Taryn

Taryn Toomey is a mother and the founder of The Class, a global somatic exercise method created in 2011 to regulate the nervous system and release stuck energy through movement. What began as a personal inquiry—how do we alchemize life experiences through the body?—has evolved into a practice used around the world.

Born in New Jersey and often on the move, Taryn was raised primarily by a mother who practiced Buddhism, chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo each morning and evening. Home life was marked by emotional chaos and constant transition, shaping her early sensitivity to energy and emotion. Movement became her anchor. Music and physical exertion were tools for clarity and release.

At 18, she began teaching step aerobics in Florida—her first experience guiding others through rhythmic movement. In her early 20s, she took a seasonal retail job at Ralph Lauren, eventually moving to New York City to join the company’s corporate offices. During that time, she spent her days off traveling to Peru, sitting in ceremony with Grandmother medicine, and beginning her work in psychotherapy. These parallel paths stirred a deeper shift within her.

Taryn is a kinesthetic learner—someone who understands through sensation, experience, and the quiet language of the body. Aesthetic expression, branding, and design would later become integral to her work, though their importance was first felt, not named.

After the birth of her first daughter and the passing of her friend Mama Kia, something opened. A longing emerged to understand how the body could hold so much duality—spirit, grief, joy, and transformation. And slowly, The Class began to incubate.

As she raised her two daughters, her inquiry deepened. Alongside building The Class, she immersed herself in practices that bridged mind and body—teaching yoga, exploring psychodynamic therapies, EMDR, somatic and vibrational healing, science, and prayer. This personal exploration led to a layered understanding of the body’s systems—nervous, muscular, emotional, and energetic—and how they interweave through both trauma and healing.

For two years, she taught what would become The Class without a name—just a speaker, a room, and people willing to feel. Today, The Class streams globally, but its foundation remains unchanged: presence, honesty, and transformation through movement.

Her work is grounded in a reverence for duality—the truth that grief and love, strength and softness, shadow and light all belong. Through this lens, movement becomes a ritual of return: a way to process what we carry, release what no longer serves, and remember who we are.

A mother, artist, and longtime student of energy, astrology, and space, Taryn continues to guide from within. She leads not by instructing, but by being. Her devotion is to honoring the heart—and the space in between extremes: the earthly and the celestial, the fierce and the tender, the sacred and the seen.

Here’s to the parts still becoming.