Teachers
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Margaret Stockalper - E-RYT 500 - owner, instructor. Margaret is a San Diego native and has been practicing yoga intensively for over ten years. She has undergraduate and graduate degrees in biochemistry and medicine, which led to her interest in teaching hot yoga as a therepeutic and preventative form of exercise. She believes that yoga, and hot yoga specifically, is the ultimate form of exercise with the potential to cure or subdue chronic illnesses and injuries as well as balance out ailments that may have been present in the body for a long long time. Margaret has studied Bikram's, Vinyasa flow, and Ashtanga yoga styles.Margaret has been teaching hot yoga for 7 years. Her classes emphasize stillness of the body while holding postures and correct alignment of the spine and joints. She is passionate about sharing yoga with her community. Her humurous and nurturing attitude allows students to feel both focused and relaxed while practicing. |
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Carla Stockalper - E-RYT 500 - director, instructor. Carla discovered hot yoga while recovering from a series of knee surgeries she underwent from playing basketball. She had practiced Hatha and Ashtanga yoga for a year when a physical therapist suggested trying Bikram's yoga. The hot yoga helped her make a full recovery and maintain healthy joints. Since her first Bikram class, Carla was hooked on hot yoga. She completed her training in LA with Bikram Choudry and taught Bikram yoga in San Diego for 4 years. Since 2006 she has been teaching hot vinyasa flow classes at Yoga Tropics. Carla's classes emphasize meditation through stillness and rhythm. Carla leads the Tropics 2 class regularly and enjoys challenging her students with new postures and variations. Carla recently finished her undergrad at UCSD in visual arts media. She enjoys exploring new movements regularly and practices vinyasa, Ashtanga, Bikram and Power yoga |
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Tracey Stockalper - manager, instructor. Tracey is Margaret's youngest daughter. She started her yoga practice at the early age of 14 while she was in high school. She has maintained a regular practice ever since and began teaching at Yoga Tropics upon its opening in Dec. 2006. She has a strong practice in Bikram's, Ashtanga, vinyasa flow and other Hatha yoga which she's cultivated over the past few years in San Diego county. Tracey is an intuitive instructor and shares her enthusiasm in every class. Tracey is studying nursing at San Diego State University and hopes to share yoga with her patients once she is graduated.Tracey is passionate about introducing people to yoga for the first time. As a teacher she is both calming and encouraging. |
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Monique Cornfield - Instructor. Monique has been a dedicated yogini for many years. Her practice and technical knowledge of the postures is impressive to see and very helpful when learning. When she is not practicing yoga, Monique teaches elementary school. She has studied Bikram's and Bikram's advanced series for several years here in Encinitas, La Jolla, and San Diego. Monique began teaching yoga at Yoga Tropics in January 2007.Her classes emphasize meditation through concentration, and correct form. She is an excellent instructor, both challenging and informative. Her classes are lively and upbeat. Monique often teaches our Tropics 2 classes on Thursdays and Kid's classes on Saturdays. |
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Tamara Strom - Instructor. Tamara began teaching yoga at Yoga Tropics in 2007. She has an excellent practice that she has been cultivating regularly over the years. She studied Bikram yoga in north county before coming to Yoga Tropics.Tamara's classes are energizing and challenging. She is an intuitive instructor and able to focus the class' energy when holding postures. |
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Daniella DeVarney - yogi-dancer, Daniella began her yoga journey and study in 1995 while dancing on a student scholarship with Alvin Ailey in New York city. Shorttly after returning home to Los Angeles, she studied Ashtanga and dance with Shiva Rea at UCLA and graduated with a degree in World Arts and Cultures with an emphasis in West African dance.Daniella recieved her yoga certification from Maha Yoga in Los Angeles with Max Strom and Steve Ross. For the last ten years, she has studied and taught various traditions of yoga including Hatha, Ashtanga, Iyengar, and Anusara blending her yoga and dance experience into a vinyasa flow class with emphasis on breath, alignment, and fun! In 2002, Daniella was twice featured in the national newspaper USA Today exploring yoga therapy with professional athletes called, "Reconstructing an All-Star". Daniella has had the privilege of teaching professional dancers from Cirque du Soliel, Celine Dion's "A Brand New Day", Los Angeles Dodgers, Philidelphia Phillies, New York Mets, and celebrities including Julia Roberts. While continuing her study in yoga, she also taught dance classes in modern, lyrical, jazz, and West African in Los Angeles. Daniella recently moved here to San Diego for LOVE! She is excited about starting a new journey combining her artistic expression with yoga liberating one's creative life forces through breath, movement, and music! |
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Elia Nikolaev - Instructor. Born in the white plains of Russia, Elia now lives and plays in Encinitas. Elia joins our teaching squad after training in Synergy yoga at the Yoga Room. Elia shares his love of yoga at Yoga Tropics with his reassuring voice, hands on corrections, and positive energy. When he's not teaching, Elia enoys surfing as well. |
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Jeanette Ninyo - nstructor. Jeanette began studying yoga at the age of seventeen. She has had the opportunity to study Hatha, Warrior, Ashtanga, Synergy, and Bikram yoga in various settings including northern and southern California, Turkey, and Thailand.She became a dedicated practitioner of yoga in Santa Cruz, California where she underwent a teachers training process and received her yoga certification in Warrior Yoga studying under the instruction of the founder instructor, Sensei Jeremy Corbell and top student Sensei Kevin Snorf.When she is not practicing yoga, Jeanette works as an environmental geologist in San Diego. Her interests include dancing, dinner parties, rock climbing, backpacking, hoop dance, and sharing boundless laughter with the world!Jeanette's classes offer a dynamic flow series that focuses on cultivating presence, consciousness of breath, and joy. |
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Kenna Crouch - Instructor - began dancing at a young age in Northern California. Upon moving to San Diego in 2004 to attend UCSD, she began to expand her movement repertoire with techniques and philosophies related to contemporary dance and yoga. Since returning from studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina (where she fell in love with Vinyasa) in 2007, Kenna has maintained a steady yet evolving practice at Yoga Tropics. This past June, she made her debut as a choreographer in the dance show Highly Sprung at UCSD; her piece effectively fused elements of yoga with contemporary and Latin dance (and she greatly thanks the Yoga Tropics family for providing her with ample rehearsal space!). This December, she will graduate as a double major in Dance & Sociology. Her next project is in the works and involves a class that blends yoga and dance, moving the body beyond the confines of the mat and into an open, rhythmical dimension. In each of her classes, she encourages an accepting and spiritual atmosphere, in which the purifying linkage of breath with movement guides all into a relaxed state of meditation. |
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Traci Linder -Instructor. Traci began her yoga practice with heated vinyasa flow yoga, and has been addicted to it ever since. She's also developed and broadened her practice through both Bikram's and Ashtanga yoga. In 2007 Traci lived in Costa Rica for three months, where she maintained her own practice by doing yoga in the beautiful rainforest right outside her home. Traci is an avid nature lover and strongly believes in taking your practice outside of the studio and into the forest, desert, beach...wherever opens your heart and quiets your mind the most. After returning to California she fell in love with the studio and family owners at Yoga Tropics, and has been teaching there since Februrary 2008.Traci is currently in graduate school at UCSD, working towards her Masters in Biology with an emphasis in Ecology and Conservation. |
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Megan Beard - Instructor. Megan began teaching at Yoga Tropics after completing the teacher training in 2008. She has been a personal trainer for several years and enjoys sharing yoga with her clients. Megan has been developing a hip hop yoga fusion class over the past few months and leads a Yoga Hop class on Friday evenings at 5:45. |
