Backside Bow ties yoga to outdoor sports | Business

In a sublet space above King’s Hardware and Rudy’s, Danielle Harvey is working things out.

Backside Bow, her Ballard Avenue yoga studio, opens March 1. It’s just part of Harvey's dream to create community among climbers, skiers, surfers, and other outdoor athletes.

“If somebody wanted to learn how to do something, they could come to yoga class and, that weekend, take lessons.”

But insurance costs kept Harvey, who is 23 and has practiced yoga for seven years, from offering such excursions. She hopes her students will network among themselves.

As yogis know, to get outside, sometimes you must go inside.

Take breathing. “I think a lot of people underestimate breathing,” and what it can do for sports performance, she said.

Inhaling can help expand your body, allowing climbers to do a “big grab,” she said.

“Exhaling, you get smaller, and your muscles release, and you can go further into the stretch.”

Opening a business has been a big grab for the recent UW grad, who was “more unemployed than employed” while working as a substitute yoga teacher at studios around town.

She had to ask her mom to put her business budget in Excel. And figuring out how to get a $6500 small business line of credit? She Googled it.

The one-time surf camp yoga instructor figured people would “just show up” at her studio, “because it’s cool.”

To make sure that happens, she’s offering free classes to employees of outdoor sports businesses like EVO, KAVU, and Stone Gardens for the next two weeks.

Those students will get 10 percent off all classes when Backside Bow opens to the public next month.

Like a new yoga pose, the start-up up process has worked some unfamiliar muscles for Harvey.

“It feels really good to be my own stimulus package," she said.

Danielle Harvey can be reached at backsidebow@gmail.com. The studio as at 5227 Ballard Ave. NW.