Owning The Virtual Room

I was having a coaching call recently with one of the graduates from the Kinexology Method What You Say Matters course, and she shared something very interesting with me. We were talking about transitioning to a virtual platform and how it has been difficult for her to feel that she is “owning the space.” It made me pause to consider, “What makes us feel confident in real life that we own our space more than in a virtual setting?” We dove into the topic, and some wonderful gems came out of the conversation that I want to share with the Pilates community.

Build Value into Every Session

Building value into every virtual Pilates session is imperative for retaining your studio client base. After a couple of weeks, just doing the classical mat sequence is not going to be enough to keep clients coming twice a week for their sessions. But how can we build value? These are our clients, and we know their downfalls, weaknesses, and challenges. The mat is place where we can attack these areas and help clients improve exercises they are struggling with on the equipment.

Here are three tips for you to implement right now:

Develop an overarching program for your clients that includes a general plan of attack for addressing their weaknesses and challenges. As you look at this plan, think about mat exercises that will help succeed when they return to the studio.

Create a “theme” for each workout. For example, you can choose an exercise that a client is having a hard time with on the reformer, and work in mat exercises that have similar associated skills. This will help your client continue to progress on the reformer once she can come back to this studio. Don’t be afraid to make the connection for the client. This is valuable to a client because they can see a long-term goal and will want to be on that reformer again rocking the exercise.

Give simple, specific corrections. The “script” for a mat class isn’t going to cut it when it comes to building a valuable virtual session. Your verbal cueing can build value in the form of a client’s long-term learning about how to set up, execute, and even self-correct an exercise. When client’s start making their own connections, it reinforces your value as an instructor, so get specific, and give your client clear corrections that they can apply right away. The simpler the better!

Simplify Your Cues

We also discussed how clients who know the mat exercises very well when we see them in our studio somehow struggle to recall the exercises as well during virtual sessions. In part this is because environment plays a huge role in triggering memories. The smell of the studio, the equipment, your facial expressions, and your body language all combine to help a client remember the steps to an exercise. Asking someone to recall detailed information in a new environment can be challenging because they do not have those little triggers. Therefore, my pro tip for you is to give a prompt of EXACTLY what you want the client to do for the exercise each time. This will help keep you both on the same page as well as help trigger memory for the client. And as you give them clear direction, it will help you feel more confident in owning the virtual space.

Humanize the Experience

Lastly we discussed how important it is for us as teachers to humanize the experience as much as possible. Clients can be hesitant about the idea of a virtual session. When we are teaching our clients in the studio there is a sense of comfort conveyed by human touch. We can’t give tactile cues or manual corrections virtually, so how can we make our clients feel comfortable? The clearer we are with our cueing, the more confident our clients will feel, but we need to be encouraging of our clients too, maybe more than we typically would be in a studio session because they can’t easily read our body language or facial expressions. We need to validate, encourage, and support our clients who are trying something new and totally rocking it!

Final Thoughts

If you feel like you are having a difficult time demonstrating value or feeling confident in a virtual setting, just know that you are not alone. I have spoken to many instructors who feel the same way. As a resource, I have created an affordable online workshop called Virtual Virtuoso that provides actionable tips for adapting your script and training your eye so you can customize your online sessions. I am here to support you through all of your teaching endeavors, and want to see us all succeed as an industry.