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Seattle Magazine

Strike a Pose

By Jasmine Moir
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Yoga’s popularity is showing no signs of waning. But with a studio on almost every corner, how do you find the one that’s right for you? We did the research to uncover the city’s best places to roll out your yoga mat.

Flash-in-the-pan fitness fads may come and go (remember pole-dancing workouts?), but if the ubiquity of Seattle yoga studios says anything, it’s that this ancient tradition clearly has staying power. Hailed by fans as the shortest route to inner wellness—as well as to biceps like Madonna’s—sometimes a downward-facing dog or two can be as rejuvenating as a pricey beauty treatment. So after taking a deep breath and centering our chi, we contacted local studio owners in search of the very best Seattle has to offer. Maybe it’s their laidback nature or all that chanting, but our experts had plenty of praise for their competitors, gracefully pointing us to the studios and teachers who make up the city’s cream of the crop


Best Therapeutic Yoga:
Whole Life Yoga, Greenwood;
Planet Earth Yoga Center, Fremont
For ailments ranging from nagging sports injuries to serious back problems, teachers recommend these Greenwood and Fremont studios dedicated to viniyoga—a gentle style in which poses are carefully modified for each student. Both are helmed by owners with sports and fitness backgrounds and tout classes as “user-friendly yoga,” which means nobody will snicker if you aren’t as flexible as Gumby.


Best
Hot Yoga:
Bikram Yoga College of India, Fremont; Sweatbox Yoga, Capitol Hill
Some experts caution that this style of yoga—a 90-minute series of poses performed in a 105-degree heated room—can lead to injuries, while others insist the sauna-like temperature is actually safer for your muscles. When it comes to detoxifying, however, none question the power of the puddle of sweat you’ll produce. And all recommend heading to Fremont’s 10-year-old Bikram College of India or Capitol Hill’s aptly named Sweatbox, a neighborhood staple since 2001.


Best Power Yoga:

Shakti Vinyasa Yoga, Ballard and Bellevue
One glance at Shakti yoga’s sinewy student base and we understood why Lisa Black and Peter Avolio’s Ballard and Bellevue studios were the unanimous pick for Seattle’s best power yoga. The only West Coast studio affiliated with renowned yoga innovator Baron Baptiste, Shakti offers challenging flow classes in toasty 88-degree heated studios—making it your best bet for a lean, mean physique that rivals Christy Turlington’s.


Best Iyengar Yoga:

Yoga Centers, Bellevue
For this style of yoga classes—which emphasize anatomically correct poses and proper alignment—we hear Bellevue’s Yoga Centers can’t be beat, since teachers must complete 2,000 hours of training with internationally recognized senior teacher Aadil Palkhivala. A former lawyer who began practicing yoga at age 7, Palkhivala opened the studio 16 years ago (it was Bellevue’s first) and now teaches purna yoga—his unique, Iyengar-based style—throughout the Puget Sound area and beyond.


Best Prenatal and

Postnatal Yoga: Colette Crawford
Seattle Holistic Center, North Seattle and Wallingford
After a severe car accident while eight months pregnant in 1991, registered nurse Colette Crawford used yoga as a drug-free way to deal with pain. Thrilled with the results, she and her husband, Bruce, founded the postnatal program (prenatal was founded earlier) at Seattle Holistic Center and the Good Shepherd Center—where her gentle, meditative classes are now widely considered to be the best in the city.


Did we miss something? Please leave us a comment about your favorite yoga studio. We're gathering up your responses for a list of readers' picks. Be sure to explain WHY you love your studio and we'll consider your nomination for our list!


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Posted By fjfj August 24, 2010  |  7:58 PM Report this Comment
My favorite yoga studio in town is Taj Yoga in Crown Hill! I've studied with owner and master yoga instructor Theresa Elliott over the past 10 years, and I'm still blown away that I hear something new in just about every class I attend. She offers beginner and general classes, and her Tuesday/Thursday morning classes are AMAZING explorations of skill in asana, and vinyasa yoga - perfect for advanced practitioners or teachers. For those with injuries, I personally worked with Theresa over a fe

Posted By mqp_ski March 11, 2009  |  1:16 AM Report this Comment
Slobody Yoga is world class!!! I have done yoga in many cities in the world and have never experienced any yoga of this caliber. The conditioning aspect of it makes it a yoga for athletes. Its benefits are amazing for both the body and the soul. Don't miss it if you can experience it.

Posted By mboodley March 08, 2009  |  11:26 PM Report this Comment
Oh, and another point I would like to make: physical difficulty in yoga is often confused with advancement. The real difficulty in yoga is learning to focus and control one's mind, and the asanas, or postures, are merely one of the 8 limbs, or aspects, or yoga.

Posted By Anne Phyfe Palmer March 06, 2009  |  8:45 PM Report this Comment
Thanks for having the skill to simultaneously poke fun of and respect yoga and the other paths to wellness you profiled. You discovered some fun and interesting things about this very wellness-oriented city to both humor and inform. I would like to address your definition of Hatha Yoga. Hatha – which has numerous meanings, one of which is "to strike" – is the main category that all of the styles you profiled fall under, and can be mentally and physically "gentle" or extremely challenging. Ph

Posted By Anne Phyfe Palmer March 06, 2009  |  4:43 PM Report this Comment
I did yoga for over a year and at many different studios and it was never quite enough. I would do hot yoga and feel amazing for an hour after, but never saw the impact on my body that I wanted. I always heard that pilates was a good alternative, and after a couple sessions I was amazed! I didn't get nearly as tired as after a heated yoga class, and my body was becoming more toned each session. Core Pilates in Bellevue is my favorite studio by far- check it out!

Posted By hmellsworth March 06, 2009  |  1:43 PM Report this Comment
Hoku-- Though we put weeks of research into creating a definitive list of the city's best yoga studios, for obvious reasons, we can't include every studio in the city. With that said, we're thinking of creating a list of readers' picks for the city's best yoga studios (if we get enough suggestions and comments on this article) So please tell us about your favorite yoga studio--and be sure to explain WHY you think your studio is better than the rest.

Posted By Karen Johnson March 02, 2009  |  11:30 PM Report this Comment

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