As Lockdown restrictions ease, Sydney fitness centres and dance studios are welcoming people back to their businesses while ensuring they adhere to the remaining social distancing restrictions - no easy task when your business is about getting people up close and personal. Tropical Soul Dance Studio, on Oxford Street, has developed a new syllabus of classes, using Salsa & Bachata styles to teach people how to dance and move their bodies without a partner. After months of isolation, the classes are a welcome relief for participants who are looking forward to getting out of the house, moving their bodies and socialising once again.

Josie Cote, the French-Canadian owner of Tropical Soul, says “It’s a very exciting time here at the studio, after teaching online classes for the last 13 weeks, finally we will have students coming back to the studio. Everyone is happy and we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“It’s challenging for us compared to other dance schools as we are a Latin dance school so we normally teach dance styles that are partnered. It’s usually a great opportunity to meet and dance with lots of new people. But we adapt. Fortunately, we have a really beautiful community of people that support us and want to get their dance shoes on again and have some fun.”

Elyse, a TS Dance student says “We’ve been having our classes online, from the safety of home for a few months now, which I’ve loved but I can’t wait to see my classmates and put my heels on again - even if it’s solo.”

Justin Green, Owner of Plus Fitness Darlinghurst is excited to be back too. “We lost a lot of our members who had to return overseas due to COVID but we are starting to get new members from those exiting iso and weight loss is the biggest motivator! We invested in a huge renovation just before lockdown - Extra equipment, more floor space and new flooring - so we are reopening with a brand new look & feel.

“We are also a COVID safe business and all members are very respectful of this - using towels, wiping down stuff and observing social distances and we’ve introduced a contactless barcode scanning system for registering new members.”

Both Tropical Soul and Plus Fitness are offering free classes and reduced weekly fees for new members.

Covid-19 rules for safely joining classes post lockdown: Sanitise hands on arrival Maintain 1.5 meters distance from other people No more than 20 people per class Check temperature on arrival Don’t feel well? Don’t come to class. Bring your sweat towel