Nestled between a coffee shop and a craft beer taproom in Southeast Portland’s bustling Woodstock neighborhood, dozens of people are shuffling into the Elk Rock Yoga studio. Instructor April Fox adjusts a small, portable projector to illuminate multicolored swirls and starry lights at the front of the dimly lit room.

On this Tuesday night, more than 30 people have shown up. Space is limited. But like a game of Tetris, Fox is helping them find the perfect spot. She’s also checking on her playlist for this evening, making sure it’s queued up and ready to go.

But her playlist isn’t filled with the mantras or the ambient instrumentals you’ll typically hear during a yoga class. For the last 10 years, Fox has been teaching doom metal yoga.

“A lot of people hear doom metal and they don’t really know what doom metal is, they just think heavy metal music … it’s like ‘AAARGH,’ right,?” Fox said. “And doom metal is very different, it’s ‘uggghh.’ It’s like really low and slow.”

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It’s that low and slow tempo that Fox says makes for the perfect mashup, pointing out its meditative and psychedelic qualities. She quickly picked up on these components after hearing doom metal while practicing yoga in a Portland park over a decade ago.

“There’s this essence of like really tuning in and being like super focused in it,” she said.

Fox is from Michigan, and she graduated from Marygrove College with a degree in dance. Always passionate about movement, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in dance, but admitted it was really hard, super competitive, and toxic at times.

What started as a way to stay in shape morphed into a new passion when she began taking yoga classes in college. Her former yoga instructor, Theresa May, also showed her a new world of possibilities.

“I’m struggling to get into this pose, and she’s like, ‘You know, it doesn’t have to be perfect every time.’ And it was like, Mind. Blown,” Fox said. “Whatever you are is perfect already. Like, you can just be.”

The perfect match

In 2014, Fox moved to Portland and began teaching yoga. During one of her routine solo sessions in the park, she decided to try something different.

A recommendation from a friend, she played “Prepare the Ground” by Yob, a doom metal band from Eugene, Oregon.

“Doing things differently has been a huge part of my life story, but the doom specifically — I really wasn’t familiar with the genre up until that one band. And now it’s like become my whole personality,” Fox said.

Soon after, practicing yoga to doom metal became her new normal. Fox joked with friends about her new obsession and was met with immediate excitement. In 2015, she started “Deep Dark Yoga.”

Melissa Heffner is the director of music therapy at Pacific University in Forest Grove. She admitted she hadn’t heard of the metal subgenre before learning about Fox’s class.

But she also quickly picked up on its low, hypnotic melodies.

“It was different than what I thought,” Heffner said. “Because anything attached to metal, I feel like it’s going to be screaming music. That’s not what this is.”

Heffner has been a music therapist since 2013. She’s mostly worked with children who have special needs, but she has also helped older adults suffering with dementia recover their memories.

“Music actually engages the entire brain,” she said. “So, that’s why connections can be made when music is involved. When maybe in other situations, it’s a little more difficult.”

Heffner said music can also help people improve their mental and physical health, connecting them through a shared experience and expression.

Blending worlds together

Over the years, Fox’s classes have become a hub for people to not only improve their mobility but also to share their love of doom metal.

For Kate Boyle and her husband Sean, joining a doom metal yoga class was more about finding something they both enjoy and could do together.

Kate loves yoga and Sean loves metal. It was a perfect fit.

“Honestly, the music almost kind of melts away for me and becomes background,” Sean said. “I think the long, slow droning metal that April plays allows it to just kind of become part of the space.”

For Kate, doom metal’s hypnotic melodies helped her tap into her zen.

“You could just kind of become in a trance at the end of it,” she said. “And most of it’s instrumental, so it’s not too distracting, and it really does just blend in with the class.”

They say the classes have become a monthly ritual for them, a way to blend their worlds together and slow down.

Yoga newbie Nathan Hirstein began taking classes as a way to manage his chronic pain. He recently finished a round of physical therapy and was looking for ways to keep his body active.

But stepping into Fox’s class, he admitted he was nervous.

“I enjoy the music and recently started trying yoga for the first time in my home,” he said. “I’ve always been a little bit intimidated by in-person classes before … I don’t think anybody is judging anybody else, but I know it’s easy for me to feel judgment for myself.”

A huge doom metal fan, Hirstein says the mashup of the two felt like a sort of gateway for him to give in-person classes a try, with a boost of confidence that came from knowing the genre so well.

Building a community

In the hope of keeping her classes accessible, Fox also teaches online. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her online audience grew significantly, with folks from as far away as Australia tuning in.

Her international students, much like the community she’s built in Portland, often talk about music and recommend songs for her classes.

“I get amazing recommendations,” she said. “So many people who are like, ‘Oh, my buddy’s in a band,’ or, ‘Hey, I’m in a band.’ So lots of new things that I always get to move through.”

Each month, Fox curates a new playlist featuring a variety of doom metal bands, often including those recommendations. If a song recommendation doesn’t make her list, she’ll either shout it out on her social media or mention it in her newsletter.

“I always want to share what people are sharing with me,” Fox said. “I just believe we should all boost each other, lift each other up.”

Fox says she’s hoping to push past the idea some people may have of who practices yoga. And blending doom metal with yoga, she says, has helped her create a new and inclusive space for people like her, who may have grown up in more of a counterculture environment.

She also hopes to answer the question she said she often hears: “Am I going to be accepted?”

“I think when people hear there’s this crazy woman with two chihuahuas who plays doom metal music and does yoga, they’re like, ‘Yeah, I think maybe I can belong there.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/06/06/doom-metal-yoga-portland-oregon-music/