The Wash­ing­ton, DC area has a thriv­ing yoga scene, thanks to the abun­dance of cos­mopoli­tan, open-​​minded and health-​​conscious pro­fes­sion­als that pop­u­late the area. It may not have the “gurus-​​to-​​the-​​stars” of Los Ange­les or the trend-​​setting influ­ence of New York City, but it does have an inter­na­tional dimen­sion. In the Dis­trict, stu­dios tend to cater to a younger crowd, recent col­lege grad­u­ates who are just get­ting started in their careers and need a place de-​​stress. In the sub­urbs, a more mature fol­low­ing (soc­cer moms and even adults eli­gi­ble to join the AARP, like me, may seem less trendy) will be found.

This list has no pref­er­ence or logic to this list­ing of yoga stu­dios. I have con­cen­trated on Wash­ing­ton, DC (within walk­ing or Metro dis­tance from my work) and the Mont­gomery County, Mary­land area (within dri­ving dis­tance or near the Metro Red Line). There are fine stu­dios in North­ern Vir­ginia, but I am rely­ing on other people’s recommendations.

I should also men­tion that another option for find­ing a yoga learn­ing envi­ron­ment is by hir­ing a yoga teacher for one-​​on-​​one or small group classes. Many of these spring up in churches or schools, and run on an irreg­u­lar basis. It would be hard to com­pile a list of these teach­ers so I am just going to sug­gest that you ask in yoga stu­dios about pri­vate classes. And there’ s always the option of tak­ing classes in an area gym.

Teacher Train­ing: I have added links to those stu­dios that offer yoga immer­sion or teacher train­ing. This is a sign of the studio’s pro­fes­sion­al­ism, com­mit­ment and scope of ser­vices, so it’s use­ful in pick­ing a home stu­dio. The train­ing pro­grams are all accred­ited with Yoga Alliance, usu­ally 200 hours to start, and many have 300 hours of advanced courses, which brings the total to 500 hours. There’s a a grow­ing con­tro­versy about how rel­e­vant YA accred­i­ta­tion is to teacher train­ing and yoga instructors.

Mid Atlantic Yoga Asso­ci­a­tion (MAYA) has a list­ing of affil­i­ated teach­ers in Mary­land, Vir­ginia, Delaware, Penn­syl­va­nia and Wash­ing­ton, DC. Use­ful for references.

Pro­mot­ing Anusara Yoga in the Wash­ing­ton area

Dis­tric­tKula aims for the Anusara fol­low­ers in the DC area, and is run by yoga teaches Katie Myer. Since I’m link­ing to them, they should not mind me grab­bing their logo.

Jiva­mukti DC Sat­sang has a Face­book page.

Please drop me a mes­sage if you want to rec­om­mend a studio.