A hot new way to practice yoga

If summer's swelter still seems distant, a new yoga studio in Brookline Village will soon feel like a languid, breezeless day in August. Baptiste Power Yoga, an athletic version of yoga developed by Baron Baptiste, is practiced in studios where the temperature hovers around 90 degrees.

The new 4,000-square-foot studio, which opened last week -- the institute already has studios in Cambridge's Porter Square and the Back Bay -- has eased into a former thrift shop renovated into an urban sanctuary of sunshine yellows and sage greens, topped by a skylight. Baptiste, who has homes in Cambridge and Park City, Utah, has won a following as yogi to the stars -- his fans include Helen Hunt and Elizabeth Shue.

Baptiste believes in starting early. Born into a well-known family of yoga practitioners, he has a website that shows him stretching into yoga poses at the age of 7. His studios offer classes for children and he recently wrote a kids' book: ''My Daddy is a Pretzel." When Baptiste is in town, at least once a month, he teaches classes.

Baptiste Power Yoga isn't as hot as bikrim yoga, where the mercury hovers around 108 degrees, but the institute's special heaters pour warm air from the ceiling. Baptiste practitioners believe the warmth limbers up and detoxifies the body.

''You really feel like you're rinsed out by the end of class," said Vyda Bielkus, director of the Baptiste Power Yoga Institute . ''If you're in a cold, rigid [studio], it's hard to move because you want to contract."

Neither membership fees nor registration is required. Classes are $12 each and range from beginners to experienced practitioners. -- KATHLEEN BURGE

Baptiste Power Yoga, 25 Harvard St., Brookline, baronbaptiste.com. 617-232-9642.