THE Caribbean School of Dancing’s (CSD) principal Bridgette Wilson saw an increasing number of its students who were “just beyond stressed” even before the covid19 pandemic hit.
The lockdowns and restrictions Trinidad and Tobago implemented to deal with its rising numbers of covid19 infections exacerbated this.
The school, however, has taken a novel approach to address this issue, not only for its students but all of TT. It is offering a Movement 2 Mindfulness series which offers online, virtual sessions in yoga, mindfulness, fitness classes, dance therapy and more for children and adults.
The series began on June 12 and ends July 3.
Toward the end of last year, Wilson also noticed that there was a general lack of motivation.
“From a lot of the older students... (they) were either missing class, you could tell that they just rolled off their bed to come to class and were just like... they came to class because they really love to dance but they were really fed up with us online.
“The motivation was lacking. Normally, we would have the end-of-year show that would have been this year – that we are not going to have unfortunately. We would have Christmas performances, we would have the competitions, the competition team would have normally gone to Orlando.
“All of these things that these dancers would normally look forward to, just disappeared. And we saw that lack of motivation from everybody. ‘Why are we dancing?’”
Although the school held a virtual performance called Still We Dance on November 28, and it gave a slight boost in morale, it was not enough to keep students, parents and even teachers motivated especially through TT’s second lockdown and current state of emergency.
[caption id="attachment_895554" align="alignnone" width="683"] Principal of Caribbean School of Dancing, Bridgette Wilson.Photo courtesy Caribbean School of Dancing -[/caption]
At the time, the school had started hybrid classes at its Dere Street, Port of Spain base, and some, particularly the older students, had a taste of what it was like to be in the studio again.
“They had maybe two-and-a-half weeks of that and then it started again and was taken away from them again.”
The school then saw an instant drop in students because they just could not deal with online anymore.
Even Wilson struggled with finding the energy to be able to push the students forward. She then spoke to teachers and the school’s board on what could be done to address this issue. She had also started going to therapy because she found that she could not manage.
“If I can’t motivate me, then I can’t motivate them?’’ she asked.
Wilson leaned on that perspective and asked how could she use that to help others around her.
The answer was the Movement 2 Mindfulness series.
The idea to host the series also fell in line with Mental Health Awareness month which is observed in May in the US (but in October in TT).
“We were able to look and see different things people were doing that improved mental health and read up on research about things th
