The River is the fierce, one-off studio that recently got the contract for Yoga on the Rocks at Red Rocks this Summer.  (For those not familiar with the Denver area, this is usually reserved for studios such as Core Power or other national chains.)  Needless to say, I was feeling pretty pumped to find out more about this awesome studio and couldn’t wait to learn what all the fuss is about!  Disclaimer: I was able to try River Yoga as a part of Denver Fitness Week.  Be sure to subscribe to Semi-Sweet Tooth to find out details about the next Fitness Weeks in the future!

Sweet apparel available for purchase in-store

The River is pretty unique in that they have one space with no mirrors, just a general room with peaceful quotes and a complete “centering” vibe going on.  The small-ish studio (compared to most studios of their reputation) also shares a space with Fitness in the City, which is a boot camp type studio, and they support each other through thick and thin – including a collaboration class that I was able to attend called Yoga Cross.

Fitness in the City is literally just behind The River

Yoga Cross is a combination of dynamic, functional fitness and hot vinyasa flow.  For this class, you start off in the Fitness in the City for 30 minutes of dynamic stretches and functional fitness.  For our class, that meant significant partner work – as an example, one partner would be finishing three laps of bear crawls, while the other partner was doing bicycle crunches until partner one was done.  Following getting a good sweat started, we went directly into The River studio for a 45 minute hot yoga class.  The class at The River was absolutely fantastic, with Katy (our instructor) teaching the class with humor and a genuine sense of care.  It’s been a while since I’ve been consistently attending hot yoga classes and I struggled through a few elements, but I literally stayed in the class and stayed committed because I adored Katy’s fun banter and the sense of community flowing through the whole class.

The studio’s outside wall that I also talked about here

Some tips if you’re able to attend Yoga Cross at The River/Fitness in the City:

• Bring gym shoes and water to the Fitness in the City portion of class (you walk through the locker room at The River to get there, so drop your yoga mat in there for the time being… unless you’re the only loser to bring your mat to both portions… like I was.)
• While I know hot yoga classes differ across studios, The River’s class is literally HOT.  Bring a towel or rent one there.  You’ll thank me later.
• Parking at the studio is super easy.  While it likely fills up when both studios have classes (the lot is small), I had no problem finding a spot and there are several metered parking spots right outside should you need an overflow spot.
• At least in my class, we had a large portion of the group that only came to the yoga portion of class, because you’re not required to attend both.  Just be aware that the yoga class fills up with mats relatively quickly if you’re particular about where you yoga in the class or if you bring a friend.

A quote in the lobby of The River

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