The Barre Diaries Part 3 – Owning a Barre Studio During a Worldwide Pandemic

Finding our way through Covid-19 was a journey for everyone. Many continue to power through the pandemic.

Photo by Mackenzie Gaultier Photography

The world came to a screaming halt. Stores closed. Streets were empty. Laughter was replaced with tears and stress. What we knew as normal suddenly ceased to exist.

March 20th – the day the Manitoba government declared a state of emergency. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that date now. It’s ingrained in my mind, because it’s when everything changed.

Covid-19 impacted basically everyone in one way or another. Whether it was through contracting the virus, knowing someone with it, the closure of a business, even losing a job entirely; the novel virus of 2020 had an impact that rippled across the entire world.

Myself, and Aura Studio, were no exception.

Covid-19 changed everything, but it forced the fitness industry to basically re-invent itself. Gyms around the world announced they were closing their doors for good. Trainers had to quickly come up with ways to keep their job alive while they could no longer be face-to-face with their clients. Add in the fact that summer tends to be the slower season, it was easy to think that the fitness industry was/is screwed.

Then, Zoom classes started. Trainers video chatted with clients at their house to try and keep them motivated. People did what they could to make the best of the situation (and many did so excellently and gracefully).

It just all happened so quickly.

The Difference in My Story

When Covid-19 began spreading across the country, I was getting ready to fly out across two provinces to visit my husband (he works out of town months at a time). Instead, I packed a larger suitcase, grabbed my pupper and her suitcase (yes, she has her own travel bag), and the two of us began our long journey of almost 14 hours to Edmonton, AB.

I never expected that it would be three months until I made that journey home.

So, here I was, figuring out what to do with barre in a different province. Thankfully, I packed a few work items that I regularly wouldn’t take. However, I still wasn’t prepared for that length of stay (seriously, I only had a few outfits to rotate through).

I spent countless hours talking with my hubby, texting girlfriends panicking about what to do, and even lying awake worrying. Eventually, everyone helped keep me calm enough to come up with a plan to keep moving forward and not let Aura fall behind during the shutdown.

I also watched as other local businesses didn’t just survive during the shutdown, but thrived. It was inspiring and intimidating at the same time. Could I do the same with a fitness business without actually selling anything?

It was challenging trying to determine which path to take. Do I stay quiet until things start to open? Do I join the Zoom craze? How do I still make a living?

As we know now, I went a different route.

Starting My YouTube Channel

April 1st was the very first YouTube video I ever uploaded. As exciting as it was to take on this journey, it still came with anxiety and stress.

I’ll be honest – I was apprehensive that creating this YouTube channel would hurt my physical business. Here I am providing free workouts for anyone and everyone to use. Once classes start up again, why would people start paying when I’m putting out basically the same thing on the internet (although it still doesn’t compare to the in-class experience)?

I can’t put it into words the stress that came from these thoughts.

It didn’t stop there. There was an internal battle that happened prior to April 1st. The other side of that struggle was this: will my business survive going quiet for over three months (and at that time, we didn’t even know when we’d be back in the studio). How could I not provide something for my clients during those months when they’ve supported me this past year?

Obviously, we all know what thought came out on the winning side – starting the YouTube channel needed to happen.

After the first couple of videos, I started to feel more confident.

YouTube is challenging to maneuver. Trying to grow the channel from scratch while recording workouts from your phone; that was its own journey. After a few months of being live, though, we hit 100 subscribers and continue moving forward!

I Trained, and I Trained Hard

During all the downtime, I knew that if I didn’t keep myself busy and doing something, it would be so hard to recover when I could go home. So, I took the opportunity to further my training, and oh boy, did I ever.

I had many motivating factors that drove me to take on additional training. To start, I just needed to keep busy because, well, Netflix.

Next, I still felt like I wasn’t fully prepared to be instructing, even though I had two legitimate barre certifications (one of them being very extensive). I wanted to give my clients something more. To me, there was still something missing education-wise.

So, I took on additional courses and certifications from companies I’ve followed on social media for quite some time. I added Barre Intensity and Barre Above to my resume, a second pre/postnatal barre training to what I already had, and finally went through a more cardio-based training.

I look back at all of that and sometimes think that maybe it was a bit overboard. However, I knew that each course and certification I took, there was a piece of my puzzle fitting into place to complete the picture.

Lastly, because I started my YouTube channel and knowing there are online programs out there, I felt like I needed to compete. What could I offer that was different from those programs, my YouTube channel, and others that would bring people to my studio rather than in front of their TV? My answer – more training to further my knowledge, further my experience, and boost my client’s confidence in my instructing.

What I’m saying is, you’ll have to come to class to see 😊

In the End, Aura Studio Survived

When the announcement came that gyms and fitness spaces could start to open, I was thrilled! That excitement soon turned into being scared and nervous, though. That meant I was heading back home away from my husband and learning how to run barre in this new world.

Do I stay? Or, do I finally head home?

I didn’t leave right away. I stayed a bit longer in Alberta before finally heading home (also, because at that time, Manitoba still had the travel quarantine that I was not looking forward to).

Here we are. Four months later and we’re back at the studio. Classes may be smaller, but the atmosphere and intensity remain untouched (if anything, it’s higher).

Yeah, maybe some of my thoughts and feelings weren’t rational. However, they drove me like crazy to do the best I could to keep my studio from drowning.

We may be in our slow season now (I don’t blame people for wanting to take their workouts outside), but that isn’t stopping me from bringing Aura Studio into the community spotlight.

Aura Studio was growing before Covid-19; we can grow again.