Billy Potocnik, 38, welcomes his students into a rather hot and dark yoga room a few minutes before noon March 5 at Zenergy Yoga & Pilates, 5996 South Holly St., in Greenwood Village. He puts on some relaxing music at a comfortable volume.

After the 13 or so students, both male and female, unroll their yoga mats and stretch out, Potocnik, sitting in a lotus position, begins the one-hour class.

"Let's start off sitting nice and tall," he instructs them. "Draw your breath in and out of your nose. We're settling into our space, our place. This moment -- this time -- is all that exists."

The room is dark and hot -- about 130 degrees between the heat and humidity. The heat adds to the yoga experience, Potocnik says. It cleanses and detoxifies the body. And it's relaxing.

Potocnik tells the group to keep filling up their lungs and emptying them out. He then tells them to be cautious of what kind of energy they're sending out.

"For the next 60 minutes, this is all we're going to do," he says. "Feel that breath as the life it is, as the energy it is. Fill this room with positive, uplifting energy. What you give is what you get. What kind of energy are you going to give out today? It's up to you."

Then the group, in unison, lets out three big Oms, the sound bouncing off the mirrored walls and enveloping the room. Next, Potocnik offers a small prayer of thanks and gratitude before getting into some yogic postures.

"We're so lucky just to be here, just to be alive," he says, with a smile.

Potocnik guides the class through several yogic postures, including the downward and upward facing dog, the chair pose, the thunderbolt, the twisted prayer, the crescent lunge, the warrior and the triangle.

Potocnik has been teaching yoga for three years; he teaches 10 classes a week at Zenergy and at Corepower Yoga at Stapleton, in Denver. The Denver resident has been practicing yoga for 10 years. He is professionally trained in two types of yoga: Bikram yoga, or hot yoga, and vinyasa yoga, or power yoga. The students in today's class are practicing vinyasa yoga with heat, not to be confused with hot yoga.

He continues going through postures with the students, straightening a student's back here and lifting a student's arm there.

"Sometimes we're tight through our shoulders," he says. "Open it up. Open your heart to the sky. Even if we're struggling a little bit, we just breathe."

Potocnik said he considers himself a student just as much as he is a teacher.

"I'm learning all the time," he says.

Potocnik has a positive and humble attitude about his job, and life in general. His advice to anyone is to love every moment in life, even the crummy ones. You have to embrace your mistakes, he says.

"That's the beauty of life -- you gotta love it all," he says. "That's the journey right there."