Yoga Journal

Boston Yoga Tour

Jennifer Acker
November/December 1999

Yoga is booming in college-rich Beantown, where a host of diverse classes round out the curriculum.

Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga Institute

This institute has taken Boston by storm. For three years running, it has been named best yoga studio by Boston magazine. It has two locations, in Cambridge and Boston, that offer Baron Baptiste's unique form of power vinyasa yoga practiced in 90-degree rooms. The studio's goal is "to let people fall in love with their lives" and "give students the heart for the struggle" through vigorous, detoxifying yoga, says Rolf Gates, director of the split-level, exposed-brick Boston location, which can accommodate more than a hundred students at a time. Between the two studios, the institute teaches 3,000 students per week, Gates says.

Supporting the studios is a community of students who practice free in exchange for working the door or in the retail store. Intensive three-hour workshops, Baptiste's signature "bootcamps," and teacher training are offered, as well as occasional programs for kids, Hours of Power, and prenatal classes. 139 Columbus Ave.; (617) 441-2144; 2000 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge; (617) 661-9642; www.baronbaptiste.com.

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