Dancer and entrepreneur Jules Bakshi shares how she managed to migrate her fitness studio online merely a week after New York mandated lockdown. By Anika Ventura
"Adult Beginner Dance: Like The Hot Bitch You Always Knew You Were” came on my screen. As I saw my dance instructor looking, talking, and moving like her usual self, I thought,“Damn. If her show must go on. My show can go on.”
At 33 years old, Jules Bakshi is the owner of Good Move, a dance and fitness studio that opened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in July 2019.
Good Move’s classes are centered on dance, yet not limited by it.
They have a mix of ballet, pilates, restorative, HIIT, and dance in its different forms (beginner to intermediate levels, modern to hip hop). The one thing that ties them all together: no dance experience necessary.
It’s a notable shift from the typical New York dance space, which Bakshi acknowledges as not “super warm and inviting. I felt like I had to know the right people and the right teacher.”
Beyond New York, Bakshi was exposed to the global dance scene as both a performer and managing director for Douglas Dunn + Dancers.
In addition to performing, she recalls her years on tour with Douglas Dunn as doing tasks from “figuring out accommodations, fundraising, advertising, and producing shows… I think I was born for entrepreneurship because [it] means being able to switch gears really quickly.”
Those gears came into play even before New York mandated a lockdown in response to the coronavirus.
When Bakshi’s brother who lives in Paris shared that they went on total lockdown, she heeded the signal.
“My brain, the wheels were really turning… there was never a moment in my mind where we were going to just disappear because I have worked my ass off for the last two years to build this thing.”
Bakshi started recording fitness videos.
On March 16, Good Move announced the last day of studio classes. On March 25, they launched Good Move TV, a video channel where subscribers can access pre-recorded classes for $25 a month.
Their memberships were migrated online, with live Zoom classes and weekly wellness check-ins, among other perks, for $200 a month. Memberships offer the benefit of community. “Getting to see other people move in their homes in real time I think is a comforting thing to people,” observes Bakshi.
Today, Good Move has expanded its audience to students in France, Lebanon, to London.
Yet the demands of sustaining a business in New York remain.
Bakshi continues to pay for the rent of her physical studio. The leeway she was given by her landlord was to pay 50% of her month’s rent at a later date.
Bakshi describes the first week of quarantine as “I have never worked this hard in my life. I really felt a lot of pressure to get Good Move TV up and running so I was hardly sleeping for a week.” She expounds on the urgency she faced, saying that it was part of a two year plan to get Good Move online, but with the help of a tech-savvy member, “I did it in less than two weeks.”
“The second week [of quarantine] I went down hard with what I’m pretty sure was the virus. I had different symptoms than I had had before. I had shortness of breath, a bad cough. It was really scary but I knew it was mild. I felt that my body was going to recover quickly.”
Luckily, she did.
Beyond her work for the studio, Bakshi simultaneously runs a less advertised side of her business doing holistic training and health coaching. She is a certified nutrition coach.
It’s her income from these personal clients that will supplement Good Move’s expenses should their online revenue fall short. She admits that it is “not ideal. But this is an emergency situation.”
How does a proprietor of health and fitness stay healthy herself?
Operating online has allowed Bakshi some more personal time.
The evidence: baking.
“I’m literally making a lemon cheesecake as we do this call,” she laughs. "That’s kind of become a therapy for me. People who know me are shocked. I’ve probably made cookies twice in my life and all of a sudden I'm making pies and tarts and cheesecakes.”
Although fitness studios are considered a non-essential business, Bakshi believes: “The reason physical health and wellness is important is so that we can contribute. The more we give to ourselves, the more we can give to the people that need us, our family, our friends.”
As Good Move adjusts to being an online studio, Bakshi admits: “I get overwhelmed by the steps, I get overwhelmed by the technology, but my path feels clearer than ever.”