Long Branch brings back donation-based beach yoga through September

Long Branch is turning West End Beach back into a summer yoga anchor, with the City of Long Branch and Sun Moon Yoga set to launch Long Branch Beach Yoga on May 23 and keep it running through Sept. 7. The program will be donation-based, open without a membership, and scheduled to catch both early risers and after-work practitioners, with daily morning classes from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. and evening sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

That setup gives the shoreline class a low barrier to entry while keeping it rooted in the kind of community atmosphere that has helped it return year after year. Participants are asked to bring a mat, towel or blanket, plus water and sunscreen. For anyone planning a beach day around it, Long Branch’s municipal beach rules still apply, with 2026 badge prices listed at $6 on weekdays and $9 on weekends and holidays. Children 13 and under, seniors 62 and older with ID, disabled individuals and active military members and their immediate families can enter municipal beaches free.

The city’s official Beach Yoga page shows the class is not a one-off experiment but a standing municipal offering, part of a broader beachfront recreation push that mixes wellness with public access. The appeal is straightforward: yoga on sand, with open air and ocean noise replacing the closed-off feel of a studio. That combination has kept the practice visible in Long Branch for more than a decade, from the first West End Beach yoga event in 2014 to a 2017 schedule that already featured daily mornings and evening classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays through Labor Day.

Sun Moon Yoga’s own local history helps explain why the partnership fits. The studio opened in Long Branch in July 2019 at 104 Brighton Ave. in the West End section, founded by Emily Sobel and Lisa Horan-Sockol. A later profile noted that Sun Moon Yoga and Healing moved to 1201 Sycamore Ave. in Tinton Falls and grew to offer 16 weekly classes for all skill levels, along with beach yoga outside the studio near the Monmouth Beach Bathing Pavilion. That kind of regional footprint gives the beach program both continuity and a built-in yoga audience.

For Long Branch, the return of beach yoga is about more than filling a summer calendar. It is a repeatable public ritual, one that keeps drawing beginners and regulars because it is accessible, social and easy to show up for. West End Beach will once again host that formula at sunrise and after work, and by Sept. 7, the city will have spent another season proving that oceanfront yoga still has staying power on the Jersey Shore.