Modo Yoga Responds to Covid
In this unprecedented crisis, we have to find a way for our profound anxiety and sadness to co-exist with gratitude and hope. For me, the story of how my yoga studio, Modo Yoga NYC, rose to the challenges of Covid-19 is so uplifting, I’ve been inspired to share it far and wide.
I found Modo Yoga four years ago and immediately realized I had found my yoga home. It’s hot yoga but not too hot. The teachers are knowledgeable and the staff makes me feel welcome; the community vibe is real, low-key and kind. Modo also is a forgiving space: I have never felt ‘less than yogi’ because I can’t perform a headstand or straighten my leg perfectly in a standing pose.
The Modo NYC franchise (one of 70 Modo franchises worldwide) has two studios, one in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn, and pre-Covid it was servicing about 800 people daily. Modo NYC has three owners, Guillaume Brun, Sarah Neufeld and Rebecca Foon. Sarah and Rebecca are childhood friends and professional musicians who perform together internationally, while Guillaume has a background in business. Together they have managed Modo NYC’s growth and the challenges that come with building a business — everything from payroll and benefits to handling city permitting and fire department violations. But nothing prepared them for Covid-19. “What we have lived through, and continue to live through, is nothing that we had ever considered,” said Sarah.
There are three key pivot points in the Modo NYC story — decisions that both impressed and instructed me because they were made with such heart and soul. Sarah sat down to talk with me last week about the moves Modo NYC made to take the business in an unexpected direction.
Step 1: Shutting down the studios
Discussions started on March 11th, and, less than 48 hours later, Modo NYC closed both locations on Friday the 13th, well before the government mandate to shut down came into effect. Sarah knew they were headed into a serious situation but hadn’t realized how quickly they would make the decision to shut down. She continued, “The LA and NYC franchises banded together to take this enormous decision so quickly to be responsive to the health risks for everyone — members, staff and teachers. We were the first yoga studio in NYC to close that I know of. After announcing the closure, we asked ourselves, ‘what have we done?’ But we felt good about our decision, even though we were scared thinking about our two empty studios and our staff of over 40.“
Step 2: Live on Instagram
While the studios were preparing to shut down, Modo NYC was developing a free (donations encouraged) online yoga offering of five yoga classes and two meditations daily. It also froze all the monthly passes, meaning its main source of income was suspended. Remarkably, they were live on Instagram Saturday morning, March 14th, about 36 hours after holding their last live class.
The owners couldn’t have predicted the enormity of the support. According to Sarah, “The entire community rallied around us as we offered them a way to stay grounded, connected and physically active. The appreciation for what we were doing was massive.” Modo NYC has always been very ‘do it yourself’ with its marketing. They had 5,800 followers when it moved to Instagram classes and the number has been on the rise since, recently surpassing 28K. “That was all due to our community sharing the link to our live classes,” said Sarah. Modo NYC has held online classes with over 400 people signing in from Brooklyn to Rio. And yes, the influencers definitely helped. When an Emmy awarding winning actress and Modo NYC student shared an Instagram story of her doing a Modo NYC class in her living room, their Instagram followers surged.
Part of Modo NYC’s online appeal has been its beloved teachers leading the classes from their homes. “There’s something wonderful and endearing about being in your teacher’s home,” said Sarah, “it’s so nurturing.“ For me, as a community member, I find it hard to explain how grounding and reassuring it’s been to have Modo NYC continue online with its familiar yoga routines led by teachers I know and love. The continuity helped ground me when everything felt so chaotic and beyond my control.
Modo NYC has remained committed to its more than 40 staff members, too. “The minute we closed our studios, we promised our staff that we’d keep them on payroll at the same hours for the following two weeks. We kept stressing that we are in this together and we are going to get through it. Our priority now is to figure out how to keep as many people employed as possible,” said Sarah.
Step 3: Staying online going forward
The owners’ third pivot was to normalize and optimize the online classes and reinstate the membership packages that they had frozen 2 weeks earlier. They also had to ‘right-size’ the instruction team to teach 100 classes per week: 30 on Instagram (pay by donation) and 70 on the new platform. “We had to figure out the best platform, and we cobbled it together successfully! The other piece that kept me up at night was my nervousness about reinstating the memberships because I think a lot about customer service and value. It required a leap of faith and we were clear that if it didn’t work for a member, no questions asked, we’d extend the freeze”, Sarah recounted.“The needs of our community and staff are paramount right now.,” said Sarah.
To her relief, almost all of the community’s reactions were understanding and cooperative. With responses like ‘Great to see a full Modo schedule available online, go Modo!’ and ‘I’m a New York City nurse and having a hard time, this yoga is a source of calm to help me get through the stress, thank you!’ people were definitely appreciative. “That aspect of technology is working for us in this time of isolation and extreme circumstances.”
Sarah continued, “Our teachers have been amazing. They were so brave to go online! Valerie Verdier, our director of teaching, filmed herself leading an online class and shared it with the other instructors and gave them pointers and guidelines. And our social media and community manager, Sarah Metcalf, started just two weeks before we shut down! She has been running and managing the online efforts, troubleshooting and supporting the teachers tirelessly. Everyone has done it all with such heart and grace. Their generosity of spirit has buoyed me up during this ordeal.”
When the world seemed to be falling apart, Modo NYC met its followers online with comfort and ritual, and continues to serve as a haven of stability. Modo NYC has provided me and countless others with a base from which to launch every day and engage with this crisis, while also managing to both nurture and expand its community. Not an easy task, but Modo NYC and its owners, teachers and staff have proven themselves up to the challenge.