If you’re interested in a private lesson with me, but aren’t located in San Diego, we can meet remotely using Zoom. Here’s how the logistics work for that:

1. Obviously, you’ll need to have Zoom installed on your device. I recommend using at least a laptop or a tablet, as a phone screen will probably be too small for you to see me properly.

2. Remove all noise filtering in your Zoom audio settings. This way, I can hear your flogging, and you can hear mine.

3. Use earbuds or headphones rather than your device’s speakers. If you use your device speakers, Zoom has to switch back and forth between broadcasting sound from me when I’m talking and receiving sound from you when you’re talking. As such, we’ll invariably cut each other off. And with the flogging going on … it just becomes way too complicated on an audio level.

If you have earbuds or headphones on, Zoom will be able to broadcast and receive simultaneously, so I’ll be able to listen to you flog while offering you commentary at the same time. Wireless would be ideal, so you have more room to maneuver.

4. Have some sort of cushion to practice on, and place your camera far enough away so that I can see your arms and floggers as they hit the cushion.

Ideally, position your camera a few inches above your cushion and pointing down, so that I can see the tops of your forearms. And then stand at a slight diagonal relative to the direction the camera is pointing. Like this:

It will also help if your cushion is easy to move around, as I may ask you to place it at different angles in order to study your technique. If you’re using, say, the back of a couch, you’ll have to move your device instead, which can be a hassle.

So for instance, depending on what we’re working on, it may be helpful to be able to shift to this top view as well:

Then again, this is also just me being proactive in anticipating what we might need. As long as you can get something close to the Diagonal View above, then we should be good to go the vast majority of the time.

And that’s basically it!

If you’re unable to set everything up according to these guidelines, please feel free to reach out to me, and I’m happy to discuss how we can accommodate you. These guidelines are based on my past experiences teaching virtually, but they are by no means the only guidelines we need to go by.