it's 83%. Yes.

Oh and is that because most people are going to be teaching keeping classes online? Because I think we almost all have to keep classes online unless we can super social distance. Um, I'm guessing thing. That's right. I can't really get a thumbs up cause I can't see you guys like I do in my pro classes. But um, yes, all my classes are working. Yeah, right. Yeah. If you want to put something in the chat to respond to Kara, that would be really great. Um, I do think it's really, really smart to keep that online.

There's classes online populated and going, um, that's really going to save it for us. Yeah. So, uh, I'll put us, yes. Yeah. I think one of the things, you know, if, if your studio is to open on Friday and I'd been a regular client, I think I would hesitate, when am I exactly going to come back and do I really understand how risky this is. And if I had been doing online with you, I would continue to do that until my confidence is such like, yeah, I feel safe going into the studio. I don't think, you know, the fact that things opened doesn't necessarily mean people will come. Well. And I think what we're doing in our, so I have seen a lot of emails go out by studios and they're beautiful emails that really describe like these phases, right? And really, really describe how much they're going to clean the surfaces and sterilize everything and all that, which I think is great. And really well intentioned. But like when I started thinking about like, am I going to clean the bathrooms every half an hour in my studio?

There's no way mm. There, there's no way I, and then somebody said, well, hire somebody who's there all day that just keeps cleaning. And I was like, okay. So I'm going to have somebody there cleaning all day with every, going to be in a mask. I'm going to be in a hot clash. I like the whole thing. Feels very scary. We're doing a survey with our clients. We're saying, how many of you would rather stay online? Would be willing to stay online? How many of you really want to have to come back into the studio to work and then we're going to sit down with a big map and look at how to kind of take care of the clientele. That way we're not opening it to everybody. Just saying everybody come back in no way. Yeah. Yeah. We can't.

I'm just going to, I went onto your site yesterday and I made a kind of diagrammatic, um, schedule of your classes that you're teaching online at the moment. So I'm sorry if it's not a hundred. No, that's fine. I'll use it for Facebook. But this is what I found from you, Kara. Yeah, I'm looking at Mondays you had a fifties plus all levels, um, and a yoga class. Perhaps you can kind of walk us through what, why you designed what you did. Yeah, so a lot of these classes work, we're already on the schedule, so we actually didn't make a brand new schedule.

We tried to keep as many of the schedules as we already had, um, classes on the schedule so that we could retain those clients that they could be in their group and feel like they stayed. Um, and then, um, so a lot of this was existing, the pro classes, which of course on my end is, is me teaching professionals. Um, that yoga class has always been in our studio. It's usually populated by about three or four kind of ladies in their seventies, 60, seventies. And now it's like got 10, 15 people in it. Wow. Cause again, it's like people who couldn't come to the yoga class before, I didn't really realize we had a yoga class or Laura's parents are coming to her yoga class now from Oh. From Tennessee or Mmm. So that's been working. Um, and then yeah, these fifties plus classes are what some of our most popular classes in the studio. So that allows that population to know they're still having a class that's crafted for their, for their body type. Those are sort of, um, core classes where we're thinking about doing less loaded flection things, sort of bone health for, for people and um, post-menopause or older people.

Um, yeah. Now it's on, on Monday you have two classes at one 30. How do you manage that? Yeah, because I'm the only one really using the studio for classes. So we also made my staff got their own, my staff aren't, I stopped, they're contractors. So they, they bought their own zoom. So they're teaching from their houses.

They've all set up little studios in their houses. I go in and use the studio. Um, and Laura uses the studio for the yoga class. Um, but the rest of the staff are, some of them come in when I'm not there and use it. They're welcome to. But most of them are teaching out of their homes. So if I, if I went back a couple of months, you know, pre, before Corona space BC, before Corona, I'd see much the same schedule. So you were trying to migrate these people onto the virtual schedule.

Same people, same teacher, same time. Yup. We did much the same. We took out some, you see we have a lot of classes. We've only a couple of weeks get canceled. Um, we added the before the a hundred and the strap class to satisfy my education platform. People, people who are in the heritage training people or post heritage training who want to keep connecting to the lineage. Um, so we added those to keep the education piece moving through aligned virtually. Um, I added more pro classes because they were in demand. Mmm. And then we added the free class, um, in, we always had that on Saturdays, but we wanted to put it in a more prime time so more people could, um, you know, do class during the week like everybody else and not have to pay.

Cool. Uh, squats and lunges. Was that part of your world before? Uh, that we have a Pilates teacher who teaches a place tower class where she explores a lot of lunges and squats of standing work. So she decided to just name it for now what she really ends up doing and um, she's holding her group and I think more people are, are dropping in. But I think that the diversity without equipment, the diversity is really been helpful to like do standing stuff and to do, I've been doing all sorts of stuff besides Pilates mat because people need a little bit more diversity in, in their, um, in their workout. So we, I think probably all my staff are adding lunges and arm weights and TheraBands and squatting and stuff like that. Pushups. Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for going through that. And I hope that it inspires folks to kind of, there's a lot of things that you can do on that schedule. I was curious, do you think that the times that people are exercising has changed at all? People are exercising like a ton more. Um, because they have so much more free time now that's going to change as regular people go back to work. So I think we should all expect our virtual schedules to start to change because office workers and stuff who are at home right now might, might circling back into the office. Um, so, but yeah, I think our clientele, they're like taking a lot more classes than they used to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. For me personally, I get an hour back every day because I don't have to commute to the office using a chunk of that to do more exercise and trying all the online offerings, not just our own, but all the other companies just to say. Okay, that's great. You got to jump into one off one of ours.

Yeah. Well if people want to do that, do they just sign up through your website? Yeah. Mind body online. Yeah, we're using our regular. So that's the other thing. We kept everything the same, so we're using up their packages. We didn't change the pricing. Nobody's complained. Um, so I think PE, you guys, if you did lower your pricing, I think since this is kind of the new normal, you could probably go back to your regular pricing. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's more exhausting to teach on zoom. I feel like I should get paid double frankly. I mean, I don't feel like that, but I'm just saying it's not like I'm off the hook. Yeah. You know, I'm sure you guys agree with that. Like it's completely, really a lot of concentration. I totally agree.

Just to shout out for Kara, but if you want to do a class with Kara than just, you know, she'll put the link in there. Some of them are just for her heritage training folks, but if you could just put that in the chat. Yeah. And all the pro classes or Pilates teachers and they're super fun. I mean, everybody's in there. Um, working hard. There's four of them. We can, two of them are equipment on the chair. So, um, yeah, Caitlin, c'mon, uh, how is she saying, how are you handling liability insurance issues? Mmm, you're, yeah, so I think what you mean by that is you, you keep paying your law, your liability insurance for sure. In my case, it was not a different liability insurance that I needed.

It was, it was fine to keep what we had Mmm. For the online. But I think if it is something that you have to upgrade or change, you should definitely do that. Um, there's no question. Kate, does that answer your question? I think a question is if somebody catches covert in your studio, are you protected? I what I've heard is that that you can't be liable for that.

Yeah. I think the other part of that, Caitlin, is it's really hard for them to prove that you were the person that passed that on to them. You know, it's possible that they picked you up at the supermarket or they picked it up walking down the street. However, Caitlin, I think it's a really, I think it's still a really good consideration because what we are about to enter into by bringing a lot of people into a small space is the tension around once somebody gets sick, who's been there. So do we close down and quarantine for two weeks and make all of our clients quarantine at that point. Like that's where I get tripped up. Like I'm like, okay, so we open, we've got a two people in there and suddenly I get a call. So and so was in there. He exposed, Jody Jody's been teaching the last seven people. Bam. So in that way, yeah, that's, that's it.

Yeah. Athlete. Yeah. I think, you know, some places in the world have been really, really successful in contact tracing. You know, they've take, Oh, this person has it. Who were the people they did? And then they test all the way kind of down that everybody they met. Um, but kind of in the way you are in the world, how successful that is. My general advice on this is I would talk to your insurance broker, whoever provides your insurance, whether it's yours as a teacher or as yours or a studio, to just understand what that risk is.

And maybe they'll give you advice of adding something to your waivers, for instance, that might cover this. Yeah. Talk to your attorney. Also if you have an attorney. That's, that's who I tend to turn to there. Yeah. W w really at the beginning of this and it's like a lot of the things in this we don't really know. It's terrible to say that kind of like carers approach to a delayed opening, you know, let somebody else find out all the things that aren't working before, you know, before it comes to your turn. Somebody put it in the chat.

I think it was Dolly that, um, the big box gyms in, uh, Georgia are not allowing people to use the restrooms. So there's a whole thing around the restrooms. Like it's hard to come to a bloody studio, certainly as you get older and not have to use the toilet. I can't do that. I can't, I could not. I cannot do that. Now we could ask our clients to wipe the bathrooms down themselves, but, but I could never tell my clients not to use the bathroom. There's too, there's too many people who that would be an urgency issue that would, you know, would have to be compromised. So what advice do you have for teachers transitioning from in-person to virtual?

Some people have found it an easy transition. Other people have struggled. Do you have any advice on how to go about that change? Yeah, I think, well first of all, everybody needs to rehearse with their client the first time and not charge them for that first 10 minutes because some people have a disastrous time setting up their camera. I mean I walked around the other day with a client of mine with her iPad, like all over her house. I was like, Oh my God, I must throw up. I was like, okay. So I think getting the set up, you can see the mat, it's the right lighting and explain to them how that works. If they can see themselves on the mat, on the picture, then I can see them.

So they understand because it's, you really don't want to spend the whole time saying, change your camera, move your camera, you know, you want to get a flow going. Mmm. So that would be one piece of advice. Um, I, you know, for the clients that I have always worked with, I try to really think the things that I know are their favorites and soothing and they always looked forward to and they, they, you know, and then I try to emulate that somehow without me being able to touch them, the stretching or the roller or, um, you know, kind of addressing. So I can make Lisa's first sessions work like cozy and familiar so they feel at home. Um, I try to watch my tone of voice, which is terrible. I scream at the computer all day. Um, but, um, so stuff like that. I think with classes it's really hard to be, get up enough creative material. So I would get jumped on a lot of other people's classes.

Borrow stuff, get on Pilates, anytime. Borrow stuff from all of us who've taught for years and years. Cause it can be like kind of like, Oh my God, it's taking forever and we're already on NEC pole. My thought on this is, you know, try on somebody who's friendly, you know, your children, your husband, your friends next door. Just learn on there, do it for free. And I think it's like a lot of things. It's practice makes us better at everything.

And we're in a world where we're all gonna learn new skills, you know, whether we like it or not, it's kind of like, okay now I've got to learn how to do this. But I, I want to say this to everybody. It's really easy to feel like you should like, apologize for yourself in these situations. Like, you know, it's not as good cause it's online and I can't touch you. So the lesson is not as good and I can't give you what I used to give you. So it's not as good.

And I think we need to really realize that nothing's as good for most people right now. And so the value of you on that computer for that hour, that is probably worth more than, than anything. Like I find my clients saying, you know, I would, yeah, I find my clients saying, you know, I would, I would pay anything for this. This is the best part of my week. So I think we need to remember how valuable our services there.

Yeah. If we have time right at the end, I see Amy havens is online. Yeah. Great. Maybe Amy would be willing to be, I don't know if she's got her pants on today, but if she's up for it, we'll promote you up onto, um, you can join us at the end, Amy, and maybe share some of your thoughts on this. Great. I'd love that. Um, have you, I know that you've gained new clients through this.

How have you onboarded them, you know, how have you dealt with that initial interview to see what their bodies, like all of those things? Um, yeah, we all are starting to take new clients right now. I find this very interesting. Um, and at first I was like, no, we can't take new people online. Crazy. I find it's working quite well and I treat it just like I would a live lesson. Um, I do that intake. I find out why they're coming.

They tell me they have like this young girl plantar fasciitis, she's in the military and she's about to go to basic training. Um, she's scared of the pain and I taught her just like I would in the studio except for we had to use stuff, the house. Um, I think we're all really capable of being excellent at vetting people and getting them in on this platform. Mmm. You, you know, as long as you have the camera set up right, you can see really well here. Um, and if they're reaching out to you there, they know what they're signing up for. And this is happening to us because our clients are telling their friends who were like, I'm going crazy in the apartment with my husband. Well, you should do Pilates with my, you know, I'm doing plots. And then they're like, well, we want to do, I'm like, wow, this is such an interesting. So yeah, I think it, I think, I think you just do the good work you've always done in a different environment. So if you were making a hundred dollars before, how much are you making today? Now that you're teaching online?

And I put different categories in here and you know, a bit like Cara was saying, one of her teachers is actually perhaps making a little bit more than she made before because she's been successful in getting new clients. Mmm. I'm just going to share this now. Um, we still got nearly half that are in that, you know, maybe zero to 25% of what they're making before, but there's 20% making three quarters to a hundred percent. I'd have to look up the results, but my memory is that nearly everybody was in the bottom 25%, um, when we did this last time. Yeah. And I think the message there is, is, is everybody can build up more on that probably. I mean, you know, I think it's possible, um, unless you've got like a bunch of kids you have to take care of now and there's other circumstances here, right.

Not everybody has the ability to teach online all the time. Yeah. I think if you've become that stay at home mom teaching your children, it's like goodness, that's so hard. My heart goes out to those people. Oh my God, we too. We too. Monica asks the question, could it be more financially beneficial to do mat classes because you could have a bigger number of participants and I'm going to include in your question, Monica, how about teaching mat classes outdoors in the park? Um, what's your feeling on that? Carol?

Do you think we could be teaching in the park? I love the idea and I had a fantasy today when I was running in the park this morning about inviting clients for free, um, to and have all the staff there and that we could all teach a different part of it. Um, I think the issue at the park is whether or not your parks are open, whether or not your parks are saying you have to wear masks, whether or not your parks are open and they're further, super crowded. Cause that's where everybody is like, but yeah, I think an outdoor thing, it might be hard to hear. Um, you know, I was trying to figure out whether or not people would be able to really hear and I have a very loud voice. Um, um, Matt classes instead of reformer or equipment classes, you still have to distance people by six feet. I don't, I don't have enough space. I have a huge studio, but I wouldn't be able to fit that many people in a math class. And I don't know how they really ha come in staggered for a class. That's the other thing is they're saying you can't all come in.

You can't have 10 people come into the studio at the same time. Um, so I'm, I'm not sure how to do that. I'd be curious if other people have thoughts of how they're going to do that. I know a lot of people are calling their clients and saying, you can come in now like the vet is doing, that's what the beds do. Yeah, it's, Monica has just um, expanded. She was talking about online math classes because we could accommodate a bigger number of participants. And I think what's happened, Monica is, you know, as Carol has indicated in some of her mat classes, she's had more people than she could possibly have in a studio class just cause, um, I'd also in my equipment classes, like my equipment classes that I'm teaching online, um, because they're more expensive, I made a decision to limit the amount of people that could come into them so that I can correct better. Whereas the mat classes, I let them fill up to like a hundred plus, right. For my pro classes.

So my pro class, I have something like 30 to 40, but in the equipment classes I have 16 in those chair classes. So I can still correct and I can put up on a big screen. So I'm making that the value is that there's more interaction. Um, but again, nobody's been like, Oh your thing is a rip off. Cause I don't think people feel like, what does she say?

Yeah. So what I've seen in terms of pricing and everybody seems to have a slightly different number, but somewhere in that 10 to 20 range, the pricing is you will get corrections at this point and you will get guidance back from the teacher. And I think once you get beyond, I'm not sure exactly what the number is, but maybe 20 chances of being able to identify a correction that needs to be done and keep the flow going. It's just minimal. So I've seen price points that are slightly lower for the, what I call big math classes and the smaller classes, um, it's a different price. It's bigger than a duet or triple. But yeah, I mean it depends. Like, I'm actually at this point, my big classes have about 30. Like I just taught a class with 34 and because they're coming every week, I am able to sort of correct now because I know them and I'm like, Oh, Amy havens, I know you got to bend your knees on that, you know, she takes the classes. Um, but I think that it's, it's, it's a skill to build, to be able to kind of, kind of anticipate what corrections those people might need from you if you know them, you know, do they always bend their knees on tree? You can just shout out, Hey Joe, I know you might want to bend your knee, but going straight and then it's a way of touching in without having to like say I saw that you could say I know you well enough to know you might want to do that Kim's question. So if it sounds crazy, but how do you teach equipment online? Uh, I need more specifics on that question.

Um, but are you doing chair classes online? Is sample you? Do you, um, are you actually on the chair now? I go into the studio. Yep. Okay. So I demonstrate on the chair or sometimes I have a demonstrator. Um, one of my staff members who I stay far apart from and we, we let them watch her. Um, uh, and the same when I'm doing like big international classes right now I use a demonstrator, um, on. Yeah. So you're assuming that the client has the equipment or the teacher wherever they are, has the equipment and they're doing it along with you?

Yeah, that's right. They have the equipment. They know if they're signing up for equipment class that they have equipment. When you do a class where you're doing corrections, um, this is a question from Dolly. Do you stand, do you sit? How, how are you watching, watching what's going on? Yeah. I sit in a little scratch position like this with my face in the community like this and I look horrible Dolly and everybody could see my neck wrinkles, which I can't stand. Uh, and my body is completely compromised for that hour.

Um, but pretty much that's what I ended up doing is scratching down because I also want to be able to get on my mat and demonstrate something. It's a real acrobatic, um, acrobatics sort of, um, job at this point. So if sometimes you're doing a correction and you need to demonstrate, you can adjust your camera and get on the floor. Right. So I climbed in like this and then I climbed back and I just camera and I get on my all fours and I say, Oh no, I need you to do, you know, and it's like it's a whole thing. It's, I know you guys are those of you still watching that?

You're laughing cause you're doing the same thing and it's like completely ridiculous. It's going to switch here to um, marketing. Have you been mostly using marketing to your client base? Have you got the word out further or has it been word of mouth? Uh, okay. So our client base, we are in constant contact using that, that thing that we always use with them, email, um, with them.

My clients don't use Facebook and Instagram. That's not who they are. So I'm reaching out to the pro community or my staff or my contractors are reaching out to their friends and stuff through Instagram and Facebook and that's been really effective. Um, um, otherwise people just telling people, um, word of mouth for sure. Uh, I have new guests in my classes every week because somebody brought a friend, they're like, this is my friend. She's in Michigan. It's so cute. I mean people are telling their friends in Tokyo and then, you know, it's like, so bring a friend that that'd be a good promotion. Yeah. You know, bring a, bring a virtual, bring a friend from, from somewhere far away. Like what a great gift to give somebody and you know, it's kind of fun to work out with your friends and then you can chat about it afterwards. Super fun.

A lot of the successful marketing I've heard has been very much particularly the old clientele is get on the phone. That client that used to come in and do that one on one communication. I didn't know that was called marketing, but yes, you should call everybody and talk to them. Yeah. And I think in today's, today's weird world is it's just nice to have somebody you know, ring you up and I'm thinking about you and why don't you do this class with me and then deal with the resistance. It's like I'm uncomfortable using zoom, but before we do a first class, let's just spend 10 minutes and I'll show you how it works. It's really not that hard.

And you can even pitch them on the neuro plasticity of learning new skills keeps you young and helps with the brain and all those things. Yeah. And I want to say to my fellow studio owners out here that, you know, I have, I, I have to remind my subcontractors to call people all the time. Like they all feel, especially the younger they are, they feel uncomfortable calling. So I have to often say, have you guys been in touch with so and so? Does anybody know where so and so went, cause we're also attracting people who are around right now and they'll say, Oh yeah, I said to her, I said her an email a couple of days ago and I'm like, would you call her? And they're like, Oh, color. And I'm like, yeah, cool. It's not in everybody's sort of, they're all used to.

So I think it's, it's safe to say to studio owners. Yeah, you should definitely nudge your, your people to do phone calls. Especially right now. I'll just share with everybody. Kara, you so occasionally come to Los Angeles. And I spoiled myself by having a private class with Kara and I, it just occurred to me as I private a couple private. Yeah, we did it a few times. And um, I kinda miss it and I just thinking about, you know, maybe you can reach out to your favorite teacher and, you know, I'd love to do a private or can I join your group class or whatever, you know, whatever feels fun.

But the question from Aaron here because how do you feel about continuing the teaching live online and this capacity to take advantage of the opportunity for the Pilates community to be even more connected or, my view on that is, hell yes. Please do that. I really hope, it amazes me when we do these zoom webinars that we get people, I don't remember. Everybody was today, you know, but we had somebody in South Africa and people in Europe and Oh my goodness. It's just, yeah, no, I will. I'm going to keep, I will probably keep my pro um, classes for the rest of my life online. Why not? I love seeing everybody. Monica says, Carrie, you better do that or she'll be sad. I know, I know who I'm done. I prophecy here are my students, Jackie. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to keep it up.

I got to try and answer Laurel's question here. What happens with unemployment or pandemic unemployment insurance as the big box gyms reopened and I'm assuming that is where you are. Do you lose those things because you feel uncomfortable about going into to work like that? I think that's a real tricky question because you know, like if I, I'm lucky enough to work for my, you know, I have my own business with Christie and Ted and we work for ourselves and we are being very, very cautious about this. But if I work for somebody else and they were really pushing me to be back in, I, I'm anxious about that and I don't know exactly what happens with unemployment insurance and it might be different by state. So sort of thing.

I would definitely Google, but it's going to, well, it's a huge, it's a huge national conversation right now. Um, in terms of whether or not workers can be forced back into the workplace if they're still scared and if they can maintain their, there are benefits if it, especially if they're at risk. Mm. Um, and, um, I, you know, Laurel, I, I think this is going to be an unfolding Mmm issue and it has a lot to do with the leadership in this country right now that needs to sort of look into those types of, yeah. I think what I would do on that one is I talked to your manager and just see, you know, I'm feeling uncomfortable about this. Is there something I can do? Can I do the online classes? Can I teach them from home? And big companies tend to have less flexibility, but maybe, you know, if you worked for carer there might be like an opportunity to continue to do that as she opens his studio. It really depends what your boss is like.

Yeah. Like you know, in our case is most of it, well a lot of us have subcontractors, in which case they get to do whatever they want and I can't tell them anything, which is good work for a corporation. It's going to be feel a little bit different. And I know a lot of people here do that. So I'm going to ask Amy if she wouldn't mind joining us and Porsche page I saw you on there. Um, I hope I'm going to invite you to join us as well. I assume you have your pants on. She might not, I don't know. You know, Porsche's wonderful person.

If you'd like to join us on the panel. I'm just promoting it. I haven't seen her. Amy, you're muted. But I'd love to chat. Hi. Good to see you. Love. Hi guys.

Hi. So my question to Amy and Porsche and maybe Amy first is what's your advice for teaching online know hire? What are the skills you'd like to share with our audience today? Well, I would just second everything that's been said so far and just take it, take a risk. We have to take a risk, we have to get out there and try it. And not, not everyone is comfortable. So if you're not, if you know that about yourself already, I wouldn't try it.

But I think that we should also just push ourselves into giving it a little test run because you might end up really loving that way of interaction and you might really shine and you might gain you, you know, notice that you're going to for sure. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. No. And I think what John said too is that, you know, we're in this for awhile, so I think we might as well just try to get more comfortable with it. Yeah, shout out to Amy here is Amy has been teaching online on please any time live once a week and she's been having three or 400 people in some of those. Pretty amazing. It's so amazing. And I cry almost every time at the beginning because it's strange.

I kind of feel this like there they are out there and I know phasing and so, and the first class I did, I, I, I, and it's so different because in the studio when we're filming we can pause at that moment and we do collect ourselves and, but at that moment in my little room there cannot pause and half must collect oneself and not stop crying. But then it's also, that's the real factor of it. And yeah, it talks about community building. You're like just really be show up for yourself. That's right. That's right. And they're popping up from all over the world. So it's like, and I got a note recently where somebody said, Oh my God, I love this because I see all these people from all over the world. You know, it's wonderful. Um, classes are wonderful. Paul says, Jackie, that's right, baby. What about you? Are you teaching online a lot? I am. I've been doing some Facebook live.

I've done some guest appearances at Matt McCullough's studio in New York city. Um, and it's, it's been an interesting process after being on videos, real videos where you actually are supposed to look energetic the entire time even though you've done it 500 times. Um, and then comparing that to this setting where you really are at the mercy of internet connection issues, um, you know, your connection to zoom or whatever platform you're using, um, the, the computer falling or slipping or exactly your cat or your dog coming in. It's, it's just like I said in the comments, we are working so much harder and I think to Amy's point it brings out the emotions because even though we are not physically with these people, we are there spiritually and in mind. And it is, it can be exhausting. Yet it's exhilarating to the point where you just, this is the time for you to be your authentic self, not anybody else. We're not perfect. We are human.

We're going to make mistakes. We're going to have, um, a butt crack showing we're gonna, you know, give a crutch shot every once in a while something's going to slip out that shouldn't, um, whatever. It's just, it's, it's gonna happen and that's who we are. And I think that there is a lot of connection there with people because they recognize that, Hey, that's what we love about this person. This is why we are taking their class online because we love their personality. We like that they are our authentic and even here in this venue, no makeup or you know, limit to make up, you know, at home in your space and falling off of equipment or whatever you know, might happen. These things will happen and it's okay. It's perfectly okay. Great. Great Porsche.

It's so great that you popped in because I think the more people can hear from, you know, really solid pros, all of us, you know, we've all been teaching for a long time and it's still like, Oh, okay, that's awkward, you know, and that's the beauty of the community. Um, yeah. Awesome. So thank you both for joining us here. So I have a question for the three of you before we wrap up here. Is there one thing, I have two questions, so we're going to do quick answers here. Please. One thing that, um, you've really enjoyed about the quarantine so far. We'll start with Karen. Um, one thing I've really enjoyed about the quarantine so far.

Mmm [inaudible] yeah, I've enjoyed teaching these, my community online four times a week. Um, and seeing my, and teaching a lot of privates to international students and national students who I don't usually get to see. It's, it's been unbelievable. I mean, many of them are here right now, um, too. I didn't realize I could connect to those students like that now. I'm like, shit, my schedules were so hot. Cool. Amy. Um, wait, I have a lot of things. I think, uh, definitely the life for PA in my home, um, being myself here and it's just, it's a different way to do it. But showing up that way is, is really thrilling. But studio related, because I have a studio too that I'm trying to keep alive and um, creative but seeing people in, cause I'm only doing three classes for my studio, but those are big classes for my studio and the people that are showing up have surprised me also. And I'm getting people from other places too that aren't local studio people. So that's always fun. And look at my attendance sheet. I'm like, Oh my gosh, so and so's in my class. It's like, you know, but um, yeah, I think just rising to the occasion, rising to the occasion and just being, being in the now for me it's been, uh, a journey into educating myself.

I've been taking some online courses and being able to enjoy other people's classes that I would have never had the opportunity in the last 30 years to do. And now I'm currently getting time to do that. So that's, I would say that's true for me. I'm taking classes from people all over and I'm like, you know, it's really great. Yeah. Upskilling. Ooh, right. Final, final round here and then we'll wrap up and I'm sorry, we're going a couple of minutes. So final piece of advice, Kara. Okay.

Um, yeah, find a piece of advice. Um, yeah, come on. Let's believe in ourselves that what we're giving is, is super important right now. Um, it's, it's worth, it's worth everything. People pay for it. It's you, you can do it. You're good at it, you'll get better at it. Um, but like Porsche said, this is a, I feel like we can really help people right now. It with fear, with pain, with anxiety, with, with sleep, with everything, by moving. And so, um, I just want to say yes, you can. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. In case you were thinking you can't, Amy.

I agree. I agree. I think this is a great time for us to remember that we, we are, we are healthcare practitioners. We are healthcare professionals and that healthcare is a big umbrella. But, um, movement as medicine. I think we all know that. And sometimes small movement is the medicines. Powerful movement is the medicine. It's just to keep moving. This is a time where I think the, the shut in, even just the word you're shut in.

We're not let that happen. It's just up to us to say, actually no, and I spoke to that one of my classes a few weeks ago. It's like, no, I'm not shut in. I'm, I'm expanding out. So I think that's what we get to do. Yeah. Porsche. Um, I would say that the biggest piece of advice I have is to listen to where you are at that moment. Be really present because some days are gonna be really good and other days are going to be really crappy and understanding that it's okay to be anywhere within that range from second to second day to day, week to week, month to month, and honor that. So if you're not quite comfortable to teach online, wait, not observe more joining when you can. If you are, just go for it. Do it and make changes based on what happens or doesn't happen.

So. Great. Thank you. So I'm a couple of minutes over. I'm sorry about that everybody, but thank you so much, Kara. Amy and Porsche. This wasn't rehearsed, but thanks for popping in with us. I'm glad you had your pants on. See Sharon, I got to finish with a quote from Dolly Dolly's written here. Earth is healing and people are actually connecting throughout the world. Totally agreed Dolly. I think that there's a lot of sadness in this pandemic, but there's also some amazing things that are happening. Thank you everybody.