A one-time Kirkland restaurateur, Vidal Bitton, 50, is also trained in three types of martial arts. He began to experiment with yoga — a 4,000-year-old physical art form — in 1994 after an accident left him in traction for six months.

“I dove into yoga and stuck with it,” Bitton said. “I was doing two, three classes a day. I healed myself.”

Following what had become his passion, Bitton opened LakeView Yoga on Northeast Bothell Way in Kenmore in October 2008. He offers so-called “hot” and “power” yoga. The first tones and strengthens muscles and contains some mental discipline, as well.

Power yoga builds stamina and cardiovascular strength while further toning muscles. At LakeView, classes in either discipline are held in heated rooms meant to encourage an increased range of motion in muscles, joints and ligaments, as well as help participants work up a good sweat.

For Bitton, those two things — motion and sweat — are what yoga is all about.

“The body heals itself through motion… It brings back the youthfulness,” Bitton said. Further, he equates sweat with the release of toxins.

Bitton encourages beginners not to be afraid to try yoga, adding newcomers often say they are not flexible enough to participate in yoga, to take on the positions and stances.

“Not everybody is going to be able to do handstands,” Bitton said. “The people who aren’t flexible, those are the people this is going to help the most.”

Bitton said among newcomers to his classes, about 90 percent think the first class is great and want to come back. He said yoga newbies should start feeling results and know if yoga is for them after about three classes. Bitton did add one key to yoga is sticking with it.

“It’s something you’ve got to keep doing to feel the benefits,” he said, recommending beginners try to take two or three classes a week. Bitton also discourages what he calls “chasing”: popping back and forth between a yoga studio and the nearest health club and not really sticking with a regimen in either location.

“Again, you’ve got to stay with it, you’ve got to settle down,” Bitton said.

Not incidentally, while he definitely advocates meditation, Bitton said he does not delve very much into the spiritual side of yoga, trying to avoid the cultish feeling some people still associate with yoga.

“We don’t teach any doctrine here,” Bitton said. “I’m a Jewish boy,” he adds.

Should you visit LakeView, you’ll know almost instantly how it got its name. Only piers and shoreline separate the studio from Lake Washington.

“We’ve got eagles flying outside the window,” Bitton said. “You can’t get that in a strip mall.”

When Bitton arrived in Kenmore, many thought he was going to set up a new restaurant. After all, LakeView Yoga sits where the well-known Clifford Restaurant used to be. And Bitton had operated Vidal’s European Bistro for many years. But Bitton said he had enough of the restaurant life. As stated earlier, he just decided to follow his passion, largely remodeling the former restaurant himself.

On the lower floors, Bitton rents space to various health professionals: a mental health therapist, two massage therapists, an acupuncturist and so on.

“It all sort of works together,” Bitton said.

With help from well-known local violinist Geoffery Castle, an interest in music led Bitton to develop his own CD of workout and meditation music. He also promotes his own blend of yoga and martial arts, dubbed “yochido.”

• For more information on LakeView, visit www.lakeviewyoga.com.