Chloe Kernaghan

Studio: Co-owner of Sky ting Yoga

Chloe’s class is extremely thoughtful and technical. She has a vast knowledge of yoga anatomy and guides you through her strongly sequenced class body part by body part.

OE: How long have you been teaching yoga?

I did my training in 2011, so 2012 is when I really started teaching teaching. It hasn’t been that long… almost 4 years. But I went through a vigourous trajectory of teaching; I did a mentorship, then started teaching large public classes and subbing at Yoga Vida. I was a really big part of the community there, eventually running part of their training programs and mentorship programs. This experience sort of propelled the work I did forward, it was either swim or sink… I decided to swim.

OE: What were you doing before you were teaching?

I’ve been a dancer my whole life, I was born and raised on the Island of Guam and I did dance out there. I traveled the world with dancing which gave me a taste of different cultures and different lands, I got to see a lot of places which definitely made me the person I am today. I came to NYU for the drama program but I started focusing on choreography and creating original work. I had to do yoga as part of the drama program and my freshman year I started practicing at http://jivamuktiyoga.com/. When I first started practicing yoga I thought I would be so good at it because I was a dancer… but that wasn’t the case, which kept me intrigued and wanting to get into it more. Throughout college I went in and out of the practice, I wouldn’t say I was a full practitioner. After graduation I was choreographing, not necessarily as a full time job, and working at a restaurant which became a dark side of me [laughs]. Yoga was my moment of salvation, it became the light in my life, the thing that pulled me out of the bad days. So I started practicing regularly, then I did a teacher training and decided that was a better route for me to take. I realized I didn’t want to be doing anything for a living that wasn’t me being in my body, that is the best way I know how to communicate.

OE: Why are you a yoga teacher?

I hope to never stop being the student, there are just so many great minds out there that have started to explore the practice, have stepped up the level of the practice and continue to blow my mind with what the practice can be. I think I teach because there is an innate sense within me to share what I’ve learned so far and what I’ve gleaned from those around me. There’s a certain amount of joy that I get from being able to share that with others, that I wouldn’t get if I just practiced. I feel like part of my role on this earth is to share and I feel that same way in my choreography. I’d rather choreograph than perform, I like to give something to someone to do something with rather than just me being the show.

OE: What’s your favorite part of teaching or practicing?

It’s an amazing feeling when you get to put a student in a shape that they either have never been before or they never thought they could get to. There’s nothing like leading a student into a place of release, comfort and dynamic all at the same time to the point that there are tears down their face because they are feeling something that is so unique and so not their own, something they never knew they could feel. This practice brings so much joy to students, that’s definitely my favorite part; to impart even just the tiniest bit of joy in them. When you see how your students can develop into people who are good and loving and doing well in the world, that’s the most fulfilling part, to see how the practice can aid in the transformation.

OE: What do you do when you’re not teaching or practicing?

I think probably for the next 3 years, at least, this [Skyting] is the life. I still try and do as much choreography as my schedule allows, which isn’t a ton but it’s enough to make me happy. I have a boyfriend who doesn’t live in New York, so I get to travel a lot to visit him. Yoga retreats are fun when I get to do those, I get to go to tropical places and that’s always a fun experience. And I like to, you know... be bad. I like to eat, drink wine and run around the city. I’m no angel. I’m not sitting at home and chopping my vegetables and doing juice cleanses, that’s for sure.

OE: What’s your favorite pose right now or a pose that you’re challenging yourself to work on?

I mean the simplest of poses can be the most groundbreaking and can establish you in a totally new place in your practice. Right now and always it’s a hip thing for me. Gomukhasana is something I’ve been exploring and figuring out, there is just so much crud around these hip joints that needs to get worked out. It’s just an intense and awful feeling, almost like I want to vomit sometimes when I’m in it. When you find these poses, you think ‘oh I should sit here, I need to figure this out’.

Hot or cold?

hot

Fast or slow?

slow

Loud or silent?

silent

Black or white?

white

Mountain or Ocean?

ocean

Sky or Land?

sky