About Us

Inner Fire Yoga's owner and director Marit Sathrum walked into her first yoga class at Bikram's Yoga College of India in San Francisco in March 1993. Half way through the first exercise, pranayama deep breathing, she was hooked. Almost immediately, she participated in the 30-day yoga challenge and received countless benefits, including: quitting smoking, losing 17 pounds, gaining nearly an inch in height and feeling a sense of overall well-being and self-confidence.

In 1997, the clarity gained from a regular yoga practice led Marit to make a life-changing decision: she quit her job as an equity analyst in the investment banking industry, and enrolled in a 500-hour teacher training program at Bikram's Yoga College of India in Los Angeles.

In August 2000, Marit's son was born in San Francisco. Just over a year later, on the eve of 9/11, she and her son's father parted ways.

"It seemed as if the world was crashing down all around me. I took a close look at life, and decided to go back to my roots."

While visiting Madison in June 2002 looking for a job and home, Marit saw a "For Lease" sign as she drove by what would become Inner Fire's first location on University Avenue. With great faith, she took a risky leap and borrowed money from several credit cards to open the doors of her first studio.

Inner Fire Yoga opened its doors on October 14, 2002 as Bikram Yoga Madison. In December 2005, even though her life was quite full between running a small business and being a single mother to a five-year-old boy, Marit had a deep longing for another child. She traveled to Ethiopia, Africa and adopted a five-month-old baby girl.

The name Inner Fire Yoga was born in 2007 as a result of the desire to express passion for a wider variety of yoga offerings — not just Hot Yoga, but also Power Flow and Yin Yoga. To bridge what appeared to be a divide between Hot and Power Flow Yoga, Marit, with the help of several senior teachers, created the Inner Fire Flow Yoga sequence.

In 2011, Inner Fire Yoga graduated its first class of newly credentialed 200-hour yoga teachers. In early 2018, a second studio opened on the vibrant near east side of Madison. Today, Inner Fire offers Hot, Power Flow, Inner Fire Flow, Slow Flow, and Yin Yoga on both sides of Madison — along with a 200-hour yoga teacher certification program.

Since day one, Inner Fire Yoga has been committed to serving the Madison area community with an authentic yoga experience at the highest level of expertise and integrity, inspiring those who reach for excellence to achieve freedom in body, clarity of mind, and generosity of heart.