How our Pilates + Yoga Centre Survived Covid

New Dawn Pilates and Yoga Centre’s story of survival during the Covid-19 pandemic …

New Dawn (ND) was founded in August 2018 providing Pilates & Yoga classes to the Redlands.

A New Era for our Pilates & Yoga Centre

In January 2020 we moved into new premises in Cleveland, I was so proud of this fantastic studio I had dreamt of occupying for so long! I purchased new equipment and brought our fantastic ND community of instructors and clients with us. This was the Dawn of a New Era! 2020 was going to be our year …

March 2020 the unthinkable happened, Covid-19 hit, I was having to close the doors to our pilates and yoga centre! Panic struck me, this was my new found family and passion, I suddenly realised that I needed my ND family as much as they needed me!!!

We closed the doors, we prepared to stop classes when suddenly an inner strength came through. I dug deep and remembered that inner message of “Just keep going and believe”. Eleven years ago my husband and father of my 3 children was killed due to manslaughter, that was an extremely difficult time and I learnt to survive these difficult times and I knew I could do it again. 

That was it I wasn't going to let this pandemic get the better of ND and we owed it to our community to “just keep going”.

Taking Our Sessions Online

And so New Dawn Pilates & Yoga Centre went virtual. ND Zoom was born, many challenges, successes, tears and laughter this experience challenged us all from confidence crises to technology challenges but we pulled together and dealt with the issues in hand and made it happen.  

I continued to employ my instructors to teach via zoom as this was about us all and not just me, we are a team and pulled together for New Dawn community. 

Driving down empty roads to an empty studio was like an apocalypse had happened, it was eerily quiet and teaching to our lovely ladies at home was extremely strange. However strange this experience was it was also extremely rewarding to realise that we were supporting our ND ladies to keep looking after themselves physically and mentally from the comfort and safety of their homes gave me so much pride.

I recall as instructors we all struggled with confidence crises and stress and we would often cry and rely on each other to get through this together but I also believe we all found an inner strength and grew internally as a result of this experience. 

Life after Lockdown 

We adapted through the difficult times and quaprupled the membership of our pilates and yoga centre post-covid lockdown, despite the implementation of subsequent regulations put in place to stop the virus spreading.

Just like pilates, we too have learnt how to manage flexibly in a changing world and have recently opened studio #2. 

Dawn x