Yoga may have saved Nadine Engh’s life.
Having faced chronic pain and fibromyalgia for more than 15 years, she could barely walk. Then she met a yoga instructor from Purna Yoga Centers.
Four years later, Engh, 67, has regained her youthful shape, and has gone back to work part time for a naturopath.
“Every step of the way was a challenge,” she said. “I can’t say I felt really good when I went home at first, but you have to get through that initial pain.”
Engh is one of hundreds of people the studio has helped in its 20 years of operation. The studio is throwing an anniversary celebration Saturday complete with free workshops all day, snacks and a potluck dinner.
Purna Yoga Centers is one of the first such studios on the Eastside. Along with its breadth of classes, it features Washington’s only state-licensed instructional college, which gives teachers certification levels of 200, 500 and 2,000 hours.
“We’re constantly trying to differentiate between what is the yoga of the day, versus the sustainable yoga,” said Kathy Triplett, who has taught meditation at Purna Yoga Centers for the more than a decade.
The extra training allows teachers, 24 in all at the moment, to tie the physical aspect with the mental. They know what someone can and can’t do – for example, anyone with recent eye work is not allowed to dip their head below their stomach, due to the pressure it could cause.
This stringent training comes from the brain of the founder, Aadil Palkhivala, one of the world’s foremost yoga masters.
He began practicing yoga at the age of 7, and has dedicated his life to the craft. He studied the philosophy of Iyengar, and toured the world spreading his teaching.
When he and his wife, Savitri, moved to the area, yoga was still a bit taboo in Bellevue, Palkhivala said. People still attached a religious meaning to it, rather than a state of being and lifestyle. The clear definition still escapes many, he said.
“Most people think of yoga as a form of exercise,” he said. “It is not. It is a form of self-discovery.”
After years of traveling, Palkhivala, a former corporate attorney, began a studio out of his Bridle Trails home. He would drive from studio to studio to teach a class. It took years, but students eventually persuaded Palkhivala to open his own studio. The spot has expanded, and Purna Yoga Centers now offers nutrition and meditation classes as well.
Over the 20 years of Yoga Centers’ operation, yoga has become a worldwide phenomenon.
Today, Purna Yoga Centers is fighting to show that it takes trained teachers with a prescribed regiment to make a real yoga class that is safe and uplifting for students.
“People have just taken the one word, and just kind of bastardized it because there’s nothing to define yoga,” said Mona Renner, manager at Yoga Centers. “You can hang a shingle there and call anything yoga.”
PURNA YOGA CENTERS
2255 140th Ave. NE, Suite F, Bellevue.
425-746-7476
