Remove Mask Mandate from Yoga Mat
The Issue
Hello -
Many of you know that I own Saybrook Soul Sweat in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Our studio, which was thriving and growing prior to COVID-19, has been severely affected by the pandemic, as most small businesses are. We have done our very best to provide a safe environment to practice yoga in. We have cut our capacity down from 60 students to 17, to honor social distancing. We have built a virtual studio, offering our full schedule to students over Zoom. We have a rigorous cleaning routine, sanitizing before and after every class. We require our teachers who travel outside of CT to provide a negative COVID before returning. We temperature check every single student before class. We require masks when entering and exiting and at all other times aside from when on your socially distanced mat. We are voluntarily closing for Thanksgiving weekend, even though we need the business, to honor travel and large gathering restrictions.
Because of our safety protocols, we have successfully hosted over 5000 students between June 17th and today, without a single Covid exposure.
We are not alone in this. As yoga studio owners, we know many who are in the studio day in and day out, keeping their students safe. However, the recent mask mandate to enforce masks on the mat during class is not only unnecessary, it is unethical. Yoga is about breathing, which the masks restricts. Making students wear masks while practicing will cause more problems than solutions.
A yoga studio is not a gym. We don’t share equipment. We maintain 6 feet of space. We are completely safe without making students wear masks to practice, as the numbers will show. We should be treated as a yoga studio, with our own set of guidelines, instead of putting us all in one category. The people who are currently deciding what is safe and not safe have never been in our yoga studio and experienced it. These are uninformed precedents that should be removed.
We are NOT anti - mask. We wear, and require to be worn, masks anytime class is not in session. Some of our students even choose to wear a mask, and we fully support them. We are against FORCING students to wear a mask when they don't feel safe doing so, since over the past 5 months we have proven we are safe without doing so.
If you are a yoga studio owner, teacher, or student who feels it is safer to practice without a mask, please SIGN & SHARE. The only way to create the change we need to see to survive is to ban together and speak up.
Thank you for your support.
Respectfully,
Courtney Brooks
Saybrook Soul Sweat, Owner
The Issue
Hello -
Many of you know that I own Saybrook Soul Sweat in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Our studio, which was thriving and growing prior to COVID-19, has been severely affected by the pandemic, as most small businesses are. We have done our very best to provide a safe environment to practice yoga in. We have cut our capacity down from 60 students to 17, to honor social distancing. We have built a virtual studio, offering our full schedule to students over Zoom. We have a rigorous cleaning routine, sanitizing before and after every class. We require our teachers who travel outside of CT to provide a negative COVID before returning. We temperature check every single student before class. We require masks when entering and exiting and at all other times aside from when on your socially distanced mat. We are voluntarily closing for Thanksgiving weekend, even though we need the business, to honor travel and large gathering restrictions.
Because of our safety protocols, we have successfully hosted over 5000 students between June 17th and today, without a single Covid exposure.
We are not alone in this. As yoga studio owners, we know many who are in the studio day in and day out, keeping their students safe. However, the recent mask mandate to enforce masks on the mat during class is not only unnecessary, it is unethical. Yoga is about breathing, which the masks restricts. Making students wear masks while practicing will cause more problems than solutions.
A yoga studio is not a gym. We don’t share equipment. We maintain 6 feet of space. We are completely safe without making students wear masks to practice, as the numbers will show. We should be treated as a yoga studio, with our own set of guidelines, instead of putting us all in one category. The people who are currently deciding what is safe and not safe have never been in our yoga studio and experienced it. These are uninformed precedents that should be removed.
We are NOT anti - mask. We wear, and require to be worn, masks anytime class is not in session. Some of our students even choose to wear a mask, and we fully support them. We are against FORCING students to wear a mask when they don't feel safe doing so, since over the past 5 months we have proven we are safe without doing so.
If you are a yoga studio owner, teacher, or student who feels it is safer to practice without a mask, please SIGN & SHARE. The only way to create the change we need to see to survive is to ban together and speak up.
Thank you for your support.
Respectfully,
Courtney Brooks
Saybrook Soul Sweat, Owner
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on November 23, 2020