Blue Moon Yoga, Lakewood

Visitors to Blue Moon Yoga might imagine that they've stumbled into a piece of history. With a location at the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design Rotunda Building, a historic rotunda building, Carrie Sonneborn uses the cozy environs reflect her overall mission to foster a peaceful, welcoming escape from the stresses of everyday life—which is also championed in her yoga classes. She specializes in Iyengar-inspired yoga, a gentle practice that consists of standing postures and emphasizes a custom proper alignment pose for each student, as well as pranayama, or deep breathing, and relaxation. An avid yoga practitioner for more than two decades, she touts her own health as proof of yoga's benefits. "Yoga and massage are like my fountain of youth,” she says. “I'm more flexible and, in some ways, better shape than I was in my 20s—I'm obviously a convert."

To make yoga accessible to students of all experience levels, Carrie recruits props such as blankets, straps, blocks, and bolsters. She limits her classes to 12 students so that she can personally attend to each one, carefully monitoring their form and offering physical adjustments when needed. The poses in her classes are adapted for each student, so beginners practice the basic form of the pose alongside more experienced pupils, then move into a more advanced version of the same pose.