I recently returned from Bhubaneswar, India where I was studying and performing Odissi dance and teaching yoga to mostly dancers and musicians. Odissi is a classical dance that has its roots in the yogic temple rites of the tantrik priestesses of ancient Orissa or Kalinga. The dance was nearly lost during British rule because the sensual nature of the dance made the English uncomfortable.

Odissi has been reconstructed from existing traditions, the study of ancient texts like the Natya Shastra and from the study of temple sculptures. The Natya Shastra could be from 1500-3000 years old or even older according to some. It offers not only a general theory of aesthetics (often compared to Aristotle’s Poetics) it is also a detailed compendium of the technical details of the arts of dance, music, dramaturgy, costuming and all arts relating to the stage. It is often called the Fifth Veda. It describes performance as a kind of yoga or means of liberation (mokshya) for both performers and informed spectators.

This tradition of dance/music/theater/yoga has traditionally been open, unlike many other yogic traditions, to women, non-brahmins, and other “impure persons”. Though the city of Orissa is now largely Vashnaivite it was for many years a stronghold of tantrik Shiva/Shakti worship and there are a number of well-preserved temples from this period in Bhubaneswar, Puri, Konark and elsewhere. It was interesting to witness these temples with their many graphic sculptures not only depicting an acceptance of sexuality but celebrating its power in contrast to the pervasive shyness about sexuality in contemporary Indian society. It was a great gift to be learning the dance while living with a group dancers and feeling, at least momentarily, woven in to the spiritual fabric of their daily lives and practice. It seemed that many people had a practice with a strong spiritual focus or one which utilized dance and music as a means, but few people had a yoga practice which supported their physical well-being and complemented their other activities. So, I ended up being very much in demand as a yoga teacher – with students ranging from teenagers to a woman in her late 80’s. I was able to work in trade for room and board, dance study with teachers there, and a new silk costume! The overall experience was encouraging, invigorating and humbling. I can’t wait to go back in December!

Posted by: Douglas Ridings
Douglas will perform Odissi at 8 Limbs Capitol Hill on Saturday, May 15 prior to our scheduledd Kirtan with Gina Salá. He is also teaching in the 8 Limbs Yoga Immersion and will offer classes on Hindu Mythology and Home Practice.

Just like anyone with a strong connection to their hometown, I tend to get swept up when something is going on down home in New Orleans. The song I’ve heard all of my life could not be more true: “OOh I want to be in that number, when the Saints come marching in.” I wish I could be in New Orleans for this joyous time, but instead, I get to bring a piece of New Orleans here for my 40th birthday!
Sean Johnson is a rising kirtan (devotional singing) artist from New Orleans, LA who leads the colorful Wild Lotus Band, named after his yoga studio back in The Big Easy. Sean and band will be here at 8 Limbs on March 14 to play kirtan and accompany a live music class with Melina Meza and help me cut some birthday cake! Please plan to come.
We’ll let Sean’s words in a recent newsletter share the spirit that has spread through our hometown (we went to high school together!):

“On tour, many of you kindly ask us how New Orleans is doing. I want to share with you that it is an incredibly joyful time here! Our beloved Saints won the Super Bowl last night! I’ve been a fan since I was a child growing up here and watching them lose year after year, yet still keeping the faith. We are still pinching ourselves! It’s especially meaningful for those of us who stayed after Katrina to rebuild amidst the chaos, uncertainty, and challenges. For people who may believe that sports is frivolous and has nothing to do with spirituality, practicality, or the real recovery of a city, I’d love for you to be here in New Orleans right now and just feel the energy in the community. It’s a feeling that just can’t be put into words or explained rationally.
After the game last night, strangers of all walks of life and all colors spilled out onto the streets to embrace each other, sing, dance, laugh and cry. I went downtown to the French Quarter with my friends and brothers to celebrate and bumped into Gwendolyn (member of Wild Lotus Band) dancing with her tambourine. We paraded through the streets singing “Who Dat!” and hugging and high-fiving the many revelers. It was Bhakti, with a black and gold twist, in full effect!
The deep soulful vibe and traditions of New Orleans are as strong as ever and complimented by a new and progressive spirit. Thanks to so many of you for helping right after Katrina and then sending your love and blessings in these years of recovery. New Orleans is coming back better than ever and feeling so proud to be a part of it!”

Amen!

Come share in the spirit of yoga, the deep musical tradition of New Orleans, and help me celebrate my birthday with the 8 Limbs community on Sunday, March 14. More info.

Posted by: Anne Phyfe Palmer

All drop-in class payments for Friday evening classes at 8 Limbs Phinney Ridge and 8 Limbs West Seattle will be donated directly to Doctors without Borders to aid their relief efforts in Haiti.

Friday, January 22, 2010
8 Limbs Phinney Ridge
6:30 – 7:30pm All Levels Hatha Yoga with Megan Costello
8 Limbs West Seattle
5:45 – 7:00pm All Levels Flow with Amelia Gailey

Drop-ins are $16, please bring cash or checks made out directly to Doctors without Borders.
Please spread the word.

Posted by: 8 Limbs

As the news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti has spread across our office, a staff member directed us to a web page with a list of charitable organizations working in Haiti to help with the disaster. Click here to go directly to the full list, which is from Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC, or click one of the links below (this is a partial list). Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti.

Action Against Hunger
Beyond Borders
Mercy Corps
Yele Haiti (Wyclef Jean’s Grassroots Organization) or Text Yele to 501 501 to donate $5 via your cellphone

Posted by: 8 Limbs

Consider for a moment the way your body feels as you sit in meditation just after shivasana. Perhaps there is a quiet, subtle vibration to your muscles and connective tissue having just moved through an asana practice. Perhaps, too, you experience a crisp clarity in different layers of your being; energy channels, your breath, your thinking. You may leave your mat feeling like you’d just received an all-over body massage – pure bliss. Now imagine that feeling informs your intention with which you begin your day. What could be a better way for setting the tone of your day, each day, than a morning yoga practice?
8 Limbs has always been committed to offering early morning yoga classes to provide an opportunity for you to start your day with a led practice. We want to encourage YOU to commit to yourself and to an early morning practice. This time of year you do have to get up in the dark but you get to enjoy the change of light during class. You may even get to watch the pink light of sunrise suffuse the yoga room.
It is a wonderful time of day to practice!
Capitol Hill
8 Limbs Capitol Hill has adjusted the first morning class schedule to 6:30am-7:45am, Monday through Friday. Join Andreas (MWF) and Jeff (TTh), up on the hill any day of the week!
Phinney Ridge
Due to the strong requests we received for early morning classes before opening our newest studio, there are also daily weekend early morning classes here:
6:00 – 7:00am Mondays & Wednesdays with Megan for you early early birds
6:30 – 7:30am Tuesdays and Thursdays with Brent
6:30 – 7:30am Fridays with Tracy
Wedgwood
Join the longtime community over at Wedgwood for Tuesday/Thursday 6:30 – 7:30am classes with Gregg Turner.
West Seattle
Terilyn serves a vibrant Level II Flow class Tuesday/Thursday 6:30 – 7:30am.

Posted by: 8 Limbs

We’ve been sleeping at the blog wheel for a few weeks while driving another car steadily towards the finish line. 8 Limbs Phinney Ridge is ALMOST complete, and will now open on Thanksgiving Day with a Benefit Class for Solid Ground with Chiara Guerrieri. For info on our Benefit Classes at all four 8 Limbs, click here. They are an 8 Limbs tradition all over Seattle and we are excited to open with this offering to the community. Bring a friend or your whole family!
Our Grand Opening is Friday, December 4th. Doors open at 4:00pm, we’ll play in a Parent/Child Yoga Class at 4:30pm, bless the space with the musical assistance of Gina Salá, and close with an All Levels Yoga class at 7:00pm. Bring the whole family! More info at the Phinney Ridge webpage.
We’ll bring the blog back to life very soon. See you soon!

This morning I sat to practice and it occurred to me that I had passed a milestone without noticing it. On October 13th I confronted a construction issue for the new 8 Limbs on Phinney Ridge, worked with our new Phinney manager Megan, had family dinner, went to Book Club (Olive Kitteridge, it was great), and went to bed without remembering that 13 years ago, on October 13th, 1996, 8 Limbs had its opening party the day before opening for business.
The party consisted of friends who had encouraged and helped me along the way, people like Melina Meza (she was here from the start) Michael Dill, Eben, Roberta, and Suzanne Carlson, Jonna Bracken, Tracy Bartholomew Erbeck, and Megan Jasper.
Spurred on by these folks and Paul Hawken’s book “How to Grow a Business,” I had jumped into the life of a small business owner, and a lease, two months of demo and buildout (most of it by friends and myself!), ads in The Stranger, and a Mac, put 8 Limbs on E. Pike St.
Oh, and incidentally, I was born on Friday the 13th (March, if you are curious, and I will be 40, wow), so I claimed 13 as my lucky number long ago (soccer and volleyball uniforms, that sort of thing).

It’s been a great 13th year for 8 Limbs. We won Best Yoga and Best Prenatal Yoga in The Seattle Weekly, Seattle Magazine, and Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, showing that Seattlites feel at home at 8 Limbs. We maintained and grew our amazing family of teachers. And we are “expecting” our newest member of the clan, 8 Limbs Phinney Ridge, opening in November.

Our best anniversary present was from The Seattle Weekly in its Reader’s Choice section of the Best Of issue:
“8 Limbs is where a local yogi can have a meaningful practice without feeling as if they have to join an ashram or be fully outfitted in Lululemon accessories. Teachers make yoga approachable for the novice and plenty challenging for the pretzel-bodied.”

Thanks to all the 8 Limbers for coming to the mat again and again. We are grateful for and amazed by your strength and loyalty.

Posted by: Anne Phyfe Palmer

Join 8 Limbs for a free outdoor yoga class:
Wednesday September 9, 2009, 10:00 – 11:15 a.m.
Gas Works Park, 2101 Northlake Way, Seattle
Gas Works Park will be a beautiful setting for yoga as artist and master kite flyer Seth Abramson launches 121 brilliant white kites into the air that will fly over the city all day long. Commissioned by the Credit Unions of Washington, the Kites Over Washington project is a moment of calm, created to give people a peaceful hiatus in the city. Join us to enjoy asanas in the park and experience this spectacular art project. The Kites Over Washington will also be the subject of an upcoming documentary art film. Please wear as much white as you can, 8 Limbs logos welcome but avoid other logos or patterns. You are giving filmmaker permission to use footage by participating in class.
Reservations are suggested but not required at annephyfe@8limbsyoga.com
Even if you can’t make it to the yoga class, look up in the sky over Gasworks on Wednesday, it should be an amazing sight!

Posted by: 8 Limbs

The name 8 Limbs comes from a central tenet in yoga philosophy that names eight limbs, or aspects, that give us a full kit of tools to work with any challenge we come across. These eight limbs are divulged in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali at the end of Chapter II and throughout Chapter III:
1. Yama (Attitudes towards others)
2. Niyama (Attitudes towards oneself)
3. Asana (Postures)
4. Pranayama (Breath Practice)
5. Pratyahara (Sense Withdrawal)
6. Dharana (Concentration)
7. Dhyana (Meditation)
8. Samadhi (Absorption)
Richard Freeman describes the usefulness of this eight-pronged approach as being akin to having eight legs, like a spider. The more ways we have to navigate our obstacles, the more agile we become. As Sutra II.28 says, “By dedicated practice of the various aspects of yoga impurities are destroyed: the crown of wisdom radiates in glory.”
This fall teachers at 8 Limbs will be using monthly themes in drop-in classes to spin a web, if you will, to bring you deeper into the philosophy of yoga. We’ll begin by moving through the eight limbs of yoga, from September to January. This month we’ll focus on the Yamas, attitudes towards others and the world around us. Look for a blog about the five Yamas this month.

Posted by: Anne Phyfe Palmer

I’ve decided to take some time off teaching to focus on my family and practice. When I came to 8 Limbs at the opening of the West Seattle location in 2005, I was based in a strong, dedicated practice of Ashtanga. It was the only yoga I had been doing for 10 years and I benefited so much from this practice.

I stepped into the room to teach what I knew and what turned out 4 years later is that I am not the teacher, but the people and fellow teachers who have walked into my classes have been teaching me. My eyes were opened to all different types of practitioners, various styles of yoga and many levels of the practice. The kindness that generates from everyone’s hearts and minds has been so amazing to see and witness. I am truly honored and am leaving with knowing so much more about yoga not from a physical practice, but from an internal practice.

My last morning class is August 27, Thursday, at 6:30am. To celebrate the present moment and what lies ahead for all of us in the future, this will be a benefit yoga class. Chaz Hastings, tabla player, and Brandon McIntosh, sarodist player, will accompany me in a live performance to the last class. I am donating my pay to the cause of helping dogs on chains with the amazing group, Dogs Deserve Better. This group works tirelessly to free dogs off chains and locked in pens and they work very closely with the state and county legislators to pass better laws for the treatment of man’s best friends.

I am honored to have passed on what I know of this lovely practice and I am so truly blessed to have been given the gift of being a student through all of you these last years.

Please join us Thursday, August 27, 6:30am, West Seattle 8 Limbs.

Vande Gurunam caranaravinde.
I bow to the lotus feet of the Gurus.

Posted by: Kelly Page