{"id":4148,"date":"2020-04-29T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T19:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=4148"},"modified":"2020-04-29T12:00:23","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T19:00:23","slug":"bringing-the-dojo-to-the-living-room-with-poly-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/bringing-the-dojo-to-the-living-room-with-poly-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing the Dojo to the Living Room with Poly Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not just office workers adjusting to working from home, or traditional school classroom teachers trying to quickly enable distance learning.\u00a0 We recently had the opportunity speak with a different kind of remote educator \u2013 \u00a0Susan Tipton, a Sensei who manages the Family First Mixed Martial Arts School in Spring Hill, TN, to discuss how she\u2019s adapted her dojo for distance learning.<\/p>\n

Susan, how have local Safer-At-Home measures impacted you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have 200+ students at my location in Spring Hill, and another 250+ at our sister school in Franklin, Tennessee.\u00a0 Covid-19 and the ensuing Safer-At-Home orders have been a devastating blow to all gyms and especially children\u2019s athletics.<\/p>\n

\"familyfirstlogo_poly<\/h4>\n

Our students pay month-to-month tuition, without contracts, which made our schools especially vulnerable.\u00a0 When we first realized we would have to close to live students we knew our business would not survive should we totally shut down our services.\u00a0 The very first week we were closed we began holding classes<\/a><\/span> on Zoom using a mish-mash of laptops and a separate USB microphone.<\/p>\n

It worked, but the picture and sound quality left a lot to be desired.\u00a0 What was particularly difficult was achieving a wide enough angle using the laptop\u2019s camera to follow dynamic, quick movements without the picture blurring.<\/p>\n

Those sound like they might be key to learning mixed martial arts.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Absolutely!\u00a0 During the Safer-At-Home orders our goal is not just to save our schools, or even just keep our employees working, but to continue serving our students and provide them with a bit of normalcy and an outlet for their pent-up energy.<\/p>\n

What happened next?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"Family<\/h4>\n

About ten days into remote teaching, I received my Poly Studio<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 I was a bit worried about the technical aspect since my tech abilities leave a lot to be desired.\u00a0 I was blown away by the fact that I was able to unpack the Studio, plug it in without any difficulty and have it up and running in well under 30 minutes.\u00a0 I especially appreciated that the Poly Studio was standardized enough that I was able to use it with a camera stand I already owned.<\/p>\n

You often hear companies claim these cameras are \u2018Plug-in and go,\u2019 but in my experience, that\u2019s rarely been the case.\u00a0 The Poly Studio really works that way!<\/p>\n

How did it work?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

After the first class with the Poly Studio (I did not let parents know we were using new tech) a parent commented on our school\u2019s Facebook page that our online classes were great and that \u201c\u2026it was so nice to be able to actually see Sensei Susan\u2019s facial features again.\u201d\u00a0 This is to say, the clarity is great.\u00a0 The camera quality is so far superior that it\u2019s almost comical when comparing it to our lessons without it.\u00a0 While we were still allowed to run classes from the dojo, the wide camera angle made it possible to have three instructors on camera at once.<\/p>\n

The Poly Studio microphone also turned out to be perfect for what I do.\u00a0 I had to position my previous stand-alone mic in such a way that it picked up a lot of noise from the mat.\u00a0 And, when I came closer to the computer, I had to reposition the mic each time \u2014 I was constantly afraid that either I or another instructor would kick It!\u00a0 Because the Poly Studio is an all-in-one unit with the microphone built in, I don\u2019t have those issues anymore.<\/p>\n

I also love the remote.\u00a0 I can go to the ground to demonstrate a technique without worrying that the framing looks awkward.<\/p>\n

And now?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Now I\u2019m teaching from home instead of the dojo \u2014 still striving for some normalcy.\u00a0 What I didn\u2019t foresee was the amazing gains our students would achieve in technique and fitness during this time.\u00a0 I attribute a lot of their gains to the ability to have instruction with focused high-quality sound and picture right in their living rooms.<\/p>\n

This has been an amazing experience and even after we reopen classes at our schools, we have already made the commitment to continue teaching online.<\/p>\n

Thanks so much for such a great product!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not just office workers adjusting to working from home, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[536,548],"tags":[130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,44,138,139,140,122],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}