BETHEL — Ashtanga. Vinyasa. Thai-Shiatsu. Kripalu.

Every weekday, the Annex at the rear of the Methodist Church on Main Street is home to a wide variety of yoga classes. Currently there are six instructors offering 14 classes weekly for everyone from beginners to advanced yoga practitioners.

­Apart from being a wife and stay at home mom, yoga and fitness are my absolute passions, and I feel so lucky to be able to share these gifts with others, said Kristin Otten, who has been offering yoga classes at the Annex since the spring of 2014.

Otten became aware of the space when Linda Howe, one of her first Bethel area yoga students and a member of the Meth­odist Church, mentioned that it might be available.

The Annex was built in the 1950s and was later named in memory of Leslie and Marie Davis, Bethel residents and longtime church members. Originally home to the churchs Friday Gift Shop, it had been unused in recent years.

As part of its mission of community outreach, Howe said, “The church wanted to bring it back to life with a purpose.”

Otten began by teaching two sessions of a high-energy vinyasa flow class, also known as “power yoga” at the Annex. She has since expanded her schedule to include early morning and late afternoon/ early evening classes to allow flexibility in scheduling.

A lifelong athlete, Otten became certified in Core Power Yoga in 2005 in her native Colorado, and has taught in Denver; Meredith, N.H.; and, for the past three years, the Bethel area.

Set to energizing music, her classes provide students with an opportunity to improve fitness and flexibility while releasing stress, clearing the mind, and creating energy.

“The classes are accessible to all levels of practitioner,” she said. “I offer variations and modifications for many of the poses, so that each practitioner can adapt and make each posture their own.”

Flexibility for everyone

At the opposite end of the spectrum from power yoga are the slow, gentle stretches and poses performed in Karen Swanson’s yoga classes. 

She received her certification in Thai-Shiatsu through Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. The practice blends Thai yoga massage with Shiatsu, a form of Japanese bodywork.

“A lot of my background is in Iyengar yoga, which uses props like blocks, straps, blankets, and bolsters that kind of bring the pose to you,” said Swanson, who has been practicing yoga for over 30 years and teaching for 18.

“The slow pace allows greater stretching, and people gain strength, stamina, and flexibility,” she said.

It’s a pace that many older people appreciate.

“Although not everyone who comes to my class is my age and older, my classes tend to appeal to those people because of the pace. You’re not frustrated trying to keep up,” Swanson said.

In addition to her regular classes, she offers chair yoga, a gentle style of yoga that is done almost entirely from a seated position. Those classes have become very popular, especially with those who have limitations due to age, injury, or disability.

“It’s kind of mind-blowing to me, the ease and eagerness for the class among the elders,” she said. “It’s also a social time for them. I’m offering the class twice a week, and some are coming to both sessions.”

Classes for beginners, intermediates, and beyond Shortly after Otten offered her first classes at the Annex, yoga instructors Christine Liberti and Wendy Youmans began teaching there as well.

Liberti, who has been practicing yoga for 30 years and teaching for 15, said the two classes she offers at the Annex are geared to beginners and intermediates, and vary from week to week.

“Whatever the focus is for the week (shoulders, hips, progressive sequences, etc.), we go through the poses and work on form and alignment,” she said. She offers the use of props, including belts, blocks, and blankets, to help students maintain their form, and also concentrates on breathing awareness and flowing between poses.

Liberti also teaches yoga classes at Sunday River and offers private and group lessons through the Bethel Station Chiropractic Office.

In addition to being a certified Kripalu instructor, Youmans is a licensed clinical social worker who said she incorporates Kripalu yoga breathwork, meditation, and movement into her private practice. She also teaches a yoga class to adult education students at Crescent Park School.

At the Annex, she teaches both a moderate level and a beginner class. Kripalu yoga is “accessible to any body type” and her classes focus on “a sense of community and having fun,” she said, adding, “I strongly encourage connections (and laughter) within class!”

“Yoga can help increase physical and emotional balance, concentration, relaxation, flexibility, strength,” Youmans said. “It is also wonderful to help people better manage depression and anxiety.”

Harriet Langley’s weekly Ashtanga yoga class synchronizes breath with movement and follows a series of postures, called asanas, to develop concentration (dharana) and flow of breath (pranayama) and prepare the mind and senses for meditation.

“It is a hands-on class for those who want adjustments,” said Langley, who walks around the room as she instructs, checking her students’ posture and alignment.

Her classes begin with standing poses, progress through seated poses with forward bends and twists, and end with inversions, poses which place the head lower than the heart. “As you practice Ashtanga yoga you build and maintain heat in the body allowing the body to open and release,” said Langley, who has been practicing yoga herself for about ten years.

“Practitioners gain strength, flexibility, stamina, tone, spinal health, balance and mobility. When you are finished you have a renewed energy and a sense of peace.”

‘To be fully present in the moment’

Bethel native Malinda Gagnon joined the Methodist Church Annex team this spring, teaching a weekly class she calls Fire Flow to all levels of learners.

“Fire Flow is a fun, energetic, vinyasa flow class, set to a motivating soundtrack, sure to help you get your sweat on!” she said. “It’s a great workout grounded in mindful movement.”

Gagnon works in the fast-paced field of advertising and said she appreciates the balance that yoga brings to her life.

She calls the practice she created “Yogamoto,” combining Sanskrit, Japanese, and Italian words to signify “oneness with our origin and movement,” she said.

“It’s becoming centered in the core of ourselves, our true selves, as we move through the crazy hustle and bustle that is life.”

An avid traveler, adventurer, and motorcyclist, she added, “Moto, for me, is also my motorcycle. What does motorcycling have to do with yoga? It challenges me to bring yoga into action—to be fully present in the moment with single focus while the world is whizzing by.”

Gagnon said yoga can be practiced in a wide variety of ways, and all result in different benefits.

“If you want a good workout, it can do that. If you want to increase your range of motion and strength, it does that too,” she said.

“Yoga is also is a great way of steadying the mind, bringing mental clarity, and an overall sense of peace.”

What’s new? What’s next?

In addition to her yoga classes, Otten recently became a certified barre workout instructor and will begin offering barre classes in the fall. Her class schedule typically follows the school calendar, she said, with time off in the summer to spend with her two children. She has received permission from the church to install a barre in the Annex when her classes resume in the fall.

“Barre classes are a fusion of movements inspired by yoga, pilates, orthopedic, and classical ballet barre exercises,” she said. “The classes provide a fluid athletic workout specifically designed to strengthen and lengthen your muscles with highly targeted and small movements.”

In July, another instructor will join the others, bringing the total to seven, Howe said. Amy Lilly of Echo River Yoga will begin offering “Deep Breath” meditation classes, incorporating some movement as well, on Wednesdays at the Annex.

Swanson, for whom meditation is a significant part of the practice of yoga, plans a new class that will combine gentle yoga instruction, discussion, and the teaching of meditation.

“I think that it is very unusual for a small town to have seven certified instructors, especially under one roof,” said Howe.

The Methodist Church has succeeded in bringing its Annex “back to life with a purpose.”

How to join

Each of the instructors has her own registration, contact, and payment procedures. Individual classes range in cost from $11 to $16, and most instructors offer packages of classes at a reduced price.

Several instructors also noted that it is their policy to work with those who cannot afford the full cost of classes, in order to make the benefits of yoga available to everyone.

A schedule of classes is posted each month on the Annex bulletin board, or check the Bethel Yoga and Fitness Facebook page.