A statement of Natascha Eyber, director of BASI Scandinavia about a BASI education in COVID 19 times
About a year ago, when this terrible pandemic started to spread over the world I was, as most other people, deeply concerned. First and foremost about everyones health and what this will do to our world but also about the impact on our running Pilates Teacher Training Courses. Our students got hit by the lockdown in the middle of their education, the studios were closed and for a moment it seemed that our business came to a complete stillstand.
A year later I am grateful to say that yes, the crisis hit us badly but at the same time new opportunities and perspectives opened up. To keep the courses running and give our students the possibility to continue with their studies we went online via videoconferencing (interactive) and discovered that a lot of the material could already be transmitted. However, we at BASI don’t believe that Pilates can just be taught online. Contact hours are invaluable in our profession. A Pilates education without contact hours is in my opinion the same like learning to become a massage therapist from a book!
We decided to give the students the benefit to get all academic study hours which they have done online and which are about practice and pedagogics one more time as in studio presence hours once this was allowed and safe to do so. The outcome was incredible because they had the possibility to go deeper and consolidate what they already learned.
The possibility of online access to live classes for practice and observation completed the picture and allowed people who live further away from the course location to participate on the high qualified classes offered at our host studios.
After the first lockdown was over all studio owners I am in touch with experienced an increased demand on people wanting to do Pilates and I firmly believe that this will be happening again. Pilates instructors will be needed. Safe and healthy movement in an individual environment with high qualified teachers has a future!
Natascha Eyber