About
The Den Hawaiʻi
The Den is a movement and recovery studio on Oʻahu’s North Shore. Reformer Pilates Sculpt in Haleʻiwa and Pupukea. Yoga, spin, sauna and cold plunge in Waialua. Founded by accident in many ways, and still working it out.
Our why
Move well with friends.
Play good music. Welcome everyone. That was the whole plan on the deck it started on, and it is still the whole plan.
Our daily therapy is high-intensity, low-impact movement. Time in a piping hot sauna followed by an icy plunge. Laughing with friends. The occasional reminder that doing hard things on purpose somehow makes the rest of life feel easier — especially when done alongside other people.
Reformer, spin, yoga, sauna and cold plunge. Each adapts to every level. Each has its own personality. All of them have the same Den feel: the vibe of yoga, the music of spin, the precision of Pilates. Warm and clear, and still designed to kick your ass.
We take the hour seriously and almost nothing else.
How it started
One machine on a back deck.
October 2021. Chelsey arrives on Oʻahu’s North Shore on a COVID whim — a van, a dog named Gryff, a few weeks to kill, and a world shut down. Her normal routine of teaching five classes a day gone with it.
So she grabbed a sprinter van and travelled with young Gryff. It did not take long for her to find movement again, picking up classes where she could, and one special client nudged her to open her own space — then bought her a reformer to make sure she did.
She put it on her back deck. That client drove an hour, several times a week, to take class on it. The concept was simple enough: move well with friends, play good music, welcome everyone. It just happened to be what one instructor with a single reformer, a small back deck and a mid-sized dog — the only person on the deck allowed to be lazy — needed at the time.
She called it The Den. Another client, an architect, drew the rainbow in about ten minutes. It grew to three machines, which was all that would fit.
Kona found his way there shortly after, running into Chelsey on a backyard volleyball court. It took her about five minutes to challenge him to try a class. He had decided his job for the time being was running challenges, with his work at the Kokua Hawaiʻi Foundation in similar flux. He thought a Pilates challenge would be simple. Turns out he was dead wrong.
From there ideas, volleyball games, late-night debates and a whole lot of classes followed. An accidental partnership, too.
The first proper room followed a year later: a 400 square foot garage in Pupukea, built into the side of a hill, which after a deck felt enormous. Then the first real commercial space in Haleʻiwa — technically still a garage — then Waialua, and now leases signed for Kahuku and Oceanside. All of it still tied together by those three simple ideas. Late night discussions. And Gryff.
The two of us
Chelsey and Kona.
Chelsey Lowe, E-RYT, started it and still teaches in it. Certified in Pilates Sculpt, Vinyasa, Yin, Yoga Sculpt and Spin, with 14+ years teaching and a background training professional and collegiate athletes — the twenty-two years before the yoga were spent becoming an All-American volleyball player, which explains a lot about the classes.
Alongside teaching daily, she leads the Spin and Yoga Sculpt teacher trainings. Outside of all things Den, catch her on the volleyball court, or walking with silent Den investor, her dog Gryff.
Kona Johnson grew up down the road from the first Den studio, second generation on this island — close enough that he ran to his first Reformer Pilates Sculpt class, straight up the hill. He thought he was in for a slow stretch. He worked out fairly quickly that he was going to need a ride home.
The humbling left him curious. So did Chelsey’s magnetic “wooo”s and how effortless she made the teaching look. When she moved in next door a few weeks later it seemed like a sign. He would handle everything outside the room and she would carry on doing what she does best.
Looking back it makes all the sense in the world: a systems thinking major at UC Berkeley, and a childhood of movement where kickball, dodgeball and junior lifeguards ranked just behind surfing. The obvious career at the end of all that was ninja. He tells our trainees he has not entirely let it go. Some days the movement still gets close.
Early on we worked out the division of labour: he is the why, she is the why not. One of us will happily spend a week perfecting something. The other will have already opened the door. Nothing since has disproved it, and the place is better for it.
The team
Some of our growing team.
Teachers, front desk, and the ones making your smoothie. Not everyone is pictured — we keep hiring, and the best way to meet any of them is to come take a class.
Who runs what
The people keeping it upright.
Maddie Rice came in as a student, went through the reformer training, and now teaches, runs the scheduling for every studio and leads trainings of her own — the first of our graduates to do it.
The team is always growing. If you think you would be good at any part of it — front desk, teaching, marketing, something we have not thought of — email us and tell us what you would bring.
The short version
What we actually do.
A class
45–60 min Reformer 50, yoga 60, spin 45, sauna and ice 45.
The Recovery Den
185°F & 39°F One sauna, two ice baths — 55°F if you are easing in.
Teachers trained
8+ cohorts 50 hours each. A lot of our instructors started there.
Start here
From $45 Three classes across two weeks. New here.
Come see the rooms.
Three classes, from $45. Bring a friend if it helps.