Lockdown 2.0
After a bit of break from teaching the world was looking like it was opening back up again. So I decided to create an option where people could come and dance with me in real life, in a real studio, can you imagine! I rented a studio in Dublin City Centre in Temple Bar called Temple Lane studios. Somewhere I thought would be accessible for people from all over Dublin, I would also live stream the class on Zoom for people who either didn’t live in Dublin/Ireland or for those who just didn’t feel comfortable being around others in a sweaty workout environment. Although it was an absolute joy to teach a physical class again and I’ll be very grateful to Miss Gemma Kane, Kate Gilmore and of course my mum for coming in and supporting me, it quickly became clear that this little dream was going to be short lived as we were going back into another lockdown.
I have to say I love teaching online to so many people but it’s tough feeling like sometimes you’re just dancing with yourself and encouraging a screen. That’s why I love and really appreciate when people leave their camera on during the dance class (It’s absolutely not mandatory but it definitely helps for me to feed off your energy and to feel like I’m doing something right when I see people smiling or getting the moves right!) So we went back to just online classes but more opportunities started to roll in. The Women’s Irish Network in London (WIN) asked if I would write a blog about how to keep fit & healthy during the lockdown and to teach a class for their members which I was only too delighted to do. WIN are a fantastic organisation in London that I loved being involved in. Getting to meet Irish woman (1st, 2nd or even 3rd generation Irish) in London was such a joy, to have a community and to remember that you’re not that far away from home, even though sometimes it felt like it.
I wanted to keep growing and make NB Dance Fitness more professional so I thought I should get away from Paypal and put my classes on a booking & streaming platform. I remember being in London and using an app called Mindbody which helped me book classes all around the city at a click of a button, it seemed super easy (for the customer) but I didn’t think it would be as hard as it has been to use as the supplier! I don’t know if the booking is as easy for people as I thought it would be and I personally struggle with the streaming side of things (hence why I’m still using Zoom) but I have to say the ‘On Demand’ option has been a fantastic addition to NB Dance Fitness. I’m currently locked into a contract for a year but I guess that’s what happens when you start your own business, you make mistakes and you learn and grown from them, hopefully in the future I can create this website into a one stop shop, bookings, purchases etc. #goals
Alongside teaching some fabulous ladies in London online with ‘The Body People’ on Saturday mornings I now started teaching for older ladies with ‘FitBug’ in Junction 6, Dublin 15. Every Wednesday I would (physically!!) go and teach a socially distanced class either in studio or out in the carpark. Yup you read that correctly, IN THE CARPARK. These ladies showed up every Wednesday without fail, sun shinning or rain falling, they were there and it’s such a joy.
I then got asked to come on to the radio show Quarantine FM for a chat about all things NB Dance Fitness with the lovely Heather Lawrie. It was so nice to chat at length about why I set it up and why I feel like it’s important. We also took a trip down memory lane chatting about some of my credits and dancing credits which is always a nice thing to do, especially when those memories feel so far away right now!
NB x