Meet Team Athletes for Yoga — Coach & Community Manager Kendra Clawson
From soccer to basketball, track to crew, Kendra spent her teen years taking on every track, field, court and lake in the Seattle area. But it was only when she encountered her first yoga mat did she truly meet her match. As a young athlete, yoga was, well, not her thing. Her dad, a high school football coach and former UW athlete, dragged her to her first yoga class at age 15, hoping to straighten out her posture and relieve her sports-strained muscles. Little did she know that yoga would become her passion, profession, and an agent of personal growth and change. In college, Kendra dove into yoga. The practice helped her heal a shoulder injury from her rowing days, improved her posture, and relieved academic stress. She came to love the practice so much that she ditched the gray Northwest skies and headed to the Konalani Ashram in Kona, Hawaii, to complete her yoga teacher training, paving the way to successfully educate fellow athletes on the healing and recovery powers of yoga.
Off the mat, Kendra is a University of Washington School of Nursing student. Although she admits to getting consistently schooled by her little sister on each and every run, she dons her favorite kicks for half and full marathons, and is known to be a dominating force on the triathlon circuit.
As Athletes for Yoga’s community manager, Kendra usually has a device (or two) in tow while wrangling Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram social media platforms. She advises, “Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and don’t forget to put your legs up the wall while you do!”