by: Christine Russell and Emily Ridout
889 Co-Founders
To our dear 889 Community,
In the month of our five-year birthday we write to you, our beautiful community, feeling more inspired, illuminated, proud and effervescent than ever before.
This journey began in 2006 when we set an intention to ‘inspire happy, healthy lives.’ In just five short years, this simple vision has manifested as the beautiful community of 889 Yoga + Wellness Spa. What has grown is a flourishing community of yogis all sharing a spark for living a happy, healthy life, a team of brilliant yogis and wellness experts who feed our community daily, two physical spaces which bring out smiles, and a collective energy shared by both our team and our guests seeking to develop love, health and compassion within themselves to share with the world. 889 shines so much brighter than we could have ever dreamed just five years ago.
It does not seem far past when we opened our doors in 2007 in a blizzard and welcomed in our first yoga student Hilary for a class taught by our dear Jennifer Findlay, nor does signing on our very first member Rob. It is humbling to watch how a business has evolved into a community much grander than what we could have ever created just the two of us; today, it is organically growing in new directions every moment, far beyond our own efforts, by the caring touch of our team and community around us.
Over the last five years the meaning of the word community has evolved immensely. The meaning is, of course, the same but the manifestation has changed with incredible speed, as have the tools which we have to connect. Today our multi-platform digital presence allows us to reach far beyond our two doors and interconnect with yogis and communities all over. Our blog gets hits from around the globe, with thousands of readers monthly. We have created a Yoga program online for those who can’t get to one of our 60+ classes weekly. Just this week we were deemed ‘Best City Hotels for Yoga’ by Foders for our Thompson Hotel location (our Spa opening in April!). A guest, just this past week, shared with us that 889 has changed his life so profoundly – that 889 has made him a better person – and he doesn’t know what he would do without the feeling of love and acceptance 889 and his yoga practice gives him every week.
This is what we mean by the evolution of our community.
In celebration of our five years we are launching the 889 Living Yoga Program, 200-hour Yoga Alliance certified program. It is a Yoga School for yogis, teachers, and eternal students grounding you in the roots of yoga through deep study, discovery and community. It’s a one-of-a-kind program for yogis passionate about learning and living yoga. We are proud to have it led by many local teachers to stay connected to our Toronto community, as well as international faculty. We are launching end of March and the first start-date of the program is September 2012, so stay tuned!
We feel very grateful today. We are optimistic about the future for 889, the power of yoga, the beauty of community, the energy of Toronto, and the compassion and lovingkindness of people.
To each of you – our past and present guests, members, teachers, practitioners, therapists, concierge, – we are eternally grateful for your contributions to the 889 community. Because of you we are excited for this moment and for all which lies ahead for 889.
Our doors are always open to you.
Love,
Christine + Emily
