Beloved outdoor workout class Yoga on the Banks is shutting down after 10 years on the Schuylkill

It’s not all zen when a beloved outdoor yoga program announces that it’s shutting down with short notice.

Riverside fitness pop-up Yoga on the Banks announced in a series of Instagram posts that it was sunsetting operations with a final class on Sunday after a decade on the Schuylkill Banks.

The rationale seemed straightforward: Founder Erin Gautsche is moving to Grand Rapids, Mich., and an outdoor yoga class isn’t exactly something you can teach virtually.

Yet for the yogis who built Yoga on the Banks into their routines, Gautsche’s parting message raised questions: Why couldn’t other instructors take over?

Gautsche had intended to “appropriately close the program” in October, she posted on Instagram last week. “Unfortunately, the transition that I planned for is no longer possible,” she wrote, alleging that “the deeply hurtful” actions of some of the program’s other instructors are forcing the classes to end early.

“Aren’t there willing instructors to carry on the torch?” asked one Instagram commenter, while others said they were “confident the teachers can pull together in your absence.”

Gautsche, however, doesn’t share that confidence.

“It’s easy to underestimate and undervalue all of the administrative work that it takes to run a program like Yoga on the Banks,” said Gautsche, who manages the program on top of having a full-time job in higher education. “I was able to run it in a way that I believed in. It made sense to me that if I was no longer able to run it personally, it would sunset.”

Gautsche confirmed to The Inquirer on Friday afternoon that this is the end of Yoga on the Banks, despite having posted to Instagram Friday morning that she was exploring partnerships with other instructors. She declined to comment on the dispute that prompted her to end classes three months early.

Two former Yoga on the Banks instructors have announced a new program, with a new name, at the same location.

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Gautsche, 43, cofounded Yoga on the Banks just months after getting her certification as a yoga instructor in 2014 as a way to make the practice more accessible. There were few outdoor fitness classes at the time, she said, and joining a studio as a beginner can be expensive and intimidating.

Gautsche said the first Yoga on the Banks class in May 2014 was “hats and gloves cold” with fewer than 20 students. Since then, the program has grown to host beginner-friendly classes four times a week along the Schuylkill, with a rotating set of guest instructors. Classes run on a sliding-scale basis and average around 60 students, a mix of first-timers and regulars.

On Instagram, followers said Yoga on the Banks classes are what “kickstarted their love and appreciation for yoga” and saved them during COVID when “isolation was really real.”

“To this day, almost every class I teach is someone’s first time,” Gautsche said. “You don’t need 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 “kind of like a death.”

Masse started teaching Yoga on the Banks classes in 2018 after being a student for several years. Now, she’s starting another riverside yoga program — Philly River Flow — with another former instructor Lora Reehling, set to launch on July 30 at same location as Yoga on the Banks, 25th and Locust Streets.

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

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“We were disappointed and sad, but motivated to keep the community going,” said Reehling, who started teaching with Yoga on the Banks in 2021. “We are so grateful to Erin. She grew a beautiful program and truly deserves immense validation and credit for what it has become. We wish her nothing but the best.”

Records with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office show that Gautsche filed a still-pending trademark application for Yoga on the Banks on April 21, just months before she announced her move to Michigan.

“I want to keep the opportunity open to begin a community yoga program again once I’ve resettled,” Gautsche said, noting that Grand Rapids does, in fact, have a river.

Gautsche views fans’ shock about the end of Yoga on the Banks as a testament to what made the classes special.

“I think that response was out of love,” she said. “They wanted to keep doing it. They wanted it to continue forever.”