Sparkle Thornton Yoga

I love Sparkle. At the end of every class I want to jump up and hug her. She’s the real thing, she knows her yoga body, mind and soul and you can feel it through and through. Before having children several years ago, I was a yoga teacher. Returning to my practice, I needed something fresh and somewhere to go. I am so deeply grateful to have Sparkle’s class to look forward to and always leave feeling better than when I came. She’s totally down to earth, offers intelligent, creative, integrated sequences, simple profound secular bits of inspiration and great music always excellently timed. Her yoga instruction is heartfelt and rooted in her own deep practice, and she plays guitar and sings beautifully. She really, really is as good as it gets. I’m so grateful to get to take her class at Worlds Yoga in Union City.

Sparkle’s yoga classes have the most creative strength-​building and relaxing sequences I’ve ever experienced in my years of Bay Area yoga classes. She pays so much attention to each of her students and gives very supportive adjustments. Unlike most yoga teachers, she creates a safe supportive environment and always asks before touching students. She attracts such a beautiful diversity of queer students and I feel very safe and seen as a transgender and genderqueer person which is so rare in a yoga class. Her creativity is amazing– she even plays guitar during savasana which made me tear up with sweetness.
I recently decide to try out her massage and was amazed at her sensitivity and depth. Her hands just found all of the spots that needed attention especially in my shoulders and neck. Her deep tissue and thai massage combo is perfect for deep release, relaxation and left me feeling amazing. Thank you Sparkle! So glad you’re out there!

Sparkle’s yoga classes are like a breath of fresh air… well actually more like hot sweaty air. But really, if most yoga teachers are giving it 100%, Sparkle gives 150%! She creates sequences that have a beautiful, symmetrical flow where I am always wondering how she will possibly remember every move and get us back to where we started, but we always make it there with her expert guidance.
I think she draws from anusara, which is great because that teaches a lot about alignment and keeps the poses safe for all bodies, not just bendy yoga types. But her classes move quickly through vinyasas and you will work up a sweat!
My favorite part is the hands on adjustments she gives (*she is also a massage therapist*) — her touch feels confident and reassuring, and really helps me sink deeper into the pose without pushing or forcing.
One more thing– I have enjoyed the diversity of Sparkle’s classes and am so grateful to have a yoga class that is affirming of all genders, sexualities, races, body types, and more. It’s refreshing to break the mold of what a stereotypical yoga class looks like, and she creates a space where that can happen.

I began getting weekly, one hour yoga instructional sessions with Sparkle Thornton several months ago, and, to put it mildly, I couldn’t be more pleased and grateful for having been introduced to this marvelous and masterful teacher. (Sparkle also is an extremely skilled massage therapist, and about once a month I also receive the wonderful benefits of Sparkle’s expertise in this area.) I am 63, suffer from often severe chronic pain along with a host of other ailments, and so needed to receive quite specialized help from someone knowledgable and sensitive enough to design a program of regular yoga practice that I could handle as a starting point. This required the kind of patience and tolerance that a younger person often may try hard to summon up but still fail to do. Not so Sparkle. Thanks to sheer patience, a wide knowledge of yoga and an ability to improvise without sacrificing the fundamental principles of the art (and science) and to deep wells of humanity and sympathy, I am, so to speak, on my way and slowly but surely beginning to make progress against years of nearly constant pain and postural distortions. Sparkle Thornton is a magnificent yogi, teacher, counselor, massage therapist and human being, and I regard myself as incredibly lucky to have had Sparkle recommended to me by friends. That recommendation I am now more than happy to pass along to all who may read this.
Neil Larsen
Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory
University of California, Davis
East Bay resident