The Reigning World Yoga Champion Is Coming to Ridgefield, and You Can Watch Her Work for Free
Marcia Hetrick has a world title, a national title, and a decade as a professional ballet dancer behind her. She will be at The Yoga Ridge for two sessions during their free yoga weekend. There is also free ice cream involved. This is not a thing that normally happens in a town this size.
Holley texted me about this and I had to sit with it for a second, because my first honest reaction was: there is a world championship for yoga? I did not know that. I am the person who signed up for Pure Barre thinking there would be ballet involved, so my track record here is well documented. But I looked it up, and then I kept looking it up, and now I am the one telling everyone.
Here is the short version. Competitive yogasana is a real judged sport. Athletes perform a set sequence of compulsory postures plus optional ones, and a panel scores them on precision, alignment, control, and how long they can hold a shape without so much as a wobble. Think figure skating rules applied to a yoga mat. There is a national circuit, there is a world championship, and there are people who train twice a day for years to place in it.
Marcia Hetrick is the person who won it.
She is the reigning World Yoga Champion and the 2026 USA National Yoga Champion. Before yoga, she had a BFA in Ballet from the University of Cincinnati and spent over a decade dancing professionally with the Milwaukee Ballet, the Dayton Ballet, and the Fort Wayne Ballet. She moved into yoga in 2020 after retiring from dance, and she has said the hardest part was unlearning how a ballet body is trained to move. She competed for the United States at the World Championship of Yogasana Sports in Malaysia. She now teaches 26+2, Integrated Hatha, Hot Power Vinyasa, Yin, and Inferno Hot Pilates, and she specializes in backbends and hip work.
And on the last weekend in August, she will be in a studio off Settler Drive in Ridgefield, Washington, demonstrating postures in front of whoever shows up.
The Two Sessions Marcia Will Be At
She is joining two specific sessions during The Yoga Ridge's customer appreciation weekend. Both are worth your time for different reasons, and only one of them costs anything.
Marcia Hetrick at The Yoga Ridge
If you only do one thing off this list, make it the Sunday clinic. Fifteen dollars to watch a world champion break down a posture you have been quietly faking for a year, and then get to ask her why your standing bow keeps collapsing, is the best value on this entire page. I do not say that lightly about the one paid item in a free weekend.
The Rest of the Weekend Is Free
Marcia is the headline, but she is showing up in the middle of something The Yoga Ridge was already doing. Holley and Chris are running three days of complimentary classes as a thank-you to the community, and they are open to absolutely everyone. Not a member, never taken a hot yoga class, do not own a mat, do not know what 26+2 means: all fine. Rental mats are available at no charge for the weekend.
There is one non-negotiable, though. Every class requires advance registration, including the free ones. Space is limited and the room only holds so many people. If you are bringing your sister and your neighbor and your coworker, each of them needs their own registration. Do not show up as a surprise group of four.
And Then There Is the Ice Cream
Eight Cow Creamery is providing free one-scoop cards for every yoga participant that weekend. Every class, every participant, all three days.
I want to point out that Eight Cow is roughly fifty feet from the studio door. Not a drive. Not a "make a day of it" situation. You will finish a class, walk outside, and be standing in front of it. This is the most Ridgefield sequence of events I can imagine and I fully support it.
The Full Schedule
Nine classes across three days. Marcia's two sessions are marked. Every link below goes straight to registration.
A faster-paced sixty-minute version of the Original Hot Yoga series with fewer stops. Good if you want to sweat and be done before dinner.
Quiet, floor-based, room temperature, long holds with props. This is the beginner-friendly one. If the phrase "hot yoga" made you close the tab, start here.
For the people who are already awake. You know who you are.
The full 26+2 sequence in a streamlined hour. Beginners welcome, and this is a sensible warm-up before the workshop that follows it.
The expanded version of the Yoga Ridge's Integrated Hatha class, which builds past 26+2 with additional postures and new transitions. Normally a ninety-minute class on select Saturdays; for this weekend it becomes a full two-hour workshop with detailed instruction and time for questions.
Marcia will be demonstrating the postures. This is the free one, it is two hours long, and it will fill.
An hour of the familiar structure, faster, fewer stops. Stack it before the posture clinic if you want a full morning.
Two hours working through both the standing and floor series, with Marcia demonstrating the postures and a question-and-answer session afterward. Bring the specific thing that has been bugging you. This is the format where you actually get an answer to it.
The only paid item on the schedule, and still the one I would pick first.
The traditional ninety-minute 26+2 practice with two sets of most postures. The full experience, and a genuinely good first-timer option because nothing moves fast.
Ninety minutes of long floor holds, props, and quiet to close out the weekend. If you did anything else on this list, your body will thank you for this one.
The Sign-Up Specials
The other reason to pay attention: the studio is running real discounts for anyone who signs up during those three days. These prices are only good August 28 through 30, and the savings are not small.
Weekend-Only Pricing · Aug 28–30
Quick math, since I know somebody is doing it in their head: if you take the free classes, grab the twenty-pack, and eat the ice cream, you are walking out of that weekend having saved seventy-five dollars on classes you were going to buy anyway, plus whatever a scoop costs, plus a workshop with a world champion. That is a reasonable Saturday.
If You Have Never Done This Before
A few practical things, because I know at least four of you are reading this and quietly panicking about the word "heated."
Questions People Are Already Asking Me
Wait, there is a world championship for yoga?
There is. Competitive yogasana is judged on precision, alignment, and control across a set sequence of compulsory and optional postures. USA Yoga runs the national circuit and athletes qualify through to the world championship. Marcia represented the United States in Malaysia and currently holds both the world and the 2026 national title.
Do I have to be good at yoga to go?
No. Every complimentary class on the schedule is open to all levels, and the posture clinic is specifically built for asking questions. The whole point of a demonstration is that someone shows you how it is supposed to look.
Can I just walk in?
No, and I want to be clear about this because it is the thing that will burn people. Every class requires advance registration, free ones included. Each person in your group needs their own spot.
Is any of it actually free, or is this a sales thing?
Everything except the Sunday posture clinic is complimentary with no obligation. The clinic is $15. There are sign-up specials on offer, but nobody is going to block the door.
Is the ice cream really free?
Yes. Eight Cow Creamery is providing one-scoop cards for every yoga participant across all three days. Take a class, get a card, walk fifty feet.
Where exactly is it?
4403 S. Settler Dr., Suite 110, in Ridgefield. Call or text the studio at 360-624-1142 if you get stuck.
One More Thing
I write about a lot of openings in this town. New fire station, new park, new taproom, another new subdivision with a name that sounds like a shampoo. This one is a little different, because it is not a building. It is a person at the top of her field choosing to spend a weekend in Ridgefield, Washington, sharing what she knows with whoever walks through the door.
That happens because Holley and Chris built something people want to come to, and because they asked. It is also worth noting that the ice cream shop next door said yes without being asked twice. Small towns get these moments when a few people decide to reach further than the town's size would suggest. The correct response is to show up.
Register early. The workshop is free and two hours long, which is exactly the combination that fills a room by Thursday.
More from Meanwhile in Ridgefield
If you go, tell Holley you saw it here, and then tell me how it went. I want to know whether anyone in that room managed to hold a standing bow as long as she does. I already know it will not be me, and I have made my peace with that. I will, however, be at Eight Cow.
