Nama Stay At Home… With Trinity Yoga & Fitness
We had our finger on the pulse, acted in a moment's decision and successfully transformed our community yoga practices from our beautifully decorated temple like yoga studio to a virtual yoga studio overnight to keep our family of yogis and local business of 17 years healthy and alive.
Sally credits her 20 year mind-body practice and her Bachelors of Science Degree in Health Science with an emphasis in Community Health Education, for helping to keep well informed of the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in our city, state and worldwide. She is grateful to her practice for keeping her flexibly strong enough to analyze, recognize, decide and adaptively act to hoist and transform her members and her business above the frays of the virus. All while trusting in her instincts and intuition and with the fierce protection of the health and safety of her family of compassionate yoga warriors, as a mother would protect all her babies, Sally's mission was to help the community continue their practice of mind body wellness and connection to and growth of self and community in a time most desperately needed.
First in the neighborhood to do so, TY&F acted in a moment’s decision to protect her sacred family of yogis and yogini’s. "I just felt, as we all do, that I have a responsibility to be disciplined to do what it is right, even though it may be hard. I knew that I, as we all do, have a role to play in this pandemic to be responsible to assist the public health and science teams in our community and around the world to mitigate the spread of the virus, to buy time for our heroic health care workers to build up their personal protective equipment for themselves in addition to preparing selflessly and tirelessly for our community’s welfare should any of us become overwhelmed by the virus and need hospitalization.”
Ensuring the Health, Longevity and Safety of our Members... It’s part of our Mission Statement
Four days before the Govenor's stay at home order and in a matter of hours after her last “in person” practice, she had her virtual platform set up and operational with the help of her amazing husband. Working into the wee hours she re-wrote her website to help her students be aware of, understand, navigate and access the new way of continued practice, she sent an email blast to her community yogis to inform them that "Trinity Yoga & Fitness wouldn’t miss a beat or a breath” and the morning’s practice and all other practices would now be held virtually.
She became, overnight, a virtual media, software and hardware trouble shooter, not her strong suit which gave her the compassion to understand and then help “en-courage” her yogis that if she could learn it, they can too. She helped educate her yogis how to operate the virtual platform and personally helped as many yogis that needed it, especially her senior and chair yogis, download, set up, learn, adapt and humorously enjoy a new way of continuing the vital practice of movement meditation and fitness together. A little light hearted humor about any situation helps us all so she decided she’d called it her new NamaStay At Home Virtual Yoga Studio.
While “namastaying" at home, Sally shared with her loyal following that their past years of practice has helped them all build the tools they need within to navigate this pandemic and it’s effects by teaching them discipline, consideration, observation, reflection and assimilation of information and emotions that serve one well and letting go of information and emotion that does not. The practice teaches and helps develop, by way of practice, perseverance, resilience, focus, endurance, especially to stay the course of the stay at home order. With thoughtful consideration, our time on the mat offers us time to practice adaptability to the ever constant evolution of change, connection, compassion and kindness to self and every living being on and off the mat. Yoga practice helps alleviate stress, anxiety and depression, cultivates a positive relationship with self and helps to discover a sense of our Dharma, our life’s purpose. Consistent yoga practice builds up our immune system, deepens our cardio respiratory capacity, builds muscle, core strength, flexibility and endurance of mind and body.
While “Om”-ing at Home, Sally encouraged those in the NamaStay at Home virtual practice room to hold up the medical and all essential workers in our community and to hold up all on this planet in abundant protection, resilience and love. We are all one, we are all made of the same elements as the sun, moon earth, stars and the sea. She says with a laugh, we all have the capacity of being in the place of “too many mind.” We all have the positive mind and the negative mind or can be in a mindset of fear or love. Yoga allows us the opportunity and helps us to practice feeding the Wolf of Courage and tame the Wolf of Fear.
We all need our yoga practice more than ever during this health and subsequent economic uncertainty that we all find ourselves facing, in our own unique way, all at the same time. I am practicing my “yoga” even more deeply at this time by trusting in the process and believing that all will work out as it should regardless of the outcome. I have been facing down the fears of the unknown; observing and processing information; working through acceptance of the reduction in attendance and absence of governmental support, resulting in the potential loss of our studio. I am doing this all while finding my fierce warrior within to keep digging more deeply because I (we) always have more within to meet and overcome any and all challenges with all I (we) have got, while being compassionate and honest with what is real and with myself and my most sacred family of yogis. I’m trying to do it all with grace and trying not to judge myself with any over expectations my ego may try to hold.
Our practices, as they have from the beginning of time, help calm and ease worries, strengthens one's resilience, endurance and discipline. It leads to a recognition of one's inner compass and spirit to exercise the discipline to make a decision with positive results, forgoing the negative ones and to act compassionately. We learn to center and strengthen our mind and physical body helping us to flow into sync with the rhythms of nature and life’s ever evolving changes while in the midst of the challenging tides and seas that come with change. It teaches us to be okay with things not being “as perfect as our ego” may desire but accepting things “as they are now” and that “things are truly ever-evolving; will alway change.” We practice the idea to “just be ok” with right here, right now, no matter what. While we are in the here, right now, we have the “go slow opportunity” to deeply observe what is being unveiled and revealed to us and how we can make ourselves better for it all while overcoming the obstacle as water has the ability to flow around and even through rock.
This great pause, has offered us all the opportunity to reflect on our life, our way of living, our behaviors and ways of co-existing with and treating our housemates, our family, friends, our community, and even how we speak to Siri and Alexa. We all have the ability to seize the opportunity to create a great transformation of ourselves, our community and this entire world if we all choose to take it to a positive place. It’s up to you. You are the One, Be the Change You Wish to See In the World.
Despite the AB5 Bill and it’s disruption to the studio, and in the interim of the economic hardship of COVID-19 operating with an increase in expenses in conjunction with a 60% loss in attendance and new clients, with the help of the Trinity Warriors that helped hold the line by continuing their virtual practice, donated to, or supported by other means, Sally was still able to bring back two of the eight wonderful teachers who blessed us with their teaching’s during 2019. Although some may not look with "real eyes" and inadvertently think that 19 classes a week is not enough, and not realize that 209 classes in an 11 week period is entirely too much for one yogini to do on her own, Sally knew she needed help if she was to continue to provide all her classes without any interruption. Without the help of these two wonderful ladies (and their amazing husbands) she wouldn’t be able to keep the current schedule operational. Sally was of the mind and determination to absolutely refuse, especially at a time like this, to temporarily close any classes. “We all need our practice more than ever to keep us grounded and elevated at the same time, to keep us moving, to keep us physically, mentally and emotionally healthy and to keep us physically distant but emotionally and spiritually deeply connected and en-couraged. The strongest wood is made from the tree that faces the heaviest winds. We are facing a storm we never imagined but we will all be stronger and if we responsibly choose to, we will be better for it.”
Sally is grateful to her fellow Yoga Warriors for jumping in to help hold the Trinity line and continue their practice virtually and support the studio in any way they can to ensure it’s longevity as she has committed to help to for them.
Trinity Yoga & Fitness, through their NamaStay at Home Virtual Yoga Studio has enabled our local families and friends to continue to be together in a time of uncertainty, anxiousness, separation and even isolation for some, from different cities, states including Denver, San Francisco and as far away as St. Croix.
We’ll keep trying to be in the moment, we will keep trying to make our current and new members happy, while we and they creatively and respectfully adapt to the changes, in considerations of the restrictions and capacity reductions as deemed in the phased re-opening, while accruing higher costs to ensure health and wellbeing, and we will try to stay afloat. We will see what happens.
We were first in the neighborhood to do so and we may likely continue to offer virtual classes in addition to the phasing in of “ in-person" classes to the Navajo Community. We currently have the gift of yoga family members hailing from San Carlos, Del Cerro, Allied Gardens, La Mesa, Santee, El Cajon, Tierrasanta, and the Mission Hills communities and will continue to keep our members protected and practicing, our seniors moving and engaged with community and us all healthy and happy as our mission statement has always stated.
Now that we are virtual…. we can expand and broaden our reach to allow for the accessibility of our inspirational practices with just a couple of clicks creating in a sense more time in one’s life by foregoing travel time and even hair and make up time.