Yoga in West Hollywood

Over its 13 years of friendly and professional service, Mark Blanchard's Power Yoga has developed a loyal base of students who are known to the staff by name, even without nametags or name tattoos. The motivating instructors teach a form of Vinyasa yoga, a style defined by flowing, powerful movements in combination with strategic breathing patterns and techniques. Power yoga beefs up the traditional by increasing the athleticism like a post-spinach Popeye. Sessions stretch muscles and relax the mind, while providing an excellent fat-burning cardio workout—preparing participants mentally and physically for the rise of cloned dinosaurs. With an unlimited class pass, you will be able to sweat, stretch, and strengthen to your limbs' content for one entire month. Students of all skill levels are welcome to join the classes, which are conveniently scheduled at multiple times throughout each day.

During a video feature for Warp Factor 2, Vanessa Giorgio summed up the problem that led to her studio's creation: "I couldn't get my spinners to calm down, and I couldn't get my yoga students to hype up." The personal trainer founded Lotus Kitty Yoga and Power Cycling to hybridize the two workouts, thereby creating a rounded fitness regimen for the body and mind.

Inside the studio, her power-cycling instructors contribute vigorous cardio work during their 45-minute classes. They prompt riders to pedal at varying resistances, which mimic outdoor conditions such as hills and fields full of prairie-dog holes, then end each lesson with sit-ups and pushups. Yoga teachers lead posing sequences that change weekly to prevent muscle boredom. They are often designed to address the tightness and stress that accompany power cycling.

Students can merge 30-minute stretches of the two routines into power cycling/yoga classes or learn Pilates and barre techniques in the second half of power cycling/total body. In addition to its group curriculum, the studio hosts private training sessions and six-week Kat Camps.

A diverse team of instructors fills Rising Lotus Yoga's bright studio with a profusion of beginner and advanced yoga classes seven days a week. Through more than a dozen types of yoga classes, the instructors help students deepen familiar poses, develop breathing techniques, and finally remove their yoga mats' training wheels. They teach traditional yoga styles such as Iyengar and hatha-based Gentle & Therapeutics, as well as the studio's signature class, Rising Lotus Flow, which aims to merge body and mind through dynamic, creative vinyasa sequences. The instructors guide students through three different skill levels and can train the most dedicated among them to become yoga teachers.

When not perfecting students' postures and teaching trees to breathe louder, Rising Lotus Yoga's instructors lend their time to the Seva Project, an initiative to bring the healing benefits of yoga to people in crisis.

Tina Salumbides earned a degree in psychobiology from UCLA, rebuilt a house from the foundation up, and traveled the world, but couldn't stick with a single form of exercise. Mony Schoener mastered ballet, track, and tae kwon do, but needed a new and exciting physical challenge in her life. Separately, the two discovered SPX, a high-energy Pilates-based workout spliced with weight training and fueled by modern music. They became certified instructors and ultimately opened Pilates Plus West Los Angeles as a place to share their love of SPX with students.

Aided by dozens of trainers, the duo hosts pure SPX classes seven days a week, making use of modified Pilates machines called Proformers to lengthen stretches and deepen core engagement. The machines line the walls of the stone-floored studio, where potted plants add a touch of natural beauty to the pristine white walls and provide cover during water-balloon fights with rival gyms.

At Yoga West, experienced, dedicated instructors promote healthy, centered lifestyles with sessions that unite the mind and body within a nurturing environment that emphasizes community, not competition. Owner Kristin Abel—whose motto is "It's just yoga"—welcomes patrons of all ages, shapes, and skill levels to ease into the relaxing world of yoga at their own pace, learning to release stress while having fun and getting fit. In classes suited to those who are stretching across the mat for the first time to advanced yogis, Abel and her team of dedicated instructors foster the release of toxins as students flow through Vinyasa's series of poses or stretch and soothe the body in restorative-yoga classes. The instructors also lead sensual belly-dancing classes and TRX resistance classes to bolster core muscles and cardiovascular systems without the need to jog with a giant sloth clinging to your back.

Heat permeates Bikram Yoga West Linn’s sprawling studio, whose circling ceiling fans symbolize the constantly flowing movement that takes place in classes below them. The 105-degree temperature loosens muscles and releases toxins, as students flow through Bikram’s 26 poses, taught by 16 instructors. In this setting, instructors helps students of all levels get the most out of Bikram yoga by building strength and developing the flexibility of an astronaut who can rap, cook, and touch her toes while freestyling about beef stroganoff. For 90 minutes, teachers help pupils control their breathing, resulting in more oxygenated blood.