In a year where people have had to trade face-to-face contact with phone calls and computer screens, many have been forced to alter their routines drastically. For clients of the Crawford Senior Center, heightened risk factors have made physical distancing even more important, but that doesn’t mean the center has to shut down entirely.
“I just began last January, just a couple months before it shut down,” said Carol Johnson. “I began attending quite a few classes every week. I was taking several tai chi classes, several yoga classes and a watercolor painting class.”
When COVID-19 forced the facility to shut down last spring, the senior center went from a near-daily bustle of activity to simply trying to figure out how to stay in touch with its clients. As Zoom and other video calling services became the safest way to communicate, the center began offering its classes and groups via the web.
“Lynn [Rigg] is one of the tai chi instructors, and he began offering classes, and I immediately started taking those,” said Johnson. “It was probably a couple months later that the yoga classes were offered, and the exercise classes were, and I have to say I was really happy that that happened because it greatly augments my own exercise program. Without the Zoom tai chi and yoga classes each week, I’m not sure I’d be getting the amount of exercise I’d like to be getting and should be getting.”
Between tai chi, yoga and other classes, senior center clients have been able to take the same classes they attended in person right in their living rooms. Although they’re not quite the same as in-person instruction, they have been an important resource for clients to stay in shape when gyms and other public spaces are compromised.
“I look forward to it,” said longtime member John Wilde of the exercise classes. “Of course, with the regular tai chi, you can be seated if you want. I had a hip replaced almost four months now, but it’s taken a long time to heal, so I get on there when I can and it does help. I can hang in there with my friends and see them on Zoom, and that’s very important, I think … it does help with your movement. Even though you’re sitting, it still helps with balance. It helps your mind.”
Although the center’s tai chi class has helped Wilde stay limber with his new hip, meditation isn’t the only online class offered by the center. Staff have also put on several other classes, including a writing workshop and a group simply for catching up with friends.
“It’s called a chat room, where we just get on there and discuss anything,” said Wilde. “The past few weeks they’ve started doing a writing class, but you don’t really have to write a story. You can listen to other stories, or you can just discuss something that’s happened to you during your life and not write it down.”
While the center’s wide range of Zoom activities helps clients stay in shape and practice their hobbies, they also have value that goes beyond killing time. With the lack of face-to-face interaction due to COVID-19 this year, the classes have been helpful for clients to keep in touch with their friends.
“It’s not just the tai chi, it’s almost all the Zoom accounts,” said tai chi instructor Rigg on the social benefits of the classes. “They do yoga, tai chi, and a couple other classes that are nothing more than talking. It is a way for people that are staying home to socialize. I have one lady that comes on my class 15 minutes early, and we’ll talk for 15 minutes and just chitchat. Other people join in early, and we do the same thing. We don’t talk about tai chi, we talk about the weather, we talk about family, and to them it’s nice to just talk and see each other.”
As a tai chi instructor for the past two years, Rigg knows the discipline’s benefits well. In addition to his three weekly sessions Crawford Center clients, Rigg also leads a class for the Veteran’s Administration, and said he wants to promote tai chi’s benefits among veterans in the community.
Between 14 different Zoom sessions, in addition to normal duties like providing roughly 160 meals to local seniors a day, the Crawford Center has put on a full complement of activities for clients to get by during the pandemic doldrums. Although most of its in-person activities have stopped, the center’s clients expressed thanks to the center for keeping its services running in a time when they are most important.
“I live alone except for my dogs, and those three days are really very good for me,” said Selma Sparks. “It’s the idea that you’ve got a class that you’re doing it with other people that’s important. I say it’s really important for seniors, because we are less likely to do any of this alone. It is really very good for us, just the fact that you’re in a class where you have other people doing it. You have an incentive to do it.”