Beloved outdoor yoga class Yoga on the Banks is closing after 10 years on the Schuylkill.

It’s not all zen when a popular outdoor yoga program announces it’s closing at short notice.

Riverside Fitness pop-up Yoga on the Banks announced in a series of Instagram posts that the sun is setting for the last class on Sunday after ten years on the Schuylkill Banks.

The reasons seemed obvious: Founder Erin Gautsche is moving to Grand Rapids, Mich., and an outdoor yoga class isn’t something you can teach well.

However for yogis who have built Yoga on Banks into their practices, Gautsche’s parting message raised questions: Why can’t they? other teachers take the job?

Gautsche planned to “close the program properly” in October, he wrote on Instagram last week. “Unfortunately, the change I had planned is no longer possible,” he wrote, noting that the “very sad” actions of some of the program’s instructors are forcing classes to end quickly.

“Are there no instructors willing to light the torch?” asked one expert on Instagram, while others said “they hope the teachers can meet in your absence.”

However, Gautsche does not share that hope.

“It’s easy to underestimate and underestimate all the administrative work that goes into running a program like Yoga on the Banks,” said Gautsche, who runs the program on top of a full-time teaching job. high. I was able to run it the way I believed in. It made sense to me that if I couldn’t run it myself, the sun would set.

Gautsche confirmed to The Inquirer on Friday afternoon that this is the end of Yoga on the Banks, though he had posted on Instagram Friday morning that he was exploring partnerships with other instructors. He refused to talk about the controversy that caused him to graduate three months early.

Two of the original Yoga on the Banks instructors have launched a new program, with a new name, in the same location.

” READ MORE: Get outdoors: Free sports and fitness classes in Philadelphia

Gautsche, 43, founded Yoga on the Banks a few months after getting her yoga license. instructor in 2014 as a way to make this method more accessible. He said there were few outdoor fitness classes at the time, and joining a studio as a beginner could be expensive and intimidating.

Gautsche said the first Yoga at Banks class in May 2014 was a “cold hats and gloves” class with less than 20 students. Since then, the program has grown to include classes hosts beginners four times a week near the Schuylkill, with a rotating group of guest instructors. Classes are run on a rolling basis and average around 60 students, a mix of beginners and advanced.

On Instagram, fans said that Banks’ Yoga classes are what “started their love and appreciation for yoga” and saved them during the COVID era when “isolation was real.”

“To this day, almost every class I teach is someone’s first time,” Gautsche said. “You don’t have to know what you’re doing to come.”

Former Yoga on the Banks instructor Heather Masse said the end of Yoga on the Banks feels like “a kind of death.”

Masse started teaching Yoga in Banks’ classes in 2018 after being a student for several years. Now, he is starting another river yoga program – Philly River Flow – with another former instructor Lora Reehling, which will start on July 30 at the same location as Yoga Mabankeng, 25th and Litsie.

Reehling said the decision to start Philly River Flow came after Gautsche announced that she was taking Yoga under Banks’ name with her.

” READ MORE: Our classical music reviewer has created a list of songs to play next

Reehling, who began teaching at Yoga on the Banks in 2021, says: “We were disappointed and sad, but motivated to keep the community going. He has grown a great program and he really deserves a lot of validation and credit for what it has become. We wish him nothing but the best.”

Records with the United States Patent and Trademark Office show that Gautsche filed a pending trademark application for Yoga Banks on April 21, a few months before announcing the move. Michigan.

“I want to keep the possibility open to start a community yoga program again when I get back,” Gautsche said, noting that Grand Rapids does indeed have a river.

Gautsche sees fans’ surprise at the end of Yoga on the Banks as a testament to what made the classes special.

He said: “I think that response was out of love. “They wanted to continue doing it. They wanted it to go on forever.”