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Second Lockdown November - December 2020

Sports classes have been closed since 26th October in Belgium and the past month has been tough. I haven't felt like blogging and to be fair I probably haven't had time to focus on expressing my feelings regarding the current situation. I'm someone who always looks for the positive; my theory is that events are always leading me to where I should be and I try to look for opportunities along the journey to benefit from my experiences. The last lockdown was long and full of disappointments, for example cancellation of competitions, which were to be my focal point of 2020, however if it were not for these roadblocks I would not have launched Momentum Pole Sport this year.

This time, it is the cancellation of my classes at Momentum at the source of my concern. I initially hoped to reschedule the classes and in the meantime I launched online videos and challenges to keep my students interested and motivated. I feel like a community was created during the two months that I was able to hold classes since my launch and my worry is for how long the connection will last while lockdown continues. The current measures are officially in place until the 13th December, however nothing guarantees that they will be lifted on that date. France, for example, announced yesterday that sports clubs will be allowed to reopen on 20th January, so Belgium could easily follow suit. My initial optimism is turning into pragmatism and I am preparing my plan B.

Mentally (not to mention financially), it is tough to be home and to be prevented from exercing my professional activity and I have tried my best to keep busy so as not to waste the time. I have offered a light schedule of online lessons during the past month, while I was still hoping that the majority of my face to face lessons could be rescheduled. I decided to spend some lockdown time working on my own training and competitions, along with some other professional and personal projects that require my attention. However with the growing realisation that we may be in this for longer than planned, I am extending my online lesson schedule and am offering these classes as a replacement for studio lessons to my Momentum students as from next week. Having sent round a questionnaire to my students, I am feeling extremely reassured to discover that many of them are happy to accept the offer to continue online and I am grateful for their confidence in me. I am very much looking forward to (virtually) seeing them again as soon as next week!

On a personal note, we are sad that we will not be able to visit our family for Christmas this year. We are grateful though to be together: my husband, daughter and myself, and in good health. Since we will not be travelling, we have decided to adopt a cat, who we will pick up tomorrow. So now, we are looking forward to some cosy and festive time at home.

Who could have predicted the events of this year!? It would have sounded like Science Fiction just 12 months ago. I hope that next year, our projects will evolve and that I will have lots of happy announcements to post here.

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