The plague hit the entire labor market and did not spare the gyms and studios in the city either, places that until recently were Haifa symbols, now stand empty, with signs for rent.
If the vaccines managed to bring the world some light at the end of the tunnel, for them it is too late. The owners of the institutes talk about the most difficult year in their lives.
"There was a world here"
"Urban place"
4 years ago she decided Anat Ahronovich, who was then still in the Friends of Israel, to leave everything, follow the heart and set out on an independent path, or in her case, run on an independent path. She opened running groups, gained loyal customers, from there the path to realizing her dream of opening her own studio was clear. "It took a long time until I found a place, a suitable space, renovations that took time. We took a ruin and modeled it up to the level of the weight room, I wanted to give a home to my trainees," she says. "After a year, the studio gained stability, we had 140 trainees who received running training, studio training, yoga, personal training, it was a world here."
What's happening in March 2020?
"The first lockdown is shocking, like everyone else. It's my luck that I come with great preparedness for conditions of uncertainty." She is referring to the big fire in 2016, in which her house in the Romema neighborhood was completely burned down. "I knew I was going to do something, I wasn't going to lie down, put my feet up and mourn my life. Zoom started - I opened groups, gave freebies, remote challenges, competitions, there was something to work with. But little by little the zoom faded, 2-3 trainees entered the last class and I realized That's it, it doesn't work, I didn't have the strength either."
What did you do?
"I canceled all the studio subscriptions, no freeze, no money coming in, I only had the running group left." Running entered her life precisely in China, where she studied for a master's degree in business administration. "I was addicted to the endorphins of fitness and I didn't have it there. One day I bought sports shoes, called a friend and started running around campus and something happened to me - the air, the smells, the ability, I realized that it was good for me. The next day, you were already a group running with me." . After the pleasure (if you can call it that), back to business. "I was left with no income and with a lot of expenses - electricity, water, the psychological property tax that I pay, and because I am a young business, I did not receive anything from the state, no grants or anything, I stayed like that."
How does it feel when you lose something that was your dream?
"It hurts. It's been two months of significant pain. It's a baby that I have to let go, but over time I learned to let go with love. I was divided between 2 hats - running and the studio. It sucked, and it had heavy costs. You can't win everything. The corona put me in focus about what I want to be, she brought me back to the basics, to running."
"I went back 17 years"
"Scoop"
There isn't a single athlete who doesn't know or hasn't trained there, at least once in his life. An old brand, 18 years at the Ziv center. Ran Avraham, the owner of the house, is still using the free time for paint and renovations, but he also admits that it is not clear if he will still be able to keep his head above water. A place that was a family to its trainees, remains an orphan.
Ran, how is it going with Corona?
"Listen, the situation is not good, I won't start making everything beautiful for you, but I won't listen to my cries either, I'm a very strong man." He looks like this - both physically and mentally. "Even after I distributed equipment to my trainees - rubber bands, weights, everything they want, it wasn't enough. The zoom was nice, but it's only for a handful of my trainees, people come for the equipment." Unlike a small studio that can transfer the experience to Zoom or the park, Scope is a classic gym, with facilities that cannot be copied outside. Some of the anger also goes towards the municipality. "The horror of the world of the municipality, disgust, there is no one to talk to there. There is a very difficult bureaucracy and meanwhile the checks are coming down. 3,800 property tax per month, paying for signage, the municipality does not come forward and I don't understand why. We are the ones who generate work, money, employ workers , don't give grants, you don't need to, but don't take from me either."
How do you manage financially when you have a family, children?
"I've worked hard all my life, the savings are opened, the family helps, in the meantime we survive," he says. "Sometimes I don't know if right now I'm surviving it, maybe it's an illusion, I say everything's fine, but nothing's wrong. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. When it opens I'll get the real bomb, I'll have to work alone. It brought me back 17 A year back."
Was there a breaking point, that you thought of closing for good?
"Sure, she is at the moment. Now. Thoughts that maybe this is it, an era is over. I'm going to be a plumber." What keeps him going is the customers. "There were people who told me - listen, the 150 shekels I'm paying, it won't do anything for me. Go, it's a whole world. I don't want the money back and I don't want you to freeze it, when you come back, call me and I'll change it." exciting. "I'll give you an example of what a scope is - last week, on Saturday, I came to see what was going on with the business and on the way I was stopped by the police, the policeman asks me where I'm going, I tell him I'm going to my business, a gym, he tells me - what do you mean? Salons Gyms are closed. I replied that it's my business and that, he asks, where is the business? I tell him Neve Shaanan. Don't tell me scoop! He yells at me, tells him I'll tell you scoop, and he looks at me, tells me enthusiastically, 'Well my kids are training At your place, open already', and releases me. There are really places here that are complacent havens. I'm one of them."
What do you miss the most?
"Morning, getting here, music is playing, lights are on and there is no bassa atmosphere. My friends say 'how fun you are, you have a gym, you can work out'. Look at the place like this, he asks me, "Do you feel like working out? "
"It was a home for the customers, and also for me"
"to the body"
"It's like a ship, you see it moving away from you and you can't do anything." That's how he describes sadly Pesach Glopkin the closing of his gym "Legof" at 25 Oren Street, a place that had been open since 1987 consecutively, a local institution. At its peak there were 1,200 trainees. "We were almost among the first in the country, we worked all the time, almost all the fitness instructors in the city worked with me."
You are 65 years old, have you ever imagined such a situation?
"What am I saying? No one in the world thought of this. In the movies you see, in the books, maybe it happens, it's not real, who thought of it? But it really happens. Everything collapses and you don't know what to do, where to start."
What is it like to see the place like this?
"Today I came again to see." The place stands empty, without appliances, without electricity, desolate. "We reached insolvency, people in the first closing, who still believed and made subscriptions, employees who worked and I can't give them money back, there's no way. How can I look them in the eye?"
How did the customers react?
"I've had clients here since the beginning, since '87, it's actually a meeting place, for people, it was like a home for them, and for me too. 34 years is not easy, but that's it, that's the way it is, you have to move on.
What next?
"I don't know, start from the beginning."
The Tax Authority has published a new guideline for granting grants to gyms
At the time of writing these lines, last night (Sun. 24/1/21) the Tax Authority published a guideline for granting grants to gyms and sports. Full document ID:
Golovkin***
Rafol - where is the response?!