May 2020: Last year I did a blog about running a NASS group for 20 years. At that point I thought our group had tried a good variety of different exercises, mat work, Pilates, Nordic working, even rounders to name a few. However, recent weeks have seen such dramatic changes to our way of life, that I would never have predicted our sessions would have gone virtual.
When NASS advised group sessions to stop on 16th March, I emailed the group links to the NASS YouTube clips, ‘Back to Action’ and any other appropriate exercise. However, this didn’t really seem enough. Not being a natural ‘techi’ I was trying to work out if I could email video clips of myself doing exercises, when one of our group said his daughter had been doing dance lessons via Zoom (Yorkshire Rose Academy of Dance) and could we use it for our sessions. The rest of the group were really keen to try and we did our first session on 7th April. It has been lovely to keep in touch with the members and see that everyone is managing ok. Most of the members are self-isolating and have found keeping in touch with each other really helpful. We have kept the day and time the same as our normal sessions to try to keep some normality at this strange time.
Some quotes from our members:
‘really good to be part of the group again. Look forward to it each week. Something to focus on as well as a good reminder to keep up the exercises’
‘I’m very happy to do Zoom, it keeps us together as a group and focused. Just have to manage the technology’
‘the 2 things no pre-recorded can replicate. They provide personalised, appropriate exercise from physios who knew us all as individuals. And they enable a degree of mutual interaction which has never been more important in terms of maintaining morale’
‘Really good to keep in touch with the group during lock-down and still benefit from exercising together’
I would recommend if you run a NASS group to suggest virtual sessions to your members. It is easy to download the App and set up a meeting. Members can be easily talked through how to do it and don’t need to be technically minded. It allows members to keep in touch and exercise which is so valuable at this most unusual of times.
Heather