LIVING THE i LIFE: ‘There is a learning curve to teaching yoga online'

In the beginning, it was nice to stay back home and relax. But when the lockdown was extended, things got difficult as I could not go to the studio and so income was cut off. That scared me. It was difficult for me to wrap my head around the new situation. I was looking to open another yoga studio, but that’s not possible because we can’t gather. Staying at home is nice, but there’s also housework to take care of on top of other things. It took me a few weeks to settle down. I love to teach. I started a Facebook live, twice a day, which was free of cost and people attended from all over the world. That was fine until the lockdown was extended. I realised that I needed to get paid. It was a delicate question of whether I could charge when everyone is going through financial issues. So I decided to do live classes once a week, and then offer a 10-day online yoga class on Zoom for a charge. I felt a little hypocritical. Later I realised that it’s just me trying to fend for myself and feed myself. Suddenly my Zoom classes became popular. People asked for beginner, intermediate and advanced classes, and personal classes. Now I have an online community. There are people from Germany, Bahrain, Coimbatore and Chennai. The classes became an honest space where we shared our days and spoke about our concerns. They come on a few minutes earlier and stayed for a few minutes after the class just to talk to each other. I think that’s important, too, -- building a community and creating a healthy space. It’s been incredible. It’s my three hours of sanity and feel like we can connect. As a teacher, it was a learning curve for me as well. The first two classes were me realising I can’t touch them to fix their postures. I also played music, but sometimes people can’t hear me online. It was me relearning how to run a class without being next to the person, keep them interested and engaged and learning and interested to learn. I broke down after my second lesson, afraid I was messing up. Luckily my students were really patient. The breakthrough was someone crying out of gratitude at the end and saying that they’re grateful that I held the class. That’s something you’d see in person, and the fact that it was reproduced online is incredible.