We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kalynn Evans. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kalynn below.

Kalynn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

Covid changed our business model tremendously. Since 2017, we were an in-person, group fitness & athletic training facility in Houston, Texas serving current and former athletes in the Spring Branch / Memorial area. Since the shutdown in 2020, we took our services online. We started filming all of our programming and making it available through an on-demand library of classes (yaxonline.com) to our members and then anyone else who wanted to join in, from anywhere in the world. We had always had plans of taking our business online, but we were so busy in the day-to-day operations of running our studio, that we didn’t have the time it would take to go online. During the 2 month shut down, we took that time to film classes, learn about lighting, microphones and all the fun stuff that comes along with filming! Since then, we re-opened our studio, but continued with our online services. As of February 1, 2022, we went fully online with our business, offering sport specific yoga, breathwork, meditation, mobility (SMR), jump training and HIIT training classes through YAX Online (yaxonline.com) that athletes can do from anywhere in the world! We have been able to work with organizations like Athletes Unlimited professional league in the US, colleges like Iowa Baseball, University of Houston & Southeastern LA to name a few, and various club organizations around the nation. We still train athletes in person in Houston, Texas when we aren’t traveling or filming. We work with Rice Basketball, University of Houston Softball, St. Pius Baseball, Concordia Baseball, TTi Soccer Club, Marucci Elite Baseball and more. It’s been wonderful to expand our reach to athletes to all sports and all locations.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

Hi y’all, my name is Kalynn Evans Mitchell. I grew up playing sports since the age of 4. I played club volleyball for 7 years and then earned a full ride to a D1 college volleyball program at Southeastern LA University. Since playing sports for so long, I suffered a lot of back injuries. I never really took the time to recover, since I played sports year round for 12 years. When I was in college, I had a career ending injury that was really devastating for me. My orthopedic surgeon suggested I start practicing yoga, so I did. After 3 years of practicing yoga, I felt like I had healed my back injuries without having to have surgery…. so I was hooked. I knew I would practice yoga for the rest of my life and I was so thankful for this type of movement / practice that I could do, and not be in pain. I knew that I needed to bring yoga to the athletic community, because there were not any yoga studios in Houston that catered towards athletes or former / retired athletes who dealt with injuries. I wanted to make yoga a norm in the sports world, for youth athletes and bring it to them in a relatable way. The more I studied yoga, functional movement, biomechanics, strength & conditioning, breathwork and meditation, I knew it was what was missing from most training programs. My sister, Patricia Bomar, and I decided to start Yoga Athletex, with the mission to provide in person and online sport performance training to the athletic community by partnering with highly competitive sport organizations, clubs, coaches and athletes. Our programming increases athletic performance while reducing injury onset, thus increasing the longevity of an athlete’s career. Now, we provide an online movement platform for current and former competitive athletes, who can level up from all over the world, through functional movement + yoga + breathwork + meditation. What sets us apart from other online yoga classes, is that we were both former athletes, we understand the demands on the body and the mental stress that comes with being a student athlete. When we curate our classes, we program based on sport, what season the athlete is in, and what body area to focus on. We have taken all of the work out of creating a recovery program for athletes, and now all athletes and coaches have to do is “hit play” and follow along. It’s been wonderful to work with athletes from all over the world the past 2 years, offering something that gives them physical and mental relief, so they can continue to follow their athletic dreams, and be the best athlete they want to be! The benefits of our programming include improved strength, balance, flexibility, body awareness, reduce injury onset & muscle recovery. Most athletes deal with injuries from overtraining, and overuse of their sport. It’s just a part of it, but with our classes, we teach athletes how to recovery properly, so they can stay injury free, which in turn keeps them active, gets more wins and extends their careers!

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Yes, I majored in Accounting and started working in Oil & Gas accounting after college. During my first 4 years of doing that, I received my yoga teacher training and started training athletes in the evenings after work and on the weekends. I did this for about 4 years, before we opened up our first brick and mortar location, and went full time with our business, Yoga Athletex, training athletes in person. Since we opened our business, we went from teaching 1 club, to now working with club organizations across the nation, working with a professional sports league, Athletes Unlimited, partnering with some of the top companies in sports offering services to coaches and athletes. Going online was another milestone for us, when we created yaxonline.com. Since we launched our online company, we have been able to serve more athletes from all over the nation.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Business is all about pivoting and not getting left behind. The day of the shutdown in 2020, we were fully online by the very next day, offering livestream classes, so we never missed a day of work and still provided our services to all of our members. We were very proud of our quick transition and ability to keep going, when the world told us we couldn’t. I believe that resilience and determination to continue has lead us to where we are today.

Contact Info:

• Website: yaxonline.com
• Instagram: @yogaathletex
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yogaathletex
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kalynn-evans-91b8608a/
• Twitter: @yogaathletex
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIU7b1Hx9ATOr9w4s5qizg

Image Credits
All photos were taken by me.