Yoga and Riverdog Studio in Old Saybrook

Whether you have never been to a class before and want to experience the beneficial effects of yoga or you regularly curl yourself into a pretzel while standing on one hand, the light airy studio at Riverdog has something to offer.  Founded and managed by Kimberly Smith , Riverdog studios is as welcoming, fluid and responsive to peoples' needs and desires as yoga itself, always attracting a very high level of teachers.  Some teachers  have been there as long as Riverdog has existed. 

According to Kimberly, yoga means "the union of body, breath and soul".  During her Saturday AM, "Spinal Yoga" class, she teaches that if we can take only a few minutes to exercise every day, we should do the "6 positions of the spine".  These involve:

1)   taking Downward Dog pose, raising one leg in the air, bending the knee and having it lead our spine into a "C" curve on the opposite side of our body, expanding the outside of the "C" with our inhale and contracing the inside with our exhale, creating a nice stretch in our side.  This can also be done on hands and knees for less advanced participants or those with injuries, by simply moving the knees and hands towards each other, creating that same curve of the spine.

2)   on hands and knees doing the cat & cow stretch several times coordinating with breath.

3)   Creating a twist of the spine by lying on your back and bending the right knee and bringing it across the body over the the left side while turning your head to the right and trying to keep your right shoulder on the floor.  Relax in this position and focus on inhaling and exhaling several times.  Then change over to the other side.


Kimberly founded the studio in 1999 when she and her husband, Hal Ostrom, who is an optometrist and avid sailor, moved to this area.  She had been practicing yoga for years, has a Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology/Cardiac Rehabilitation from UCONN and says she felt the need to feel "at home" in a community so she rented the studio and started Riverdog.

Hala Khouri, founder of "Yoga Off the Mat and Into the World" says that when we do yoga, we become more grounded; aware of our bodies and our responses.   When someone is in the "fight or flight response", they are impulsive and not as able to choose their responses to a particular situation.  Practicing yoga keeps us out of the "fight or flight" mentality, which is unhealthy for our bodies and our lives.  It gives us the awareness to detach and think things through, rather than being impulsive. 

The classes range in size from about half a dozen people to a completely packed room with wall to wall yoga mats, depending upon the time of day, teacher & class.

Sadly,  Riverdog Yoga is now closing it's doors at the end of this July.  Kimberly has been spending most of her time up in Maine now for the past several years, as their young daughter is in school up there.  As a generous farewell gift to Riverdog students, she has reduced single class fees to $12.00.  Kate, Emrys, Grace and the others are all wonderful teachers.  It is a joy to spend an hour or so in their company - I started practicing yoga at age 21 in Manhattan and the teachers at Riverdog are as great as the teachers I had at the Lincoln Center yoga studio where I started. 

Take this opportunity to unite body, breath and soul in a very special, very clean, light airy space with a lovely community of people on our CT Shoreline.  If you seek peace, calm, a healthy body and mind combined with perhaps some joy, wisdom and healing, you will find it here, across the street from where the three brown cows graze happily in their pasture and occasionally moo softly during satsavana or down dog.