Trista Thorp - Movement, Massage, Meditation - 619.672.8358

Yoga with Trista Thorp

Trista began her own yoga practice in 1999 and, after experiencing the myriad benefits, she felt guided to pursue spiritual teaching and healing. Trista trained under many of today's popular yogis, completing her first teacher training in July 1999.  Since then she has also become a Chopra Center certified Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga Instructor.

Whether you are looking for a spiritual approach to your practice on the mat, a strong flow class or emphasis on some restorative, deep stretch, Trista's diverse range of experience and training serves to create the perfect class for each student.  Trista offers private lessons and group classes throughout San Diego North County.

Trista Thorp was the former owner of Yoga Sanctuary, a locally-adored yoga studio in the heart of Venice Beach, California. Her intimate boutique-style studio was lovingly deemed “the west side’s best-kept secret” by Los Angeles Magazine and was the winner of Los Angeles Magazine’s “BEST OF LA” Award in 2002.

Teaching style

Trista’s teaching style combines gentle encouragement with an energizing pace that leaves the practitioner with a feeling of enlivened relaxation. In her class, you will learn to connect the movement of the body and the fluctuations of the mind to the rhythm of our breath. Through this process of inward attention, we learn to recognize our habitual thought patterns without labeling them, judging them, or trying to change them. We learn to cultivate an awareness of ourselves as body, mind and spirit.

What, exactly, does yoga do for you?

Yoga postures are not only a series of physical poses, they are also exercises in mental awareness. The yogi is deliberate in every movement, feeling and breathing into every muscle. Only through conscious awareness of one’s own body can tensions be felt and, once felt, they can be eliminated by a systematic yoga program. More is involved in asanas than just the promotion of physical health. Through yoga postures one can improve one’s mental outlook, achieve a more harmonious emotional life, and develop expanded awareness and consciousness. Yoga postures not only improve physical health and give stability to the emotional system, but they also create positive mental attitudes.

Asanas (yoga postures) promote the free flow of energy throughout the nervous system and assist in the elimination of toxins and poisons from the joints and other body parts, where these foreign elements tend otherwise to settle – sometimes permanently. These asanas exert beneficial pressure on various glands and internal organs, flushing and stimulating them. Even a small amount of practice can produce amazing improvements in one’s general health. For these reasons, yoga is growing in popularity in the west, and growing very rapidly. Asanas have made their way to becoming a fad.

The asanas emphasize relaxation as well as making one aware of tension. A yoga pose is not “done” because the physical position has been assumed. It is the breathing and the holding of that pose that develops the physical strength and calms the system. One acts always from a center of poise and calmness of mental and physical relaxation. One must never strain or force into any pose.

Additionally, bodily postures are associated with certain mental attitudes. When one is discouraged, the body tends to stoop forward. When feeling stubborn, a person may jut his chin forward. Suppression of natural feelings can be indicated by holding in the upper part of the chest. Even the pattern of breathing is affected by one’s mental attitudes. Just as mental attitudes affect the body, so also can bodily postures affect the mind. Tense stomach muscles can induce mental anxiety, and a bent spine and slumped shoulders can induce moodiness. Yogis make use of these relationships, and by inducing physical relaxation create serenity in a worried mind. Working on oneself physically to influence the mind is a simple undertaking. For example, change the breathing pattern and one’s mental state wil change as well.

Contact Trista Thorp to book your yoga class or private lesson today.
*Bridal and Birthday parties are also a fun way to practice with your friends!