When Three Trees Yoga & Healing Arts Center opened in Federal Way in 2005, Jeni Martinez, Suzy Green and Karen Schwisow — the Original Three Trees — it began as a “shared intention” that grew and grew.
That growth has lead to being one of three nominees for the 2023 Best of Federal Way awards, in the category of “Yoga Studio.”
With this nomination comes Three Trees in a new era, as it is under new ownership with Shawn Harju, an attorney who bought Three Trees in 2022, but had been a longtime participant.
“We’re all trees in the forest but I am the new tree,” Harju said with a laugh. “In 2005, I was there off and on, I took a lot of intro classes and I did prenatal yoga with my daughter.”
Three Trees offers yoga teacher training programs and in 2021 — a year after starting her own firm in Federal Way — Harju decided to sign up and within a couple of months, she learned that the studio was being sold
“I frankly kind of panicked because it’s been such a big part of the community,” Harju said. She took the opportunity to take over the studio and says that she only wishes to continue with the foundation and intentions that the Original Three Trees had set.
“I didn’t make changes because I didn’t want us to lose that here in Federal Way,” she said. One thing that makes Three Trees stand out from other yoga studios in the city is that they do not offer hot yoga, which has become a popular way of practicing yoga.
“We’ve got a good thing going on here, our schedule stayed the same,” Harju said.
Three Trees not only offers beginner courses, but also hatha, which concentrates on postures, breathing techniques and meditation (and also the majority of what the studio’s classes are based upon), restorative yoga, mindful yoga, vinyasa, or flow yoga, where poses flow together at an increased pace and gentle yoga.
“We try to make it so anyone can come in,” Harju said. “With people coming back from COVID, they really want to rest and people want to do more gentle yoga. We also do ‘yoga sleep’ — one hour of that is equivalent to four hours of sleep.”
The studio has a large schedule filled with numerous instructors (including former owners Green and Schwisow) that offer meditation and even sound baths. “We want to bring in more astrology stuff, like doing a full moon circle,” said Harju.
While the studio’s dedication to its tried and true classes and a sense of community has kept the studio busy, Harju says that they would like to expand beyond their usual crowd. “We have mostly women and we have some men who are regulars, but we would love to have more men and have a more diverse crowd,” she said. “We have an older crowd because we’ve had people at the studio who have aged with us, but we would like to bring in the younger crowd and bring in more teenagers,”
Three Trees Yoga is located at 204 South 348th Street in Federal Way. For new students, the first class is free. For information on schedules and fees, visit threetreesyoga.com or call 253-815-YOGA.
