In 2009, after several years working for non-profit arts organizations, I took my first yoga teacher training program. Little did I know, that it would be the start of an entirely new career trajectory, and would shake the foundation of who I was and what I believed I was capable of. Admittedly, those early years were a struggle. I was a single parent who always seemed to be one or two paychecks away from disaster, and yet some part of me decided that I needed this; needed to spend thousands of dollars figuring myself out, discovering that I had a penchant for Sanskrit, rekindling my love of music, sound and vibration, and getting back into loving relationship with my body. Yoga changed me and my life for the better, and eventually, a 200-hr yoga teacher training, a 300-hr YTT, a teacher training apprenticeship, and another 200-hr YTT later, I decided to dive in head first and make yoga my full-time vocation. Since then, I’ve served as a studio administrator, co-lead trainer for dozens of yoga teacher training programs, as a guest trainer for yoga programs around the globe, and introduced hundreds of students, near and far, to the Sanskrit language. I truly love what I do, and I’m so pleased that you’ve decided to join me here. Below, you’ll find some testimonials, as well as some of the places where my work has been featured more recently. Thank you for stopping by.  

I did a thing!

A few weeks back, I was invited to make a presentation for the IndicaAcademy. I was nervous and rather unsure of just what I wanted to share, but I finally settled on this presentation on the power of Patañjali’s teachings on Yoga. In this short talk, I explore the power of yoga via one of the most widely referenced sources on yogic philosophy, Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra. Through chanting and connection, I take a look at Yoga Sūtra 1.12, among others, exploring what is perhaps the greatest truth to be derived from Patañjali, that oneʼs choice to exercise the combination of abhyāsa, practice and vairāgya, non-attachment, is more powerful than any pattern that inhabits citta, the heart-mind-body field. In my teaching, this idea has served as an anchor and a container for learning, one I received through a teaching model created by Vyaas Houston at the American Sanskrit Institute, a model that proved itself steady and reliable during my 14 years of study and teaching there, and showed that these fundamental principles to be infallible.

In sūtra 1.12 Patañjali distills the essence of yoga, which in his age was rooted in an ancient tradition that was time tested. Centuries before the teachings of Yoga were codified Kṛṣṇa assured Arjuna, who had just acknowledged his own doubt about being able to regulate a turbulent mind, that “No doubt, an active mind is hard to control, but by abhyāsa and vairāgya, Arjuna, it is held steady. BG 6.35.

Let us come together to steady our minds.

Claudette visits Deli and Deneen at the Unwritten You Podcast

Season 1, Episode 6: Sound Healing

In this episode, Claudette talks with Deli and Deneen about, yoga & Sanskrit, coaching yoga teachers, singing, and the healing power of chanting & vibration, times when she felt brave, and which romance novel she is currently reading

What folks are saying …

  • “Thank you so much for the major hit of beautiful energy you brought to our training last month! Everyone has been raving and you gracefully answered so many of their questions far more skillfully than I ever could have. It was also such a pleasure to see you in your greatness, kicking total yoga butt!”

    — Amy I.

  • “Claudette Evans is a transformative and deeply sentient teacher bar none.”

    — Sabina N.

  • “Your passion and dedication to the teachings and practices of yoga are infectious and inspirational. Thank you so much for everything you bring to the mat and into the lives of all of us fortunate enough to have practiced with you.”

    — Chris J.

  • "I will never - ever - forget my 1st śavāsana with you when you sang us back to the real world. I have never been the same.

    — Gabby R.