You don’t need to be a Wall Street Journal subscriber to know that the last 20 months have wreaked havoc on almost every business. Everything from grocery stores to gyms, restaurants to retail, hospitality to hospitals: nearly all businesses have experienced seismic shifts in what they do and how (and where) they do it.
Just a few weeks into the pandemic, the word I kept hearing was “pivot.”
Can we pivot and save the business? Can we totally change directions and stay afloat?
From my perspective as both a small business owner and a movement teacher, I’ve done a lot of pivoting.
Since March of 2020, I’ve pivoted my teaching practice more than once. As the circumstances shifted, people’s needs changed and my understanding of what I wanted to create evolved, I’ve shifted, changed and evolved what I offer. It’s been exhilarating and unsettling, exciting and scary. It’s been an ongoing opportunity to stretch my risk-taking and trust muscles.
Since March of 2000, when I first began teaching movement classes, one of the most common complaints of new (and sometimes seasoned) participants was blisters on the bottoms of their feet and sore knees after class. Often, those complaints come from pivoting.
If my bare feet twist or drag on the floor as I change direction, not only can the skin send up a tender, protective blister, but the joints of the lower body, particularly the knees, are also twisted and compromised. Both issues can often be alleviated if I lift and place my feet with awareness even when abruptly changing my direction.
Imagine your feet have ink on the bottoms and you want to leave unsmudged footprints no matter how fast you’re moving.
What we observe in both businesses and bodies, is that pivoting has the potential to hurt or strengthen. Changing direction quickly can be fraught with discomfort, danger and new problems. Agile movement can also build new skills and muscles and leave us stronger than when we started.
So perhaps now, as we’ve all played with pandemic pivoting, the question to ask isn’t
Can we totally change directions and stay afloat?
but rather
How do we pivot and end up stronger and more resilient than before?