Mar 24, 2020
In this episode of the Fenom Podcast I am talking with Lizzie Clark the owner of Hot Yoga Charlottesville. We are talking on the state of our community in the midst of this pandemic and how we came together as two of Charlottesville’s leaders in yoga to be one of the first in our area to shut our studios down and take them online while trying to juggle our young children during a lockdown. Lizzie is the youngest of three and split her time growing up in Northern Virginia and then moved right outside of Chicago. She attended and played soccer at Sewanee and majored in Geology. She chose her major so she could spend her days outside hiking and being in the beautiful nature that surrounded the campus. She used her major to become a legislative aide to a senator on Capital Hill doing Environmental and Energy Policy as well as Agriculture. After going through September 11th and the anthrax scare that followed, a couple of months later, Lizzie realized this environment was toxic to her wellbeing. Her cousin was moving to Charlottesville and Lizzie decided she needed a change of scenery and made the move with her.
Lizzie has been a practitioner of yoga since high school and her interest deepened while working in DC to help her maintain her sanity. She began practicing Bikram method in the basement of a Mexican restaurant of all places, and she was hooked. When she moved to Charlottesville she noticed the lack of yoga studios and decided to open Bikram Yoga Charlottesville, she went to LA for a 9 week Bikram Yoga intensive and came back to open her studio in 2004 which became overwhelmingly successful. This is what is so inspirational and something I strive to incorporate in my own leadership from Lizzie is that she has owned a yoga studio for over 16 years and has seen recessions, marriages, childbirths, rebranding, renaming, moving locations, being right at the center of the Charlottesville riots and now having to shut her studio down indefinitely but she remains a pillar of strength, perseverance and a bright light that helps to navigate the darkness and uncertainty of these times. Lizzie rallies her teachers and her students to go with the flow and make the most of what is right here for you and that is what draws us all to her and makes her a phenomenal woman and leader.