About Charlotte

Charlotte Clews 
M.S. in Botany, E-RYT 500hr, naturalist, educator, barefoot runner, triathlete and mother living the good life in Downeast, Maine . . .

Here’s a recent blog post I wrote where I attempt to sum up my eclectic and FULL life up to now (25 things you should know about me)

Yoga in Maine  

photo by Sean Alonzo Harris, (Click photo to read the interview of Charlotte in Maine Magazine, April 2012).

I started teaching yoga in 1998. My yoga classes are instructive and upbeat. I teach hatha yoga in the vinyasa style. Connecting breath and movement, the pace is slow enough to pay attention and cultivate good postural alignment but fast enough to cover a full-spectrum of poses in each class. I teach based on my extensive training in Ashtanga and Anusara yoga. Though I am no longer affiliated with these schools, I continue to use the most modern understanding of therapeutic alignment, breath and movement rooted in my thorough study and practice of classical yoga philosophy.

My Yoga Training

I started a daily yoga practice in college, when as an ambitious but injured athlete, I chose Ashtanga, one of the most physically demanding forms of yoga as part of my rehabilitation. I quickly fell in love with my daily practice and in 1999 I moved to Boulder to study with renowned Ashtanga yoga teacher Richard Freeman. I spent several years in Boulder studying classical yoga philosophy, physiology, anatomy, yoga therapy and Ayurveda. In 2004 I started studying with John Friend, the founder of Anusara Yoga and became Maine’s first certified Anusara Yoga Teacher. I resigned my license with Anusara in April 2012 due to irreconcilable differences with John Friend. I have had many other influential teachers along the way, including most notably Angela Farmer.

I am an E-RYT500 with the Yoga Alliance (which means an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher with a minimum of 500 hrs of teacher training.) In the last 20 years, I have in fact accrued thousands of hours of  teacher training. I’m a certified teacher trainer and regularly teach teachers, including 200-hr level Yoga Teacher Trainings. 

Therapeutic Alignment As an overly ambitious and not particularly talented or coordinated athlete, I have injured almost every major body part – neck, shoulders, wrists, low back, hips, femur, knees, ankles, feet, toes . . . and I have learned how to put the piece back together, in many cases better than before. There’s a good chance I can help you do the same.

Living Ayurveda

I teach Ayurveda diet and lifestyle skills from a fresh living perspective. I began studying diet, nutrition and Ayurveda at Naropa University in 2000. Most recently I completed two 9 month Ayurveda Living Skills courses and two years of mentorship with Cate Stillman and a 5-month internship with Dr. Claudia Welch. I am excited to be part of a growing group of rebellious yogis who are updating the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda with a modern passion for fresh, local, living foods!

Natural History Education and Outdoor Leadership

I earned a B.S. in Ecology from Cornell University in 1998. I banded flocks of black-capped chickadees for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, prepared many bird skins including one very memorable Canada goose for the Cornell Collections, attached transmitters to unfortunate cow birds, drew blood from American kestrel chicks, hacked a rantallion of peregrine falcons on the Continental Divide for the Peregrine Fund, and joined warblers over-wintering in Domincan Republic cocoa plantations. As a climber, I spent several seasons in Costa Rica teaching graduate students how to conduct canopy research with the Organization for Tropical Studies (1998 – 2002). I attended the Field Naturalist Program at University of Vermont and earned an M.S. in botany in 2002. I taught wildlife biology and winter ecology for the Community College of Vermont and Sterling College (2002-2006). I have since worked as an interpretive Park Ranger for Acadia National Park (2003 – 2009) and was the Director of Stewardship at Blue Hill Heritage Trust (2009 – 2011).

I believe in the power of wilderness. I was a National Outdoor Leadership School (1996 – 2002) instructor in Alaska and the Yukon and have experienced first-hand the incredibly positive effect that the pulse of nature has on us mammals. I hiked the entire Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails alone and in 2002 I walked 2,000 miles of the Continental Divide Trail with my future husband, Jerome. Above all, these adventures gave me great hope as I was continually inspired by the abundance, generosity and beauty of the places and people I encountered each day.

Barefoot Running

I take my shoes off to run. You can too. I’ll teach you how. You’ll like it, you might wonder why you ever wore shoes. The earth will thank you, ahhh, that’s much better.