Professional Background
Kim received her teaching certification through Yoga Union in New York City. Among Kim’s many teachers to whom she credits the extent of her knowledge and to whom she is grateful beyond words are: Nevine Michaan (founder of Katonah Yoga), Alison West (founder of Yoga Union Yoga), Schuyler Grant (director of Kula Yoga Project), Amy Matthews (Embodied Asana), Robyn Ceballos and Richmond Dickson (her very first vinyasa teachers). Other teachers who Kim has had the chance to study with and have inspired her practice and teaching are: Shiva Rea, Sri Dharma Mittra, Twee Merrigan, Genny Kapuler, Lois Nesbitt, Elena Brower (anusara), Deborah Wolk, Rodney Yee, Kevin Gardiner, Annie Carpenter, Simon Park, Jenny Sauer-Klien and Jason Nemer (founders of Acroyoga), Hari Kaur (kundalini), Glenn Black, David Life, Nikki Vilella, Oceana Baity, Jillian Tureki, Stephanie Sandleben, David Regelin (any teacher from Kula Yoga Project, NYC really!), Phillip Askew and several others.
Kim currently teaches in New York City, traveling and teaching workshops wherever the opportunity presents itself. She teaches a playful class with a strong emphasis on alignment and feeling the body. She encourages her students to use the practice to build body awareness and connect to the breath. In private sessions, she uses her personal experience and knowledge of the body to work therapeutically with students to guide them towards a self-healing practice, as it has been for her. To her, the deep, inner experience of the body, mind and breath as an opportunity to connect to ‘reality’ is the essence of the practice. For more information on Kim’s teaching style, please go to the ‘Services and Testimonials’ page.
Personal Background
Kim-Lien Kendall was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her mother, born in Vietnam, came to the United States to flee from the war where she met Kim’s father, a Religion graduate who working as an artist at the time. In a clever attempt to quiet an otherwise rambunctious young child, Kim’s father would often challenge her with Buddhist koans and Yoga postures. Kim’s childhood found her and her family traversing the United States, living in a renovated school bus, eventually landing in Florida. Observing the hardships of her parents, she decided to dedicate herself towards helping others and at a very young age eagerly began to study health practices. Thus began Kim’s lifelong endeavor.
With a strong interest in the spiritual as well as the scientific disciplines, Kim spent her college years as a pre-med student, double-majoring in Biochemistry and Religion at Florida State University. In her spare time, she studied martial arts and Tibetan Buddhist meditation before she discovered and was immediately enamored with the flowing practice of Vinyasa style yoga. It was this linking of familiar postures from her youth into a moving meditation with the breath that stole her heart and never gave it back. As her practiced continued, she began to realize the profound healing potential that accompanied yoga, something that she had been searching for through academia.
After college, Kim worked as a Biochemist, practicing yoga daily. Realizing that medical school was not the path for her, she did the only thing she knew to do in a time of confusion… travel! This eventually brought her to Costa Rica on a yoga retreat led by Shiva Rea. This trip so inspired her, that it was not long until she moved to New York City to study under the multitude of talented teachers the city has to offer. She feels blessed and honored to have the opportunity to study with such amazing teachers and to have the ability to give to others what her teachers have given to her.
Kim can be reached at kim@kimlienyoga.com Thank you for reading, Namaste!
