Britt Klach has become such an integral member of the HYA family that it’s hard to believe she only came to the studio in 2022. In that short span of time, she has become one of our most beloved teachers, directing classes in all the Flow disciplines, BLAST, Restore and even some Hot 26. Her high-energy vibe infuses everything she does and this year, she has truly come into her own. She was selected No. 1 Yoga Teacher in the Best of WNC voting by Mountain XPress.
“This year, I’ve lost 70 pounds, bought a new house, cut all my hair off and I’ve never felt like more myself or more aligned and exactly where I’m meant to be,” Britt said. “Getting No. 1 in Best of WNC, that was just so affirming and I’m so unbelievably grateful.”
“I’m so happy that I found this town and this place and I hope to infuse that kind of energy here and pull people in that need to heal and need to find themselves because it’s been the most life changing experience, just being in this energy. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
Britt’s yoga journey began in earnest in 2014, after her older sister completed a yoga teacher training and was teaching a class in Philadelphia. Britt had done a few yoga classes as a kid with her mom, but it was nothing like the Core Power class her sister taught that turned Britt’s life around.
“Seeing my sister in the front of the space guiding with such confidence,” Britt said. “She just exuded this amazing power that after that class, I was like, ‘I’m gonna do that one day.'”
Britt immediately went back to where she was living in Tampa, Fla., found a studio and was in a teacher training of her own only a few months later. Her journey took her to Northern California for awhile, back to her hometown of Allentown, Pa., and finally in a stroke of fate, to Asheville.
“It’s what I tell students is that I am so grateful and happy here,” she said. “This is home and this is one place I’m meant to stay for a long time. I’ve never felt that about a place.”
Read more about Britt’s journey:
HYA: How did your life pivot after taking your sister’s class in 2014?
Britt: I went back to Tampa, it was early 2015 and found a studio Bella Prana Yoga and took my first class there and the studio, one of the studio managers and the front desk manager, Jen, she made me feel just like, right at home when I walked in. And within two or three classes, I was like, I would like to join the work-trade team. And their work trade was a little different than ours at HYA. It was more like, you’re doing the front desk check in, you’re doing the cleaning, you’re doing it all. It was one desk shift a week.
A month went by and Jen was like, would you be interested in doing teacher training? I was like, ‘Of course, I would love to get started whenever,’ and she said it starts this February. She said we can cover the cost of your teacher training if you take another shift per week. So that’s what I did. For a year, I worked two desk shifts, one paid for my unlimited yoga yoga practice and the other one covered my teacher training. And yeah, I had little to no experience going in, but I was just ready to fully immerse.
HYA: What was your full-time job then?
Britt: I was working in a clinical research job. When I graduated college I had decided I’ll do the biology thing for a little bit. And then once I was in my teacher training, it was just like all the really positive things just started to flood in. I became vegan and I my yoga practice. I was doing six to seven days a week and my body was changing, my life was changing and all the all the positive habits were really just aligned for me to become really who I am today. I also started my 26 training and before I had finished my Vinyasa, I was teaching 26 too, and I was practicing 26 a lot as well.
I was with them for five years. And I loved everything about it. It taught me a lot. But Tampa always felt like it wasn’t my forever home, just because the summers were brutal, the mosquitoes were nasty and I was ready for a change.
HYA: You moved to California during the height of Covid. What happened there?
Britt: They ended up taking me on as their full time outdoor yoga class manager, because the weather was great. So we were just teaching classes all over town. And so I did that through like March or April of the following year and then we reopened all our studios and it was an area a manager for four of them in the San Jose area. It just became really heavy and intense quickly. No one wanted to teach. We were still mask-mandated. I was teaching 20 classes a week in addition to scheduling all of our teachers, their classes, their schedules. It’s just a lot.
HYA: What happened to prompt you to move back to Allentown?
Britt: It was the summer of 2021 and my dad called me one day and told me that he was diagnosed with stage four cancer. So then my whole world was turned upside down. My dad started declining very quickly, so I decided I’m going to move home. My dad didn’t want me to. He’s like, ‘I want you to live your life.’
I knew my dad had maybe like a couple more months. I put my dog Ned in the back of the car and drove cross country and it was a really sweet trip because I had stopped in Asheville for the first time on our way back to Pennsylvania. And I was only here for like maybe two or three days, and because I was kind of in a rush to get home to spend time with my dad. I got an Airbnb, but it was a really sweet one. It had like a little hot tub. It was actually really close to the studio.
I was my dad’s caregiver until he passed in December of 2021. And then once he passed, I hit rock bottom. I needed to do a lot of healing and therapy and self-discovery. I rented a Sprinter van for about a month and I just traveled to Florida because it was familiar to me, but I bounced around to do some soul searching of what’s next and that’s when I spent a couple of weeks in Asheville. I just did yoga and got to feel how powerful the energy is here. And so at that point, I was like, all right, I know that this is my next stop. By July of 2022, I got a UHaul, attached it to my Toyota Camry, put Ned in the car and we were like, set sail, let’s go.
HYA: How quickly did you settle into HYA?
Britt: When I moved here I told myself, ‘I’m not going to work with a yoga studio again. I’m going to just live off my savings for as long as I can.’ I just was still burned out, still healing from my father and I was like, I’m just not ready to teach. But of course, I took Heather’s class two weeks later and I was like, ‘I would like to work here.’
And so it was almost immediate. By the end of the month, I was trained, I was working the desk, and then another two weeks go by and then I did my Hot 26 audition. And I quickly felt really rooted and so welcomed into HYA.
And really now the rest is history.
