When Aaron King reflects on his journey of becoming who he is today, a music-loving yogi in the mountains of Colorado, he says the timeline begins when he was 27 years old. Then, King was working in the music industry with a company called BMG in Los Angeles, California.
In 1998, while in Los Angeles, a friend of King took him to a yoga class. “It completely shifted my whole perspective on life,” he says. Shortly after, King followed the path of yoga to the southwestern United States.
King’s roommate at the time was opening At One Yoga in Scottsdale, Arizona. Shortly after, King shares, he moved out to Scottsdale that year to complete his yoga training and started teaching. By 2000, King started teaching his own yoga classes.
“I ended up moving to Aspen in 2004 and worked at O2 for about a year and a half and then opened King Yoga,” he says. This first King Yoga studio opened in 2006, and King has had a devout following in the area ever since.
King likes to play jam bands like Phish or the Grateful Dead when he leads practices. He enjoys combining his personal knowledge and passion of music into the yoga sessions.
“I had this wall of like 4,000 CDs, and, at first, when I started I would just play Krishna Das or Chakra Chance.” King says that changed when “this gentleman that came in was like ‘dude can you play something different?’ and I went home and was like ‘Oh my god, I have got like 4,000 CDs that I might as well start making playlists.’”
Yoga, music, life is King’s motto. “The yoga is the healing space for me to deal with the struggles we all face in life and personally. The music puts me in that zen-y, peaceful state with my friends and it’s sort of easier to live my life off my mat,” he explains.
After closing his studio and taking some time off, King has recently moved into a new space in the heart of Snowmass Base Village. The studio was set to open earlier this year, but COVID-19 inevitably created some setbacks.
“The Snowmass studio hasn’t fully opened yet because of COVID, but I have been doing projects and small invite-only classes right now,” King continues. “COVID has really made it challenging for yoga studios to make it happen.”
Adjusting to the regulations around COVID-19, King has held classes outside at the rink in Snowmass Base Village during the summer months and hopes to continue to do so.
“The Snowmass Base is awesome. What they have created up here is such a welcoming site,” he says. “It is pretty magical and special up here.”
King says he is working to have another studio, located in Aspen, open in Fall of 2020. For now, he is using the sources he can between the great outdoors and the Internet.
“Currently, I have taught a few classes indoors, a bunch of private [sessions] this summer, thank goodness, and outdoor stuff. I have taught 120 classes online.” King says he has been using Instagram’s live feature to hold his online classes. “That was one shining thing that came out of COVID, reconnecting with people online,” he adds.
King also recently launched King on Demand, a subscription based platform for yogis to take classes with King online.
Originally published in the Winter + Spring 2020-21 issue of CO YOGA + Life Magazine.
The power of words and pictures has always been an important aspect in Brooke Welsh’s life. She currently attends the University of Colorado Boulder, where she plans to graduate with a major in Journalism and a minor in Studio Art in the Spring of 2021. Brooke moved out to Colorado from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to be a part of its active environment and to be surrounded by its gorgeous topography. She is often found with her camera in hand ready to capture any moment. Brooke enjoys traveling, going to see live music and hiking through as many trails as she can.
