About Claire

My curiosity for movement began at the age of five when I declared my desire to become a ballet dancer, sparked by an obsession with the TV show Fame, (leg warmers anyone?) Although I lacked the discipline to pursue this dream as a child, I eventually followed an impulse to move to New York without a plan. It was there that my love for movement was reignited when I attended a class at Jivamutki in the early 1990s. This studio was forging a new approach to yoga, and was on the forefront of the ‘flow’ yoga movement that is still growing around the world today.

After moving to Los Angeles, I began seeking more alignment based teachers , and began to slow down my practice, mostly in the Iyengar tradition and began teaching in 2002.

In 2006, I co-founded a yoga studio with my friend Daniel Stewart and took over ownership a couple of years later. Running a business has been one of the most challenging yet surprisingly creative endeavors of my life. My studio Rising Lotus Yoga is still thriving today in Sherman Oaks.

After 15 years of teaching yoga, I felt inadequate in understanding or helping my students with persistent discomfort or pain in their movements. So, in 2017, I returned to my education and immersed myself in the world of movement rehabilitation. I met some incredible educators, studied Neurokinetic Therapy with its founder David Weinstock, and continue my studies with Kathy Dooley and her team, diving deep into anatomy, assessments, and protocols to empower individuals to take control of their own movement strategies. Finally, I had the tools to truly help people with persistent movement issues and have since focused my one-on-one work in this area.

In 2023, I created Structural Vinyasa to bring what I've learned into a group setting. This class combines re-learning proper movement biomechanics, proper breathing, and slow, focused movements to reintroduce stability, not only for yoga classes but for all movement.

One of my greatest loves is training yoga students to become yoga teachers with our yearly 200 hour training program. In addition my Structural Vinyasa trainings available in 50 and 20-hour bite-size pieces.

My belief is that we are all seeking stability and practicing it within ourselves can help to build a person and society that ceases to grasp at harmful external patterns. Liberation for one, and liberation for all is a worthy pursuit.