Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god renowned for promoting success and removing obstacles, greets visitors at the entryway, and melodic chanting fills the air. Climb the stairs to Queen Anne's Yogalife, the new yoga studio located above Orrapin Noodles on Boston Street. Although Yogalife just opened, these walls - warm butterscotch trimmed in lavender - have sheltered stretching bodies for more than 30 years.
"The molecules from this place are still vibrating," says Michael Suzerris, owner of Yogalife on Queen Anne and another in Greenlake. "Walk into this room and ask yourself if you could do yoga here." He gestures to the long, rectangular room blessed with a wall of windows. "You know that you could; this place was made for yoga."
For more than 20 years, Marie Svoboda, known to the yoga community as the grand matron of yoga in Seattle, had her yoga studio in the exact space of the new Yogalife on Queen Anne.
"Every major experienced teacher in Seattle has been to Marie at some time," notes Suzerris. "As far as I know, Svoboda woke Seattle up to the notion of yoga."
Suzerris, a yoga practitioner for more than 14 years, had no idea that his ideal yoga studio location on the Hill had served as a yoga studio to a Seattle legend, or that it was even available. "I always knew that I wanted to open another studio," he explains. "But I planned on waiting at least another year."
All of that changed when he found himself gazing up at the studio space on Queen Anne. "I thought if I could open a yoga studio anywhere in Seattle, this is where it would be."
With a phone call here and the right connection there, the space was almost effortlessly his. Three months later, Yogalife opened its doors and offered free classes during Mother's Day weekend.
"One of the things I like about yoga is that you can get a physical practice, but you can also find the meditation within a pose," explains Kitty Wittkower, a yoga practitioner for 20 years and one of the handpicked yoga teachers at the new Yogalife studio. "I love watching people make their body kind of a delicious place to live inside."
Yogalife recently offered a new-member five-class pass or two-week sampler pass for a discounted rate. Suzerris believes that if you do five yoga classes you will see the benefits of yoga. If you don't notice the changes, someone else will.
"Energetically you will shift in that time," explains Suzerris, whose own life was transformed by the power of yoga. "Yoga is union. It is one path by which we can claim that understanding, and it is a very tried and tested path. That is what is so powerful about it."
Suzerris came to yoga 10 years after a near-fatal dive off a bridge into shallow water. "Yoga changed my life in really unexpected ways," he says. "I got into it for the physical aspects of healing, and it became a pursuit because it felt so good to my body."
Now, with two yoga studios in Seattle, Suzerris works to bring the power of yoga to others.
Yogalife studio features more than 14 different teachers and offers a variety of classes, including beginning/intro, all levels, vinyasa, spirit dance and Core strength. "I have hand-selected teachers that I really, really wanted to teach here," stresses Suzerris.
Eiric Ovrid, a yoga teacher for six years and life-long student of ancient cultures and world religions, begins his classes with chanting. "We get the breath in line, and then we sweat away," he says. Ovrid teaches 14 yoga classes a week and incorporates the physical, spiritual and emotional aspects of yoga into his classes.
"When you have a blissful experience, you are unmasking what you truly are," says Ovrid. He uses a quote from Gandhi to help explain: "The illusion is that we are human beings seeking a spiritual experience. But the truth is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I really try to get that reality across in the class."
Wittkower, a Queen Anne resident, has seen this unmasking in her own students. One woman, 40 pounds overweight with dark circles under her eyes, came to her class three years ago. She committed to yoga twice a week for three years, and the transformation was incredible. "She has more peace in her life," notes Wittkower. "She lost the weight and there is this luminescence coming from her."
In addition to yoga, Yogalife studio also will offer dance classes, workshops and music. "My mission is community through yoga," says Suzerris. "And in a sense, it is enlightenment through yoga.
"Little by little, you peel these layers," he says. "You literally become lighter: enlightenment, a physical sense of becoming light. You let the burdens off your shoulders."
At a time when luminescence, enlightenment and inner peace seem far away, Yogalife offers a necessary reprieve. Could stretching your muscles and centering your mind truly bring about peace? Pull out your yoga mat and find out.[[In-content Ad]]
