Should yoga rock? Should it spin? Should it dance? Should there be walking with your warrior one and dumbbells with your downward dog?

According to a slew of nontraditional yoga classes and studios sprouting up around Arroyoland, the answer is a resounding yes. The reaction of traditional yogis who typically revere the spiritual benefits? It may surprise you. I say whatever the motivation, if it brings them to the mat so that they can have a deeper experience of themselves, thats the perfect introduction for that person, says Pete Lee, who teaches kundalini yoga, a Sikh-based tradition.

Indeed, YogaWorks Pasadena touts its cardio-flow yoga class by noting its earth-bound payoff: Your ultimate goal may be enlightenment, but it never hurt anyone to develop a hot booty along the way. Similar sentiments led yoga celeb Colleen Saidman Yee to create her Calorie-Killer Yoga DVD, which comes out in March. As I get older, I realize the benefits of including cardio and strength into my asana practice, she told Arroyo Monthly. It doesnt hinder the practice leading to or becoming meditation. (But she cautioned that not all yoga-hybrid classes are created equal: The main problem is not enough study for some of the hybrids and the result is poor alignment and very poor sequencing, which can lead to injury.)

Crunch in Burbank also provides booty aid in its AntiGravity Yoga class, which incorporates dance, Pilates and calisthenics in a trapeze-like hammock. Yes, a hammock. New York Citybased Unnata Aerial Yoga takes the concept even further by combining traditional yoga with aerial acrobatic training using a soft fabric trapeze, which makes inversions easier. According to the Unnata website, by supporting the weight of the body, the fabric trapeze or hammock helps students quickly achieve advanced traditional yoga postures that would otherwise take years to learn.

Prefer a more streamlined workout? Try a BarWorks class (a strength-building class that incorporates ballet barre work to complement ones yoga practice) or Yoga With Ropes (which incorporates a rope wall to enable deeper release into the poses), all offered at the Pasadena studio.

Meanwhile, Rock It Workouts in Pasadena offers Yoga Rock: We mix incredible music with incredible sculpting fusions that work to balance your mind, body and soul, according to the Rock It website. It also offers vigorous Rock Your Buti classes in Buti Yoga, which fuses yoga, tribal dance and plyometrics (a training technique that boosts strength by making muscles exert maximum force in as short a time as possible, such as repeated jumping). Derived from the Marathi word Buti, meaning the cure to something hidden or kept secret (but serendipitously being a homonym for booty), its objective is to guide women through movement, nutrition and wellness that supports the female spirit transforming lives from the inside-out Buti combines various styles of hatha yoga with tribal-influenced dance sequences to keep the heart rate up, free the female spirit and help women form a tribe or sisterhood, according to the Buti website.

Then theres Pasadenas YogaHop, which bills itself as the home of high energy, fun yoga YogaHop yoga offers a celebratory twist by featuring music of the hip-hop, rock and pop worlds jamming out of booming speakers, headset-microphoned teachers and all the energy of a dance party. The result is an East meets West yoga style thats athletically fulfilling and spiritually soothing, the website says.

On the tamer side, Descanso Gardens in La Caada Flintridge offers members-only classes that combine a 25-minute fitness walk and 60-minute yoga class. At Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, both members and nonmembers can attend outdoor yoga classes.

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Yoga 2.0