m13-dawnspindler

[m13-dawnspindler]

Wrapping up my time at Hot Yoga Hellerup.

On Friday, I will finish my internship. It has been an exciting and learning experience.

When one walks into the studio it has the atmosphere of serenity and relaxation. This is despite the actual Bikram class is very physically demanding and strenuous for the people practicing.

What I found out being “behind the scenes” is that it can be rather hectic and even stressful at times and it is like having a baby that you have to take care of all the time. There is no slacking there.

Over the period I was there, there was an anniversary celebrated, addition of a couple of types of new classes and the return of people after summer holidays. It is a dynamic place.

There was also a couple of fire alarms that went off that required the building to be evacuated,  bad cleaning by hired a cleaning company that needed to be sorted out, stock replacement that was changed out and the ever constant ventilation issues that needed to be attended to by several phone calls a day. I observed how Mette juggled the different balls in the air and still maintained her cool – perhaps the yoga keeps her grounded?

Also during my internship, I interviewed a few male teachers and Mette to further investigate their experience of men and yoga. The data collected will be used towards our thesis. I found them very interesting not only about their views about men and yoga, but also their own personal yoga journey.

I want to thank Molly for inviting me to be a part of Hot Yoga Hellerup and Mette, my internship host for letting me be a part of the team.

Now it is time to start working on our thesis!

[m13-dawnspindler]

Is yoga a women’s sport?

This is not sensational or anything new, but an observation at the studio (like others) is the very low attendance of men contra women. Even the men’s changing room is ¼ the size of the women’s and once a woman asked if she could use the men’s showers as there was a long line in the women’s and not a man was in sight – so why not use their facilities? So what is going on? Is yoga only for the flexible and thin woman? Or for the unmasculine man?

Sexual stigmatization of yoga is nothing new and everyone probably has a stereotype of what type of person practices yoga. However there are of course all types of men in the studio and even male teachers and it would be interesting to understand WHY these men go to yoga. Everyone can benefit from yoga and sometimes a man with a certain health status REALLY could improve their health with yoga, so what’s stopping them?

Molly and I want to investigate the reasons for why men do or do not practice yoga. A preliminary research question is:

What are the barriers and motivators for men to practice yoga?

To further investigate this we want to make qualitative interviews with a few males teachers, a female teacher and a male student from within Hot Yoga Hellerup. After the analysis of the interviews a survey will be created for all students and surveyed from other studios as well as Hot Yoga Hellerup. Hopefully this will give a clearer insight of what is going on and give insight to help a yoga business attract more men.

[m13-dawnspindler]

Frustration

This post is not about finding my internship frustrating, or the usual I think blogging my internship to be xyz,  but rather finding Tumblr to be frustrating. I found that opening a secondary blog (the M13) to my primary blog (the M7) was not such a good idea. The problem is that the primary blog in my case my M7-dawnspindler is the only one that can comment on other blogs, reblog other people’s posts and all of the other fun functions that are available to interact with other bloggers. I recently realized that during my M13 internship all of this interaction can only be done by my M7 account. I have search the net to resolve the problem, followed instructions on YouTube and still cannot change my M13 to be my primary blog. So even though it might appear that I am not socializing with my fellow students on my M13 account, it will be seen that I am very active on my M7. I’ve just accepted this frustration as much as I have accepted the current POTUS.

[m13-dawnspindler]

A little experiment in marketing or rather telemarketing.

Before the summer holiday Molly and I had a brilliant idea. Mette who previously worked in the corporate world remembers back when life was stressful. Now as a yoga studio owner she would of course like to reach out to others that have not found the relaxing effects of yoga. A newer class she has recently started is Yoga Nidra. 

Yoga Nidra is a guided meditation that helps one relax so much that after a 20 minute session you feel as though you have slept 8 hours and your stress levels decrease, you are more productive the rest of your day and you feel fantastic. 

Who would not love to offer their employees this chance to recharge? Especially if they didn’t have to leave the work place? The idea was that Molly and I would contact potential business, come out to them and set up a trial service that would suit the business and employees.

So after gathering information on local businesses in Hellerup, we had a list potential “clients” we would contact. The phone calls were like this:

Me:

“Hi, this is Dawn and I am calling from Hot Yoga Hellerup. Can I talk to someone from your HR department?”

Them:

Then some talking back and forth, but not really ever getting the word in about Yoga Nidra and reducing stress.  Some said we already similar services, send me an email instead, we don’t have the resources for this, but the most common responds was. “We are too busy at the moment to consider anything right now, please contact us later – like in the fall”.

This of course was frustrating and also demotivating. The only thing I could do was laugh at this ironic situation, we are offering something that we feel will reduce their stress and they use their stress as an excuse not to hear.  

After a few calls I asked the receptionist to be forwarded to their HR department or someone that is in charge of the employees wellness and she brighten up and said, oh please I do hope that you can figure out something, it is much needed here.

This reminds me about health communication and what we have learned in our GNH studies. An ongoing issue with being a GNH’er is how we deliver our health promoting messages to the public so that they will stop up and hear us?

 An obvious situation is to not just go in cold and drop it, somehow you have to warm up to them. Perhaps reach out to the ones that have some interest. A bottom up approach, rather than top down (yeah that is a reoccurring theme) works best.

For example the receptionist, perhaps we could approach her with a prospect and then she goes to the HR department with a request and then interest from the HR department would blossom from there.

Anyhow, the marketing exercise was interesting to try. Back to the drawing board with that type of marketing. 

[m13-dawnspindler]

Will be back in mid August :-)

[m13-dawnspindler]

Festive days!

Here are some photos from the Hot Yoga Hellerup 4th anniversary. 

Here is Mette :-)

Line from Læsk (brewer of Kombucha).

Rachhpal and Sandy a couple instructors.

Juice samples.

Frankly Juice with Christain (founder of Frankly Juice).

Full house.

[m13-dawnspindler]

The first couple of weeks....

I was introduced to the ins and outs of the duties required while working at the reception and I believe I met all of the teachers, if not most.

I also was encouraged to try a yoga class or two. I have little experience with yoga and always have found it relaxing. I find the concept of Hot Yoga interesting with the heat and was excited to try. It really is an experience worth trying. The heat did not bother me, it is rather welcoming on a rainy or chilly day where your body gets warmed up (sweaty hot) to the bone. 

I also tried Yin Yoga, actually a couple of times after doing Hot Yoga and found it very relaxing and actually dozed off in a few positions. It really is a nice combo to do both back to back. 

The main task of the first couple of weeks was to help in the preparation of the 4th year anniversary event of the studio. This included posting on Facebook and passing out flyers, as well as contacting a kombucha vender to demostrate her drinks on the anniversary event.

Other tasks Molly and I concentraed on were planning of how, what and when we will do during our internship to achieve our learning objectives. One task we are starting out to do is collecting contact information on the existing businesses that are in the vicinity of Hot Yoga Hellerup. The purpose is to propose some type of introduction yoga deal to these businesses.

We also have decided for our thesis is to investigate what are the motivators and barriers for men to practice yoga or not. As it observed that women are the primary students in the studio.

[m13-dawnspindler]

Internship learning objectives...

My internship consists of four main learning objectives they are the following:

I: To learn how to develop a social media campaign on Facebook and relivant outlets.

II: Develop a seminar/workshop formate that is desirable and impactful within a Copenahgen business.

III: To be  able to market wellness retreats; gain knowledge and know-how on the overall task of putting together and leading a wellness retreat.

IV: Gain understanding of the overall responsibilities of running a wellness business.

Another objective during this internship is to gather data that will be used for our BA Thesis. Molly and I will be writing our thesis together and the subject will include yoga in relation to something, we have yet to decide, but have some ideas out there.

[m13-dawnspindler]

The beginning....

Monday the 22nd of May, Molly and I started our internship at Hot Yoga Hellerup. We were welcomed by the owner Mette. She is an inviting and relaxed person who invites all with a smile. 

The studio itself is calm and soothing and it has a spa feel to it. The teachers and students are so friendly and welcoming. The studio is like an oasis from daily stresses and worries, a place to come to calm your mind and reconnect to your body.

[m13-dawnspindler]

Me, myself and I ........ and Molly

Hi all!

Well, here is to the second and last internship within my studies of Global Nutrition and Health. I will be interning at Hot Yoga Hellerup, with my fellow classmate Molly. 

I was lucky to be approached by Molly about interning at her place of work, (she’s one good yoga teacher) as I would like to obtain experience working in a business related to fitness and learn the ins and outs of running one.

In this internship, I hope to gain marketing and promotion experience. We also hope that we will be able to plan and hold a workshop with a mix of Molly’s yoga and my reflexology background, as well as our knowledge from school.

I’m certainly looking forward to my 12 week internship at Hot Yoga Hellerup - it’s going to be HOT!